U.S. Forest Service · Eldorado National Forest · CA
Ponderosa Cove Group Campground
2Heads up2 fires, nearest 6 mi
Wildfire
Rock fire · 5.7 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 17, 2026
Wildfire
Old fire · 24 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 16, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 17, 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.
- Right now
- Closed for the seasonOut of the season the agency publishes
- Season
- June 1 – September 30Open June 1 through September 30
4,320 ftElevation
302 ftWater · Stumpy Meadows Reservoir
8.7 miN of Pollock Pines, CA
81%Tree cover
Bortle 4Night sky · 885th darkest of 1,201 in CA
Open June 1 through September 30Today
The place
the agency’s own description
In the agency’s own words
Group Camping Recreation Opportunity Guide (ROG) - This guide contains information, maps, and directions to assist you in enjoying your trip to the Eldorado National Forest.
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
Around the campground
- Fall color · reported 11 days ago, 29 km away
- Minimal color
Source: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (29 km) · Oct 6, 2026
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 17, 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
Every line of the receipt · 4
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.
Group of 75 people .$175
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 a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4
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
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
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
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
Today80°Sunny
Tonight50°Clear
Sunday76°Sunny
Sunday Night48°Clear
NWS forecast for Pollock Pines, CA
Source: National Weather Service, STO forecast office · Oct 17, 2026
Typical weather
Typical June night 47°F, day 82°F.
100°32°20°
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.
Measured at: PACIFIC HOUSE, CA (USC00046597), 12 miles away and 870 ft lower
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
Roadless
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Source: USFS Inventoried Roadless Areas via MTJP Roadless Map · Jul 29, 2026
Who answers for this land
Ponderosa Cove Group 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 →
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: The agency lists it out of season. The season it publishes is the bar below.
Season: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Tree cover: NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC), one 30 m cell at this coordinate · Sep 9, 2026
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (29 km) · Oct 6, 2026
Reported by: USA National Phenology Network (Nature's Notebook), reported minimal color · Oct 6, 2026
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.