Pioneer Trail
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 3 of the next 3 nights read 14:41 UTC
- Sites
- 3All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 4 notices
In the agency’s own words
Pioneer Trail Group Campground offers groups of up to 100 people the opportunity to camp near the beautiful Pinecrest Lake. The campground is located within the Pinecrest Recreational Area just 2 miles from the lake, which beckons visitors with excellent fishing, boating, hiking and swimming opportunities. In this spectacular mountain region, wildlife viewing opportunities include marmots, squirrels, coyotes and deer. Keep reading
Recreation
The Pinecrest Lake National Recreation Trail takes hikers on an easy 4-mile stroll around Pinecrest Lake. Rainbow trout is a common catch in the lake and swimming is enjoyed in designated beach areas.
Facilities
Campsites 1 and 3 will accommodate up to 50 campers and Site 2 will accommodate up to 100 campers. Each site features a large campfire circle, picnic tables and vault toilets. No RV hookups or electricity are available. Pay showers are within a few miles. Winter camping is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Pets are welcome, but must be compliant with Tuolumne County leash laws.
Natural Features
Pioneer Trail sits at an elevation of 5,600 feet, in a wooded area near the southwest side of the 300-acre Pinecrest Lake in Stanislaus National Forest. Stanislaus National Forest is located in the central Sierra Nevada Mountains, between Lake Tahoe and Yosemite. It boasts gorgeous views of snow-capped mountain peaks and California's Great Central Valley.
Nearby Attractions
The nearby Sonora Pass is a scenic winding highway that has guided people across the Sierra Nevada since 1852.
What the agency tells you
Pets are allowed, but not in day-use area
Sites are available on a first-come, first-served basis outside the reservation season
For more information on Staunislaus National Forest, click here
Everything else this campground posts · 1
Don't Move Firewood: Protect California's forests from tree-killing pests by buying your firewood locally and burning it on-site. For more information visit firewood.ca.gov.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 3 · 3 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 40 ft
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 3 of 3 campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- WATER SPIGOT on 3 of 3 campsite records
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Beach
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Swimming
- Night sky · 527th darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 3
Full this Saturdayread 14:41 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
Every one of the 3 sites on offer is taken this Saturday, and on the one midweek night after it that the agency has released as well. read 14:41 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
What you actually pay
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 14:41 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
3 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 3 mapped sitesAll 3 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 3 of the 3 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 3 of the 3 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
PinecrestStanislaus National Forest · 0.6 mi
Meadowview CampgroundStanislaus National Forest · 0.9 miTeleLi puLaya (Black Oak) CampgroundStanislaus National Forest · 3.6 miFraser Flat CampgroundStanislaus National Forest · 4.7 miHerring Creek CampgroundStanislaus National Forest · 4.9 miBeardsley Dam CampgroundStanislaus National Forest · 5.1 miFrom Sonora, California, take Highway 108 east for about 30 miles. Exit at Pinecrest Lake and turn right on Dodge Ridge Road. Continue 1 mile to Pioneer Trails Campground, located on the left.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Strawberry, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 46°F, day 60°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical February night 31°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Augusts are colder than the August line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it · a letter you can send
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Pioneer Trail is in California’s 5th congressional district. Its representative, Tom McClintock (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyTom McClintockU.S. Representative · California’s 5th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationAdam B. SchiffU.S. Senator · California
- Your senator, on the same appropriationAlex PadillaU.S. Senator · California
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Pioneer Trail, Stanislaus National Forest, California
Dear Tom McClintock, I’m a constituent in California’s 5th district. I tried to camp at Pioneer Trail, Stanislaus National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 3 sites at Pioneer Trail are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 3 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Pioneer Trail keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Pioneer Trail. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Pioneer Trail (Stanislaus National Forest, California) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Pioneer Trail, Stanislaus National Forest, California
Dear Adam B. Schiff, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Pioneer Trail, Stanislaus National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 3 sites at Pioneer Trail are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 3 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Pioneer Trail keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Pioneer Trail. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Pioneer Trail (Stanislaus National Forest, California) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Pioneer Trail, Stanislaus National Forest, California
Dear Alex Padilla, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Pioneer Trail, Stanislaus National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 3 sites at Pioneer Trail are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 3 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Pioneer Trail keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Pioneer Trail. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Pioneer Trail (Stanislaus National Forest, California) via campanac.com