Quaking Aspen Cabin
2Heads up2 fires, nearest 30 mi
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Closed for the seasonOut of the season the agency publishes
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
- Season
- May 15 – October 15Open May 15 through October 15
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 7 notices
In the agency’s own words
Quaking Aspen Cabin is situated in the Sequoia National Forest, about an hour from Springville, California. The cabin was originally built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps and was used by the Forest Service to house fire patrol, recreation workers and other personnel. Located just inside Quaking Aspen Campground, the cabin is available to rent from mid-May through mid-October. Keep reading
Recreation
Nearby activities include horseback riding, mountain biking, hiking, rock climbing, hunting and fishing. Visitors enjoy exploring surrounding sequoia groves. Bear Creek Grove has a trail that winds through the Belknap Complex along Bear Creek and the Tule River. The nearby Freeman Creek Grove is a 1,425-acres unlogged grove featuring several large sequoias, including the President George Bush Tree. There is fishing in area streams and the Tule River. The Summit Trailhead, about 10 miles north of the campground, offers access to excellent hiking. The Trail of 100 Giants is 10 miles away. Possible day trips include Dome Rock and the Needles rock formation. There is also an amphitheater near the cabin where interpretive programs hosted by the Forest Service are held periodically during the summer.
Facilities
The one-bedroom, one-story cabin has electricity, hot and cold running water and a furnace for cool days and nights. The bedroom contains a queen-size bed and a bunk bed. The living room has a futon that sleeps two, as well as a couch and a dining table with six chairs. The fully-equipped kitchen includes a stove, refrigerator, microwave, toaster, coffee maker, pots and pans, dishes and utensils and a small table. The cabin also has a bathroom with a flush toilet and a tub-shower. A picnic table and campfire ring are available outside. Guests should plan to bring linens, pillows, blankets, towels, toiletries, food and trash bags. Suggested additional items include toilet paper, paper towels, camp chairs, insect repellent and dish towels.
Natural Features
The cabin is located in the Giant Sequoia National Monument, just a few miles from several groves of Giant Sequoias. Other nearby points of interest include the Needles Lookout, Dome Rock and Trail of 100 Giants. Because the cabin is located at a 7,000 foot elevation, visitors need to be prepared for a wide variety of weather, including warm afternoons, chilly nights and afternoon thunderstorms. It is also not unusual to have an early fall dusting of snow before the cabin closes for the season. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (661) 455-6010.
What the agency tells you
This is bear country; please take precautions and do not leave unattended food, garbage or other attractants. Use bear resistant food storage lockers or bear resistant trash cans where available. Visit www.sierrawild.gov/bears/food-storage/ for more information about food storage in bear country.
Guests need to be prepared for a wide variety of weather, from hot to cold
Guest must clean the cabin before their departure
Everything else this campground posts · 4
Guests should contact the Ranger District before arrival to confirm that there are no conditions, such as fire or weather, that might affect their visit
Learn more about the high altitude illness
Learn more about the the Sequoia National Forest and Sequoia National Monument
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
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- 1 electric
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Not allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…The cabin also has a bathroom with a flush toilet and a tub-shower. A picnic table and campfire ring…”
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- Shower/Bath Type states a shower on all 1 of this campground's campsite records
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, Creek
- Biking
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Hunting
- Wildlife viewing
Full this Saturdayread 16:29 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
1 campground has sites open within 30 miles, read 16:23 UTC. See them
OpenBookedNot on the booking system
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 16:29 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
Open within 30 miles this weekend · 1
Sites the agency is offering this Friday and Saturday that nobody has taken, nearest first. read 16:23 UTC
- TuleSuccess Lake · 20 mi · 110 of 184 site-nights open
recreation.gov availability, read 16:29 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 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. 1 of the 1 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 QUAKING ASPEN CABIN | 001 | cabin electric | 393 ft | $203 |
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.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Quaking AspenGiant Sequoia National Monument · 0.0 miUpper Peppermint Dispersed AreaGiant Sequoia National Monument · 2.8 mi
BelknapGiant Sequoia National Monument · 3.4 mi
Coy FlatGiant Sequoia National Monument · 4.2 mi
WishonGiant Sequoia National Monument · 8.2 mi
Wishon CabinGiant Sequoia National Monument · 8.3 miFrom Porterville, California, take Highway 190 east. Continue through Springville for approximately 28 miles to the Quaking Aspen Campground.
From Bakersfield, California, take Highway 65 North to Highway 190 east. Continue for approximately 28 miles to the campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Ponderosa, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 31°F, day 59°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical October 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 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
what threatens it · who answers for it · a letter you can send
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Quaking Aspen Cabin is in California’s 20th congressional district. Its representative, Vince Fong (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 moneyVince FongU.S. Representative · California’s 20th 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 Quaking Aspen Cabin, Giant Sequoia National Monument, California
Dear Vince Fong, I’m a constituent in California’s 20th district. I tried to camp at Quaking Aspen Cabin, Giant Sequoia National Monument, California, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Quaking Aspen Cabin are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Quaking Aspen Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Quaking Aspen Cabin. 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 Quaking Aspen Cabin (Giant Sequoia National Monument, 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 Quaking Aspen Cabin, Giant Sequoia National Monument, California
Dear Adam B. Schiff, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Quaking Aspen Cabin, Giant Sequoia National Monument, California, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Quaking Aspen Cabin are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Quaking Aspen Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Quaking Aspen Cabin. 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 Quaking Aspen Cabin (Giant Sequoia National Monument, 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 Quaking Aspen Cabin, Giant Sequoia National Monument, California
Dear Alex Padilla, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Quaking Aspen Cabin, Giant Sequoia National Monument, California, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Quaking Aspen Cabin are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Quaking Aspen Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Quaking Aspen Cabin. 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 Quaking Aspen Cabin (Giant Sequoia National Monument, California) via campanac.com