CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
The map
U.S. Forest Service · Los Padres National Forest · CA

Ponderosa Campground

1Heads up1 fire 24 mi away
Wildfire
Timber fire · 24 mi away · 25,350 acres · 97% contained · updated Oct 10, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 10, 2026
The agency doesn’t say how you get a siteIts record carries no access type, so treat it as a place to phone before you drive.
Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
Drawn from the record · 1,540 ft · 43% tree cover · Bortle 3 sky
1,540 ftElevation
3.2 miWater · an unnamed pondOcean · 6.0 mi · to the Pacific Ocean
7.4 miW of Fort Hunter Liggett, CA
43%Tree cover
Bortle 3Night sky · 365th darkest of 1,201 in CA

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Ponderosa Campground has 21 campsites along a mountain stream under a canopy of Ponderosa Pine, Oak, Madrone & Sycamore trees approximately 13 miles east from Kirk Creek campground on the Nacimiento-Ferguson Road. The Nacimiento-Ferguson Road runs from the coast at Kirk Creek on Rt. 1 to the Big Sur high country. Recreational Vehicles no longer than 35 feet. 19 sites are reservable. 2 campsites are available first-come, first-serve. In campgrounds and picnic areas, dogs mst be kept on a leash. Dogs must wear a collar with current tags at all times, as state and county laws apply on National Forest System lands.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Creek, Coast
Source: Stated in the agency description

Phone before you drive

recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.

Booking window6 months outBooking opens 6 months ahead; today unlocks arrivals through April 16, 2027. The agency publishes no reservable season in the record we hold, so the window may close earlier than that.recreation.gov
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 5

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
The U.S. Forest Service publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
Site . 6-8 people per site. (one vehicle is included in the price of the campsite).$35
The booking feerecreation.gov
We hold no recreation.gov booking record for this campground, so we can’t say whether a booking fee applies.
What this campground addsits own record
Extra vehicle$10

“Extra vehicles are $10 per vehicle per night.” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record

What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 5
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
What this campground adds: The U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record and notices for this campground, quoted verbatim. An extra-vehicle charge is set locally and appears on no national schedule, so it’s never assumed. · Aug 24, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate
Coordinate35.99770, -121.38428

Where it is

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

This Afternoon93°Sunny
Tonight69°Clear
Saturday93°Sunny
Saturday Night65°Clear

NWS forecast for Fort Hunter Liggett, CA

Source: National Weather Service, MTR forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 56°F, day 74°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical February night 45°F. Bring the bag rated for it.

90°40°

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 Septembers are colder than the September line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.

Measured at: HEARST CASTLE, CA (USC00043882), 25 miles away and at about the same elevation
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

What threatens this place

developing
Los Padres National Forestlogging, drilling, rollback
Roadless
Chalk Peak7,472 acres · 2 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Bear Canyon14,328 acres · 8 mi · inventoried roadless area

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Sep 30, 2026

Who answers for this land

Jimmy Panetta, official portrait

Ponderosa Campground is in California’s 19th congressional district. Its representative, Jimmy Panetta (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A+. See every public-lands vote →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: U.S. Forest Service publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate.
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.089 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 1,201 rated federal campgrounds in California · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Cell signal: the Forest Service’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026