Running Deer Campground
1Heads up1 fire 42 mi away
- Right now
- Closedrecreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend, read 16:19 UTC
- A night
- $23–$25When it reopens, per site
- Sites
- 41In the agency’s record
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 3 notices
In the agency’s own words
Running Deer Campground is located on the eastern shore of the Little Grass Valley Reservoir, giving visitors ample opportunity to fish, swim, boat and enjoy nature. It is one of eight campgrounds in the area, providing access to a beautiful mountain lake and various hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding trails that meander through the scenic hills and valleys. Keep reading
Recreation
The 1,615-acre lake provides ample opportunities for visitors to fish, boat, swim and water ski. Anglers can expect a catch of a variety of trout and kokanee salmon, among other species of fish. The Lakeshore Trail, which loops 14.5 miles around the lake, is available for hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding. The trail connects to the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail, which stretches from 2,650 miles from Canada to Mexico, across three states. A variety of day hikes can be done on portions of the trail.
Facilities
The campground offers dozens of single-family campsites, available for tent and RV camping. More than a handful of the sites overlook the beautiful lake, while others are surrounded by various trees and shrubbery. A boat ramp is available within the site. Campsites are equipped with tables and campfire rings with grills. Flush toilets and drinking water are provided. Utility hookups are not available and all sites have paved parking spurs. Trash collection bins are available throughout the campground.
Natural Features
The campground is located in the Northern Sierra Nevada Mountains of northern California at an elevation of about 5,000 feet. It is adjacent to the Little Grass Valley Reservoir, which was formed by flooding in the 1960s. The campground and the lake are surrounded by thick stands of pine and fir trees. There are multiple campgrounds located around the lake as well as cabins on the south side. The campground is also the center of a popular snowmobiling area during winter months.
Nearby Attractions
About 12 miles northeast of the lake lies a small, natural lily pond, called Fowler Lake. It sits at an altitude of 5,446 feet and is a beautiful sight. Charges & Cancellations $23/site per night
What the agency tells you
Bears may frequent the area; use appropriate containers for food and garbage
For more information on the Plumas National Forest visit https://www.fs.usda.gov/plumas
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
- 41
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 33 ft
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- FLUSH TOILETS (SEASONAL) on 41 of 41 campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- DRINKING WATER on 41 of 41 campsite records
- Boat ramp
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Swimming
- Night sky · 418th darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 3
Nothing to book until it reopensread 16:19 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
“$23/site per night” · this campground’s own terms
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
Why this page can’t say why
recreation.gov lists every site at Running Deer Campground closed this Friday and Saturday night. The U.S. Forest Service 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.
Open within 60 miles · 4
The agency’s own word that these are open, not our reading of a season.
- Salmon CreekTahoe National Forest · 20 mi · 32 sites
- Chapman Creek CampgroundTahoe National Forest · 23 mi · walk-up
- Legacy CampgroundLassen National Forest · 36 mi · walk-up
- Shirttail CreekTahoe National Forest · 42 mi · 39 sites
recreation.gov availability, read 16:19 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
41 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 41 mapped sitesAll 41 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. 41 of the 41 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 01 | standard nonelectric | 79 ft | 235 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 02 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 329 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 03 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 288 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 04 | standard nonelectric | 69 ft | 343 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 05 | standard nonelectric | 55 ft | 519 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 06 | standard nonelectric | 55 ft | 490 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 07 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 570 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 08 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 624 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 09 | standard nonelectric | 54 ft | 665 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 10 | standard nonelectric | 54 ft | 621 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 11 | standard nonelectric | 57 ft | 568 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 12 | standard nonelectric | 57 ft | 536 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 13 | standard nonelectric | 65 ft | 414 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 14 | standard nonelectric | 65 ft | 359 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 15 | standard nonelectric | 76 ft | 440 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 16 | standard nonelectric | 78 ft | 365 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 17 | standard nonelectric | 73 ft | 505 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 18 | standard nonelectric | 73 ft | 441 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 19 | standard nonelectric | 44 ft | 589 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 20 | standard nonelectric | 44 ft | 591 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 21 | standard nonelectric | 56 ft | 653 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 22 | standard nonelectric | 56 ft | 686 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 23 | standard nonelectric | 33 ft | 72 ft | 743 ftLittle Grass Valley Reservoir | $23–$25 |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 24 | standard nonelectric | 72 ft | 815 ftLittle Grass Valley Reservoir | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 25 | standard nonelectric | 93 ft | 849 ftLittle Grass Valley Reservoir | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 26 | standard nonelectric | 76 ft | 855 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 27 | standard nonelectric | 88 ft | 938 ftLittle Grass Valley Reservoir | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 28 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | 955 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 29 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | 885 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 30 | standard nonelectric | 74 ft | 856 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 31 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 782 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 32 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 778 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 33 | standard nonelectric | 55 ft | 706 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 34 | standard nonelectric | 55 ft | 692 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 35 | standard nonelectric | 61 ft | 618 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 36 | standard nonelectric | 47 ft | 558 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 37 | standard nonelectric | 66 ft | 436 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 38 | standard nonelectric | 47 ft | 535 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 39 | standard nonelectric | 66 ft | 439 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 40 | standard nonelectric | 49 ft | 345 ft | $23–$25 | |
| AREA RUNNING DEER CAMPGROUND | 41 | standard nonelectric | 49 ft | 310 ft | $23–$25 |
25 of 41 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Horse Campground0.0 mi
Red Feather California0.0 miLittle Beaver Campground1.1 miLittle Grass Valley Recreation Area1.9 mi
Little Beaver A CampgroundPlumas National Forest · 2.0 mi
Wyandotte A CampgroundPlumas National Forest · 2.0 miFrom Oroville, California, travel east on Highway 162 to Olive Highway. Turn right and continue 5 miles to Forbestown Road. Turn right and go 16 miles to La Porte Road. Turn left and travel 27 miles to La Porte, then 2 miles to signs for the recreation area. Turn right and continue just over 2 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 Little Grass Valley, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 30°F, day 66°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 19°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 more
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
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
Running Deer Campground is in California’s 3rd congressional district. Its representative, Kevin Kiley (I), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →