Reading Island Group Campground
- Right now
- Closedrecreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend, read 15:53 UTC
- Sites
- 1In the agency’s record
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 4 notices
In the agency’s own words
Reading Island Group Campground is located on the beautiful Sacramento River in Shasta County, California. The campground has one group site that can accommodate up to 20 campers, has one vault toilet, fire rings, and picnic tables. There is easy access to the Sacramento River with informal access areas along the shore and a concrete boat ramp where campers can enjoy swimming, paddling, and fishing during the non-summer months. The boat ramp is inaccessible during the summer months due to aquatic plants. The campground is nearby to many other recreational experiences in Tehama and Shasta Counties such as - trails, wildflowers, wildlife, multi-day floats, more. Keep reading
Recreation
Paddling, fishing, and hiking are popular activities along the Sacramento River. The campground has informal river access points, while the day-use area has a concrete boat launch ideal for kayaks, canoes, and rafts during the non-summer months. The boat ramp is inaccessible during the summer months due to aquatic plants. Multi-day floats on the Sacramento River are popular, using Reading Island as an overnight stop. The island has a short system of informal hiking trails to be explored on foot. Birding and other wildlife viewing activities are great here. The greater Sacramento River Bend Recreation Area offers more recreation opportunities including equestrian friendly trails, wildflower viewing, waterfowl hunting in wetlands, and an undeveloped shooting range - all within a 30 minute drive.
Facilities
The Reading Island Group Campground contains fire rings, picnic tables, and a vault toilet. The area is generally flat with room for 20 campers. There is ample vehicle and RV parking at the group area, but no hook-ups for water, electricity, or sewer. Adjacent to the area is a boat ramp into Anderson Creek Slough that flows into the Sacramento River. This ramp is ideal for canoes, kayaks, and rafts; however, the slough can be difficult to navigate with motorboats during the summer months when plant life becomes thick on the surface of the slough. The boat ramp may be entirely clogged with plants during summer months making in inaccessible by any craft. The downstream tip of the island offers a fair landing site, but is ½ mile from the parking area. There are short dirt trails around the island to explore on foot.
Natural Features
Reading Island is a lush riparian island located between the Sacramento River and Anderson Creek Slough. The surrounding area is made up of the rolling hills of blue oak savanna with a diverse habitat for bald eagles, osprey, migratory and song birds, deer, and salmon.
Nearby Attractions
Sacramento River Bend Recreation Area has a diverse network of river access, trails, and parking areas. Horseback riding, hunting, target shooting, birding, and wildflower viewing are all very popular in the area. More information and a map can be found on the BLM website . Redding offers hundreds of non-motorized multi-use trails including paved paths and singletrack dirt, many optimized for downhill mountain biking. Find out more on the Visit Redding website . Whiskeytown National Recreation Area: Fishing, boating, swimming, and hiking. More information on the Park Service website . Cottonwood and Anderson, CA: Small towns with dining and shopping options. Redding, CA: Large town with an airport, hospitals, dining and shopping at larger box-stores.
What the agency tells you
The Reading Island entrance is blocked from vehicular access by a gate. After making your reservation, ensure you have received the gate code so that you will be able to enter the Island and proceed to the group camping area. Please call 530-224-2100 if you have any questions.
Campfires are allowed in the established fire rings only, when in conformance with BLM Fire Restrictions (click on the Redding Field Office tab). Please get a free CALFire Campfire Permit before arriving by visiting Ready for Wildfire webpage .
There are wildlife on the Island - please keep you campsite clean and use proper storage to avoid any issues. There are no bear boxes to store food.
Everything else this campground posts · 1
The river is cold and fast - life jackets save lives!
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 group
- Hookups
- None
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 1 of 1 campsite records
- Boat ramp
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, Creek
- Birding
- Boating
- Canoeing
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Kayaking
- Paddling
- Rafting
- River Trips
- Water access
Nothing to book until it reopensread 15:53 UTC
recreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
Tell me when it reopens
Watch for it to come back
One email when the agency reopens it, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check the agency’s own record once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time it stops saying closed.
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.
Every line of the receipt · 11
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 · 4
Why this page can’t say why
recreation.gov lists every site at Reading Island Group Campground closed this Friday and Saturday night. The Bureau of Land Management has published no closure notice we hold, so this page can’t say why, and it won’t fill the gap with a guess. A closed night isn’t a sold-out one: the reservations its record still carries were taken before the sites were closed.
There’s no notice to quote and no reason to argue with, so this page offers you the watch and the list below, and no letter.
recreation.gov availability, read 15:53 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites
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.
| Reading Island | Site 1 | group standard nonelectric | $90 |