Ribbonwood Equestrian CG
2Heads up2 fires, nearest 27 mi
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 30 of the next 30 nights; a database flag says not open read 16:32 UTC
- A night
- $30From, per site
- Sites
- 98 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 5 notices
In the agency’s own words
Ribbonwood is an ideal mountain escape for equestrian campers. The campground overlooks Palm Desert and the Salton Sea in southern California and provides visitors with access to hundreds of miles of terrain for exploration and enjoyment. The San Bernardino National Forest is submitting a proposal to increase fees at various sites across the Forest and is seeking public input. Please visit the https://www.fs.usda.gov/sbnf for more information and to submit comments regarding this proposal. Keep reading
Recreation
Horseback riding and mountain biking are popular activities. The 5.3-mile Sawmill Trail begins within the campground and traverses an old road with 2,220 feet of elevation gain. It also intersects with the Cactus Spring Trail near the campground's parking area. Bountiful botanical species exist along the trail, providing scenic views for travelers.
Facilities
The campground offers less than a dozen large, single-family campsites for both tent or RV camping. Each is equipped with tables and campfire rings with grills. Accessible flush toilets, showers and drinking water are provided, and campsites each have access to two horse corrals and hitching racks.
Natural Features
The campground is located approximately 16 miles southeast of Palm Desert, California, at an elevation of about 4,000 feet. It is nestled in a chaparral brush, high desert environment of cactus, pinyon pine and yucca plants. Roads and spurs are gravel.
What the agency tells you
Campfires and Charcoal are not allowed, Campers are allowed to use Propane or gas stoves with a shutoff valve. Call the Idyllwild Ranger Station at 909-382-2922 if clarification is needed.
This campground is not available for First Come - First Served camping. Please contact the Idyllwild Ranger Station with any questions. 909-382-2922.
Click here for more information on the San Bernardino National Forest
Everything else this campground posts · 2
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.
Please view your Reservation Confirmation Email for the Combo Gate Code.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 9 · 8 equestrian
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…campfire rings with grills. Accessible flush toilets, showers and drinking water are provided, and…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…Accessible flush toilets, showers and drinking water are provided, and campsites each have access to two…”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- Fishing
- Horse Camping
- Horseback riding
- Mountain biking
Full this Saturdayread 16:32 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 8 are free on Mon, Oct 19. read 16:32 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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $30 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
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
recreation.gov availability, read 16:32 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
9 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 8 mapped sitesAll 9 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 7 of the 9 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 9 of the 9 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| AREA RIBBONWOOD EQUESTRIAN CG | 001 | equestrian nonelectric | 176 ft | 3.2 mi | 3,011 ft | $30 |
| AREA RIBBONWOOD EQUESTRIAN CG | 002 | equestrian nonelectric | 228 ft | 3.1 mi | 2,851 ft | $30 |
| AREA RIBBONWOOD EQUESTRIAN CG | 003 | equestrian nonelectric | 267 ft | 3.2 mi | 3,158 ft | $30 |
| AREA RIBBONWOOD EQUESTRIAN CG | 004 | equestrian nonelectric | 176 ft | 3.2 mi | 3,186 ft | $30 |
| AREA RIBBONWOOD EQUESTRIAN CG | 005 | equestrian nonelectric | 202 ft | 3.2 mi | $30 | |
| AREA RIBBONWOOD EQUESTRIAN CG | 006 | equestrian nonelectric | 229 ft | 3.2 mi | 3,147 ft | $30 |
| AREA RIBBONWOOD EQUESTRIAN CG | 007 | equestrian nonelectric | 194 ft | 3.2 mi | 3,223 ft | $30 |
| AREA RIBBONWOOD EQUESTRIAN CG | 008 | equestrian nonelectric | 247 ft | 3.1 mi | 2,904 ft | $30 |
| S&P | Scan & Pay Equestrian | type not stated | $30 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Pinyon Flat CampgroundSanta Rosa And San Jacinto National Monument · 0.6 miPinyon Flat Campground (San Bernardino National Forest)Santa Rosa And San Jacinto National Monument · 0.6 miAtáxam Mámta’ash CampgroundCleveland National Forest · 20 miIndian Flats CampgroundCleveland National Forest · 20 mi
Marion MountainSan Bernardino National Forest · 22 mi
Fern BasinSan Bernardino National Forest · 22 miFrom Palm Desert, California, take the Palms to Pines Highway/Highway 74 south for approximately 16 miles to the community of Pinyon. Turn left onto South Pinyon Drive and the entrance to the campground is on the right.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Palm Springs, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 50°F, day 71°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 38°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
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.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it · a letter you can send
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Ribbonwood Equestrian CG is in California’s 25th congressional district. Its representative, Raul Ruiz (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A. 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 moneyRaul RuizU.S. Representative · California’s 25th 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 Ribbonwood Equestrian CG, Santa Rosa And San Jacinto National Monument, California
Dear Raul Ruiz, I’m a constituent in California’s 25th district. I tried to camp at Ribbonwood Equestrian CG, Santa Rosa And San Jacinto National Monument, California, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 8 of the 9 campsites the agency files at Ribbonwood Equestrian CG, and every one of them is booked ahead, 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. Ribbonwood Equestrian CG keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Ribbonwood Equestrian CG. 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 Ribbonwood Equestrian CG (Santa Rosa And San Jacinto 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 Ribbonwood Equestrian CG, Santa Rosa And San Jacinto National Monument, California
Dear Adam B. Schiff, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Ribbonwood Equestrian CG, Santa Rosa And San Jacinto National Monument, California, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 8 of the 9 campsites the agency files at Ribbonwood Equestrian CG, and every one of them is booked ahead, 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. Ribbonwood Equestrian CG keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Ribbonwood Equestrian CG. 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 Ribbonwood Equestrian CG (Santa Rosa And San Jacinto 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 Ribbonwood Equestrian CG, Santa Rosa And San Jacinto National Monument, California
Dear Alex Padilla, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Ribbonwood Equestrian CG, Santa Rosa And San Jacinto National Monument, California, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 8 of the 9 campsites the agency files at Ribbonwood Equestrian CG, and every one of them is booked ahead, 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. Ribbonwood Equestrian CG keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Ribbonwood Equestrian CG. 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 Ribbonwood Equestrian CG (Santa Rosa And San Jacinto National Monument, California) via campanac.com