Pipi Campground
1Heads up1 fire 47 mi away
- Right now
- OpenListed open; its database flags it not open
- A night
- $36–$108Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 7350 on recreation.gov
- Season
- May 1 – October 31Open May 1 through October 31
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 11 notices
In the agency’s own words
Pipi Campground (pronounced "pie pie") offers RV and tent camping along the Middle Fork of the Cosumnes River, offering great fishing and swimming opportunities. The Cosumnes River flows from the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada and runs for about 52 miles through California's Central Valley and into the Mokelumne River. Historically, the native Miwok people of northern California used to camp in this region in summertime. Keep reading
Recreation
Rainbow trout are regularly stocked in the river and wheelchair accessible fishing is provided from the paved river walkway. The walkway meanders along the river for just under a mile.
Facilities
A spacious picnic area is located along the river. The campground provides drinking water and vault toilets. Most parking aprons are paved, but some are gravel. Single sites fit a maximum of two vehicle and six people. Interpretive programs take place in peak season.
Natural Features
At an elevation of 4,100 feet, PiPi boasts three camp loops with a dense mixture of conifers like cedar and fir. The area is part of the Eldorado National Forest located in the central Sierra Nevada. A Mediterranean climate extends over most of the forest with warm, dry summers and cold, wet winters.
Charges & Cancellations
Recreation Fee: Recreation fees are the fees a visitor pays for things like overnight camping, a day-use pavilion, group facilities, a tour or a permit. Recreation fees vary by location and/or activity. Reservation Fee: A fee may be charged at the time a reservation is made to cover the cost of reservation services. This fee is in addition to the Recreation Fee and is non-refundable. Fees for camping, day use, group sites, cabins and lookouts: $8 if made on-line; $9 if made through the call center; $3 if made in-person. Change Fee: A service fee may be charged at the time a modification is made depending on the changes. Cancellation Fee: A $10 service fee will be withheld from any refunds for a cancelled reservation. Cut-Off Window: The latest date and/or time that you can make an advanced reservation or a change to an existing reservation. Cut-off windows can vary by location, but are typically 4 days before your arrival date. A customer who cancels a reservation the day before or on the day of arrival will pay a $10.00 service fee AND forfeit the first night's use fee (see Late Cancellation below). Late Cancellation: If you cancel your reservation too close to the start date, additional service fees may be withheld.
What the agency tells you
Bears frequent the area. Keep all foods, soaps, and garbage properly stored.
Keep family pets on a leash at all times.
Please make sure fire is out before leaving; use only water to put fire out
Everything else this campground posts · 8
Forest Order No. 19-15-01: Prohibits camping for a combined total of no more than 14 days during a calendar year (January-December), forest-wide. Visitors may book campsites annually but the maximum stay may not exceed a total of 14 days each calendar year (January-December)
Please Note: One (1) vehicle per single site. Most sites can accommodate 1 extra vehicle that is not included with the reservation fee. Extra vehicle will be charged a per night fee.
Fire Restrictions: Fire restrictions may be imposed at any time due to hot, dry weather conditions, at which time campfires and charcoal fires may not be allowed. Call (530) 644-6048 for local information and conditions.
Reserved Sites will be held until check out time (NOON) the day following your arrival date. Sites must be occupied by the checkout time of that following day to hold a reservation or the site will be forfeited and released to other guests. Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
Refunds: Refund requests made through www.recreation.gov will be charged a $10 processing fee. This fee is retained by the reservation service contractor along with the non-refundable reservation fee. All requests for the return of the non-refundable reservation fee and the cancellation fee will be declined by the campground concessionaire as they did not receive these fees (these are the fees retained by the reservation contractor, a different entity).
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.
