CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
The map
U.S. Forest Service · San Bernardino National Forest · CA

Serrano Family Campground

3Heads up3 fires, nearest 13 mi
Wildfire
Mtz/Bdc/83A fire · 13 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 15, 2026
Wildfire
Powerline fire · 17 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 14, 2026
Wildfire
Orange 2 fire · 19 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 15, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 15, 2026
The agency doesn’t say how you get a siteIts record carries no access type, so treat it as a place to phone before you drive.
Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
Photos · Forest Service
6,800 ftElevation
1,031 ftWater · Big Bear Lake
0.9 miNW of Big Bear Lake, CA
0%Tree cover
Bortle 4Night sky · 1115th darkest of 1,201 in CA

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

This family campground is located in the San Bernardino mountains. Serrano is located on the north side of Big Bear Lake, 2 miles east of Fawnskin. There are 93 single sites and 16 double sites. Popular activities include hiking, mountain biking, boating and fishing. Amenities and services include camp host, comfort station, dump station, RV hookups, fire rings, firewood sales, interpretive programs, interpretive trails, picnic tables, showers and restrooms. Bear Boxes. Accessible. Reservations can be placed as late as 24 hours in advance based upon availability. For example, reservations could be made on a Thursday before 2pm for an arrival the next day, Friday for a 2pm check-in if there is site availability.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Facilities

Dump station
Yes
Bear boxes
Yes
Firewood
Mentioned
Source: Stated in the agency description

Around the campground

On the water
Lake
Source: Stated in the agency description

Phone before you drive

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.

Booking window6 months outBooking opens 6 months ahead; today unlocks arrivals through April 17, 2027. The agency publishes no reservable season in the record we hold, so the window may close earlier than that.recreation.gov
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 6

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
The U.S. Forest Service publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
Single Site $44 - Holiday $46 - 8 person maximum Double Site $87 - Holiday $89 - 16 person maximum Single Site with Hook up Site $56 - Holiday $58 - 8 person maximum Camping fee includes entry for 1 vehicle.
RV dump $10 Checks under $50 not accepted.
The booking feerecreation.gov
We hold no recreation.gov booking record for this campground, so we can’t say whether a booking fee applies.
What this campground addsits own record
Extra vehicle$8

“Extra vehicle fee $8 per night.” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record

What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 5
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
What this campground adds: The U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record and notices for this campground, quoted verbatim. An extra-vehicle charge is set locally and appears on no national schedule, so it’s never assumed. · Aug 24, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate
Coordinate34.26306, -116.91528

Where it is

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Today60°Partly Sunny4% rain
Tonight37°Partly Cloudy4% rain
Sunday61°Mostly Sunny3% rain
Sunday Night38°Mostly Clear

NWS forecast for Big Bear Lake, CA

Source: National Weather Service, SGX forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 35°F, day 63°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical December night 24°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

90°32°10°

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.

Measured at: BIG BEAR LAKE, CA (USC00040741), 1 mile away and 47 ft lower
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

What threatens this place

Watch
Sand to Snow National Monumentdevelopment · 24 mi
Roadless
Sugarloaf8,206 acres · 7 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Granite Peak450 acres · 10 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Crystal Creek6,783 acres · 10 mi · inventoried roadless area

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Oct 3, 2026

Who answers for this land

Jay Obernolte, official portrait

Serrano Family Campground is in California’s 23rd congressional district. Its representative, Jay Obernolte (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: U.S. Forest Service publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate.
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 1.7 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 1,201 rated federal campgrounds in California · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Cell signal: the Forest Service’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026