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U.S. Forest Service · Sierra National Forest · CA

Portal Forebay Campground

2Heads up2 fires, nearest 18 mi
Wildfire
Wildfire Training fire · 18 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 15, 2026
Wildfire
Land fire · 45 mi away · 20 acres · updated Oct 11, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 15, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
Closed for the seasonOut of the season the agency publishes
Season
June 1 – September 30Open June 1 through September 30
Drawn from the record · 7,170 ft · 24% tree cover · Portal Forebay within reach · Bortle 3 sky
7,170 ftElevation
235 ftWater · Portal Forebay, a lake
18.6 miSW of Mammoth Lakes, CA
24%Tree cover
Bortle 3Night sky · 390th darkest of 1,201 in CA
Open June 1 through September 30Today

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Located along Kaiser Pass Road at Portal Forebay Lake. Sites are shaded by pine and cedar trees and each campsite has a picnic table, grill and bear-proof food storage locker. Vault toilets are provided. Drinking water is not available . Paved and dirt roads provided access to the campground. Large RV's or motorhomes not recommended for travel on Kaiser Pass Road.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
Vault Toilets
“…and bear-proof food storage locker. Vault toilets are provided. Drinking water is not available .…”
Drinking water
None, bring your own
“…locker. Vault toilets are provided. Drinking water is not available . Paved and dirt roads provided access to the…”
Bear boxes
Yes
Source: Stated in the agency description
Water, toilets and showers: read from the agency description, shown above · Sep 12, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Lake
Fall color · reported 12 days ago, 33 km away
Peak color
Source: Stated in the agency description
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (33 km) · Oct 4, 2026

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.

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.

BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe record
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.
Single site $32.00, Holidays/$2.00 additional/night Double $61.00, Holidays/$4.00 additional/night.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What this campground addsits own record
Extra vehicle$10

“$10.00 fee for each additional vehicle.” · 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
Coordinate37.32021, -119.06714

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 Afternoon71°Sunny
Tonight42°Clear
Saturday68°Sunny
Saturday Night41°Clear

NWS forecast for Big Creek, CA

Source: National Weather Service, HNX forecast office · Oct 16, 2026

Typical weather

Typical June night 43°F, day 66°F.

Coldest night of the open season: typical June night 43°F. Bring the bag rated for it.

80°32°10°

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 Augusts are colder than the August line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.

Measured at: HUNTINGTON LAKE, CA (USC00044176), 11 miles away and 150 ft lower
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

who answers for it

Who answers for this land

Tom McClintock, official portrait

Portal Forebay Campground 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 →

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: 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
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: 0.093 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
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (33 km) · Oct 4, 2026
Reported by: iNaturalist fall color observations, reported peak color · Oct 4, 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.
Nearest place of any size: Big Creek, CA, 12.2 mi NE (a census designated place). Straight line.
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