For more information on Eldorado National Forest, click here
There is a fee for moving from a reserved site to a first come first serve site. Site Transfer Policy
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 73 · 16 tent-only, 1 walk-in
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 35 ft
- Accessible sites
- 1
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…campground provides drinking water and vault toilets. Most parking aprons are paved, but some are…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…along the river. The campground provides drinking water and vault toilets. Most parking aprons are paved,…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- River
- Fishing
- Swimming
- Night sky · 822nd darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 4
- Fall color · reported 11 days ago, 20 km away
- Minimal color
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 15:53 UTC
recreation.gov lists 50 of the 73 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
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 · 15
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $36–$108 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
“Fees for camping, day use, group sites, cabins and lookouts: $8 if made on-line $9 if made through the call center” · this campground’s own terms
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 · 6
recreation.gov availability, read 15:53 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
73 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 32 mapped sitesAll 73 sites
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 72 of the 73 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 002 | type not stated | 205 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $33.97 | |||
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 004 | walk to | 98 ft | 202 ft | |||
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 005 | type not stated | 229 ft | $33.97 | |||
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 008 | type not stated | 101 ft | $33.97 | |||
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 009 | type not stated | 109 ft | $33.97 | |||
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 01 | type not stated | 35 ft | $33.97 | |||
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 010 | type not stated | 154 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $33.97 | |||
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 011 | type not stated | 176 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $33.97 | |||
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 012 | type not stated | 315 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $33.97 | |||
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 0122 | type not stated | $33.97 | ||||
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 018 | type not stated | 218 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $33.97 | |||
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 019 | type not stated | 156 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $33.97 | |||
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 022 | type not stated | 326 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $33.97 | |||
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 023 | type not stated | 437 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $33.97 | |||
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 029 | type not stated | 369 ft | $33.97 | |||
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 033 | type not stated | under 10 ft | $33.97 | |||
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 037 | type not stated | 324 ftPi-Pi Creek | $33.97 | |||
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 040 | type not stated | 281 ftPi-Pi Creek | $33.97 | |||
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 042 | type not stated | 121 ftPi-Pi Creek | $33.97 | |||
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 043 | type not stated | yes | 184 ftPi-Pi Creek | $33.97 | ||
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 044 | type not stated | 130 ftPi-Pi Creek | $33.97 | |||
| AREA PIPI CAMPGROUND | 045 | type not stated | 57 ftPi-Pi Creek | $33.97 | |||
| Host Site | 012 | type not stated | 25 ft | $33.97 | |||
| Host Site | 040 | type not stated | 25 ft | $33.97 | |||
| PIPI | 001 | tent only nonelectric | 128 ft | 193 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $36 | ||
| PIPI | 002 | tent only nonelectric | $36 | ||||
| PIPI | 003 | tent only nonelectric | 128 ft | 285 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $36 | ||
| PIPI | 004 | tent only nonelectric | $36 | ||||
| PIPI | 005 | tent only nonelectric | $36 | ||||
| PIPI | 006 | tent only nonelectric | 85 ft | 116 ft | $36 | ||
| PIPI | 007 | tent only nonelectric | 85 ft | 108 ft | $36 | ||
| PIPI | 008 | tent only nonelectric | $36 | ||||
| PIPI | 009 | tent only nonelectric | $36 | ||||
| PIPI | 010 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | $36–$108 | |||
| PIPI | 011 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | $36–$108 | |||
| PIPI | 013 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | $36–$108 | |||
| PIPI | 014 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 89 ft | 272 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $36–$108 | |
| PIPI | 015 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 89 ft | 283 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $36–$108 | |
| PIPI | 016 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 93 ft | 180 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $36–$108 | |
| PIPI | 017 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 101 ft | 131 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $36–$108 | |
| PIPI | 018 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | $36–$108 | |||
| PIPI | 019 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | $36–$108 | |||
| PIPI | 020 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 86 ft | 241 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $36–$108 | |
| PIPI | 021 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 86 ft | 201 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $36–$108 | |
| PIPI | 022 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | $36–$108 | |||
| PIPI | 023 | tent only nonelectric | $36 | ||||
| PIPI | 024 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 166 ft | 416 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $36–$108 | |
| PIPI | 025 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 166 ft | 577 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $36–$108 | |
| PIPI | 026 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 117 ft | 585 ft | $36–$108 | |
| PIPI | 027 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 120 ft | 468 ft | $36–$108 | |
| PIPI | 028 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 117 ft | 468 ft | $36–$108 | |
| PIPI | 029 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | $36–$108 | |||
| PIPI | 030 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 238 ft | 99 ft | $36–$108 | |
| PIPI | 031 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 68 ft | 68 ft | $36–$108 | |
| PIPI | 032 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 68 ft | 16 ft | $36–$108 | |
| PIPI | 033 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | $36–$108 | |||
| PIPI | 034 | tent only nonelectric | 18 ft | 66 ft | 204 ft | $36 | |
| PIPI | 035 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 66 ft | 270 ft | $36–$108 | |
| PIPI | 036 | tent only nonelectric | 125 ft | 114 ft | $36 | ||
| PIPI | 037 | tent only nonelectric | $36 | ||||
| PIPI | 038 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 99 ft | 234 ft | $36–$108 | |
| PIPI | 039 | tent only nonelectric | 195 ft | 220 ftPi-Pi Creek | $36 | ||
| PIPI | 041 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 130 ft | 74 ftPi-Pi Creek | $36–$108 | |
| PIPI | 042 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 130 ft | 121 ftPi-Pi Creek | $36–$108 | |
| PIPI | 043 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | $36–$108 | |||
| PIPI | 044 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 100 ft | 130 ftPi-Pi Creek | $36–$108 | |
| PIPI | 045 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 100 ft | 80 ftPi-Pi Creek | $36–$108 | |
| PIPI | 046 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | $36–$108 | |||
| PIPI | 047 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | $36–$108 | |||
| PIPI | 048 | tent only nonelectric | 93 ft | 168 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $36 | ||
| PIPI | 049 | tent only nonelectric | 93 ft | 198 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $36 | ||
| PIPI | 050 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 78 ft | 130 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $36–$108 | |
| PIPI | 051 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 78 ft | 208 ftMiddle Fork Cosumnes River | $36–$108 |
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
25 of 73 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
From Jackson, California, head east on Highway 88 for 26 miles to Omo Ranch Road. Turn north (left) on Omo Ranch Rd. and follow for 1 mile to North South Road. Turn right on North South Road and continue for about 6 miles into the campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Grizzly Flats, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 41°F, day 66°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical October night 41°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or moreOutside the published season
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
Pipi Campground is in California’s 3rd congressional district. Its representative, Kevin Kiley (I), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →