Sly Guard Cabin
2Heads up2 fires, nearest 13 mi
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 26 of the next 26 nights read 15:25 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 14 notices
In the agency’s own words
The Sly Guard Cabin is less remote than other cabins on the Eldorado National forest and is a great choice for families with children. Sly Guard provides the cabin in the woods experience with the convenience of modern amenities. The cabin is near Sly Park Reservoir, also called Jenkinson Lake, the tourist area of Apple Hill, a variety of wineries, a number of hiking trails, and the historic mining towns of Coloma and Placerville. The Sly Guard Cabin was constrcuted in the early 1940s by the Forest Service as living quarters for rangers "on guard" in the Sly Park area. Keep reading
Recreation
Hiking, mountain biking, and picnicking are great options while staying at the cabin. Cedar Park trail is just steps away from the cabin, where you can take a relaxing walk along the 1.2 mile paved loop trail. There is also an observation deck along the trail offering views of Pyramid Peak and the Crystal Range. There is a horsehoe pit on the cabin grounds. Sly Park Creek has a swimming hole and Sly Park Reservoir attracts lots of boaters and anglers. Gold panning may also be done in the creek.
Natural Features
At nearly 3,600 feet in elevation, Sly Guard Cabin sits among Ponderosa and Jeffrey pine near the town of Pollock Pines. The cabin is well shaded during the day, keeping it cool in the summer. A downhill dirt trail leads guests south to Sly Park Creek and the bottom of the spillway at Sly Park Reservoir.
Nearby Attractions
The Sly Park Environmental Education School is located across the street. Guided nature walks are conducted daily on the trail adjacent to the cabin. A resort at the entrance of Jenkinson Lake (Sly Creek Reservoir) offers a small store, restaurant and bar, pay phone, gas and fishing supplies. It is about a 2-mile drive.
What the agency tells you
Your permit, door lock combination, and directions will be emailed to you before your visit; be sure to check your spam folder for this email. Call (530) 644-2324 during regular business hours, M-F, 8:00-4:30 with any questions relating to your stay. Check In is 2:00pm Check Out is 11:00am
Woodstove is currently out of order. Please do not use. There are alternative heat sources available. There is no air conditioning in the cabin. Please consider bringing an electric fan during hot summer months. Mice are present in wooded areas including the area surrounding Sly Guard Cabin. Please clean up crumbs and spills immediately. Do not leave food out on any surfaces. Cleaning up thoroughly when you leave is essential to keeping Sly Guard cabin mouse-free. DO NOT EAT ON THE FURNITURE. This attracts mice.
In order to provide an enjoyable and memorable experience to all visitors, a stay limit is now in effect. Use of any Eldorado National Forest cabin is limited to 6 nights per recreation rental facility and a combined total of 12 nights per calendar year for all rental facilities. This stay limit includes any combination of stays at Harvey West Cabin, Loon Lake Chalet, Robbs Hut, Sly Guard Cabin, and Van Vleck Bunkhouse.
Everything else this campground posts · 11
No RV hookups or dump stations available
Vehicles must park in the gravel areas, not on vegetation
Lock the building and close the gate when leaving the cabin unattended
Pets are not allowed at the cabin. This overnight facility is used by many people, including those with pet allergies. Respect other visitors by following this rule.
Smoking is not allowed in the cabin
This is a 'pack it in, pack it out' facility; Bedding (sheets, pillows etc.) and towels are not provided. Please bring garbage bags and haul trash out with you.
Off-Road vehicles cannot be unloaded at the cabin grounds.
Fire restrictions are in effect. No campfires, no charcoal bbq's. Propane stove usage is allowed outside the cabin.
No open flames, candles, backpacking stoves or propane stoves inside cabin.
Practice Leave No Trace. Please clean cabin and grounds before leaving.
Do Not 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
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- 1 electric
- Longest rig
- 45 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- Shower/Bath Type states a shower on all 1 of this campground's campsite records
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake, Creek
- Boating
- Hiking
- Historic site
- Visitor center
- Night sky · 971st darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 4
- Fall color · reported 11 days ago, 8.1 km away
- Minimal color
Full this Saturdayread 15:25 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday, and on three midweek nights after it as well. read 15:25 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
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 · 12
What you actually pay
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 15:25 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 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. 1 of the 1 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| SLY GUARD CABIN | Sly Guard Cabin | cabin electric | 45 ft | 50 amp | 1,606 ft | $65 |
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Bridal Veil Group Area and Picnic GroundEldorado National Forest · 7.3 miCapps CrossingEldorado National Forest · 11 mi
Ponderosa Cove Campground11 mi
Pipi CampgroundEldorado National Forest · 13 mi
Stumpy MeadowsEldorado National Forest · 14 mi
Black OakEldorado National Forest · 14 miSly Guard Cabin is located off U.S. Highway 50 in Pollock Pines, approximately 16 miles east of Placerville. Take Exit 60 (Sly Park Road) and travel south approximately 6.2 miles. Arrive at 5561 Sly Park Road on the left.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Pollock Pines, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 41°F, day 66°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 31°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
who answers for it · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Sly Guard Cabin 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 →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyKevin KileyU.S. Representative · California’s 3rd district
No contact form we could verify, so that link is their own site. Contact is inside it. Washington office: 202-225-2523.
- Your senator, on the same appropriationAdam B. SchiffU.S. Senator · California
- Your senator, on the same appropriationAlex PadillaU.S. Senator · California
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Sly Guard Cabin, Eldorado National Forest, California
Dear Kevin Kiley, I’m a constituent in California’s 3rd district. I tried to camp at Sly Guard Cabin, Eldorado National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Sly Guard Cabin are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Sly Guard Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Sly Guard Cabin. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Sly Guard Cabin (Eldorado National Forest, California) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Sly Guard Cabin, Eldorado National Forest, California
Dear Adam B. Schiff, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Sly Guard Cabin, Eldorado National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Sly Guard Cabin are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Sly Guard Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Sly Guard Cabin. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Sly Guard Cabin (Eldorado National Forest, California) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Sly Guard Cabin, Eldorado National Forest, California
Dear Alex Padilla, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Sly Guard Cabin, Eldorado National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Sly Guard Cabin are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Sly Guard Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Sly Guard Cabin. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Sly Guard Cabin (Eldorado National Forest, California) via campanac.com