Sandy Flat - Utica Reservoir (Stanislaus NF)
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $30–$90Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 1210 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 1 notices
In the agency’s own words
Utica Reservoir is set in a granite basin surrounded by red fir and lodgepole pine forest. The reservoir has lots of islands and is kept mostly full. Granite slabs along the shore extend into the water.
What the agency tells you
The Forest Service operates the Sandy Flat Campground and charges the following fees: $30 per night in 2026. The America the Beautiful Interagency Senior and Access Passes are honored and receive 50% off the nightly rate. Only applicable to the single site the pass holder occupies. The Interagency Annual and Volunteer passes do not provide any discounts on camping. Reservations required via Recreation.gov The only species of bears in California are black bears. It is not uncommon to see bears in campgrounds. For more information, visit www.keepmewild.org
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 12
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 24 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir
- Night sky · 464th darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 3
- Fall color · reported 13 days ago, 37 km away
- Peak color
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 15:40 UTC
recreation.gov lists 10 of the 12 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
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.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
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 · 18
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $30–$90 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 15:40 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
12 sites
All 12 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. 10 of the 12 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Granite Gulch | 11 | type not stated | ||
| Granite Gulch | 12 | type not stated | ||
| Granite Gulch Triple Site | 10, 11 & 12 | standard nonelectric | $30–$90 | |
| Sandy Flat | 1 | standard nonelectric | $30–$90 | |
| Sandy Flat | 2 | standard nonelectric | $30–$90 | |
| Sandy Flat | 3 | standard nonelectric | $30–$90 | |
| Sandy Flat | 4 | standard nonelectric | $30–$90 | |
| Sandy Flat | 5 | standard nonelectric | $30–$90 | |
| Sandy Flat | 6 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | $30–$90 |
| Sandy Flat | 7 | standard nonelectric | $30–$90 | |
| Sandy Flat | 8 | standard nonelectric | $30–$90 | |
| Sandy Flat | 9 | standard nonelectric | $30–$90 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Union West CampgroundStanislaus National Forest · 0.8 mi
Union West - Union Reservoir (Stanislaus NF)Stanislaus National Forest · 0.8 miSpicer Reservoir Group CampgroundStanislaus National Forest · 1.7 miStanislaus River CampgroundStanislaus National Forest · 1.8 mi
(Lake Alpine) West ShoreStanislaus National Forest · 3.6 miFrom Highway 4, turn onto Spicer Reservoir Road (paved) and go 8 miles. Turn left onto 7N75; from there the roads are gravel. Continue .7 miles to a T-intersection. Follow the Forest Service sign to Sandy Flat Campground.
Spicer Reservoir Road is 27 miles east of the Calaveras Ranger Station in Hathaway Pines, California 95233.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Bear Valley, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 29°F, day 62°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 18°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
Sandy Flat - Utica Reservoir (Stanislaus NF) 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 →