U.S. Forest Service · Los Padres National Forest · CA
Rancho Nuevo Campground
4Heads up4 fires, nearest 19 mi
Wildfire
Pinos fire · 19 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 16, 2026
Wildfire
Cornell fire · 31 mi away · updated Oct 15, 2026
Wildfire
Frey fire · 38 mi away · updated Oct 15, 2026
Wildfire
Lac-371632 fire · 41 mi away · updated Oct 15, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 16, 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.
- Right now
- OpenListed open; its database flags it not open
- Season
- January 1 – December 31Open January 1 through December 31
3,500 ftElevation
126 ftWater · Rancho Nuevo CreekOcean · 21.5 mi · to the Pacific Ocean
13.1 miSW of Pine Mountain Club, CA
0%Tree cover
Bortle 4Night sky · 886th darkest of 1,201 in CA
Open January 1 through December 31Today
The place
the agency’s own description
In the agency’s own words
Rancho Nuevo Campground is a primitive campground with 2 sites on a grassy canyon bottom, 4-wheel drive access only. Road is subject to close in the winter.
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 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.
Every line of the receipt · 3
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.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
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: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026
rules read Sep 7, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Coordinate34.69520, -119.39800
The mapSee it on the map
The driveDirections ↗
The agency’s pageOfficial page ↗
Where it is
Also near here
Reyes Creek Campground5.2 mi
Pine Mountain CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 5.6 mi
Reyes Peak CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 6.1 miNettle Springs CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 9.6 mi
Ballinger CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 13 mi
Holiday Group CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 14 mi
Reyes Creek Campground5.2 miPine Mountain CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 5.6 miReyes Peak CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 6.1 miNettle Springs CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 9.6 miBallinger CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 13 miHoliday Group CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 14 miSource: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
Today80°Sunny1% rain
Tonight48°Mostly Clear1% rain
Saturday82°Sunny
Saturday Night45°Clear
NWS forecast for Pine Mountain Club, CA
Source: National Weather Service, LOX forecast office · Oct 16, 2026
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
What threatens this place
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
Rancho Nuevo Campground is in California’s 26th congressional district. Its representative, Julia Brownley (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A+. See every public-lands vote →
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: The agency lists it open right now. Its own recreation database, though, flags it not open with no reason or date; the flag is named under How we know all this.
Listed not open: USFS EDW Recreation Opportunities, openstatus field: a not-open flag in a database, with no reason and no date published; read there since Sep 9, 2026. A flag, not a notice, so this page doesn’t call it a closure. · Oct 16, 2026
Season: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 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
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.