Sawmill Walk-in Campground
This is how it should work.
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- A night
- $23From, per site
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
Located near the boundary of the Hoover Wilderness at an elevation of 9800 feet, Sawmill Campground is suited to backpack style camping as you will walk more than a quarter mile on a dirt trail to reach the 12 campsites. Each site has a table, fire ring, and a food storage locker. Most sites have shade and room for up to two tents. Nearby Lee Vining Creek is the only water source, there is no piped water. Trash must be packed out. Two vault toilets are located between sites 8 and 9. There are 15 overnight parking spaces at the campground entrance from Saddlebag Road. Hiking beyond the campground is day use only as you will enter into a research area. The Harvey Monroe Hall Natural Area has historical records to compare to current research for effects of climate change at high elevation. Please leave no trace and minimize impacts by staying on trails. Link to 360 google view
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…water. Trash must be packed out. Two vault toilets are located between sites 8 and 9. There are 15…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “Nearby Lee Vining Creek is the only water source, there is no piped water.”
- Bear boxes
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek
- Fall color · reported 7 days ago, 23 km away
- Patchy color
Nothing to book, just show up
One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and a night costs $23 with nothing added. 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 · 5
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($23), 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
Saddlebag Lake Trailhead Group CampInyo National Forest · 0.7 miJunction CampgroundInyo National Forest · 1.5 miEllery Lake CampgroundInyo National Forest · 1.7 miTioga Lake CampgroundInyo National Forest · 2.0 miBig Bend CampgroundInyo National Forest · 3.7 miAspen CampgroundInyo National Forest · 4.6 miThe weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Virginia Lakes, CA
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Sawmill Walk-in 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 →