Sample Meadow Campground
3Heads up3 fires, nearest 18 mi
This is how it should work.
- Right now
- OpenListed open; its database flags it not open
- A night
- FreeNo camping fee
- Season
- June 1 – December 31Open June 1 through December 31
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
Located near the Kaiser and Ansel Adams Wilderness', Sample Meadow Campground offers 16 campsites located along Kaiser Creek. Vault toilets are provided and each site has a picnic table, fire ring, and bear box. There is trailhead parking outside of campground approximately .5 mile for hikes into the wilderness. Large RV's and motorhomes not recommended. Horse camping is permitted. Water and garbage service not provided.
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…16 campsites located along Kaiser Creek. Vault toilets are provided and each site has a picnic table, fire…”
- Bear boxes
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek, Meadow
- Fall color · reported 12 days ago, 32 km away
- Peak color
Nothing to book, just show up
One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and it costs nothing at all. 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 · 4
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s own record says there’s no camping fee, and no booking fee, because this campground takes no reservations. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
How we know this receipt · 5
record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Where it is
RancheriaSierra National Forest · 5.6 miThe weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Big Creek, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 37°F, day 58°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical December night 25°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 Augusts are colder than the August line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
Sample Meadow Campground is in California’s 5th congressional district. Its representative, Tom McClintock (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →