Snake Lake Campground and Equestrian Camp
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $15From, per site
- Sites
- 2117 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
Snake Lake is located at approximately 3900 ft in elevation and is about 8 miles from the quaint town of Quincy, CA. Upon arriving, you are greeted by a mixed pine and fir forest as well as the shallow, lilly pad filled Snake Lake. Easy access to multi use trails can be found within the Snake Lake Basin. Keep reading
Recreation
This campground is a hub of activity and hosts staging areas for mountain biking, equestrian, and OHV use. Play hard and respect everyones rights and activies. This is one of the only campgrounds that has use access to forest roads directly from the campground.
Facilities
These improvements can be found at each campsite: Fire pits Picnic tables Food storage locker Vault toilets For the equestrian users there is a small corral and a ADA mounting ramp Please use certified weed-seed-free feed for horses Please remove, scatter or bury manure piles left in corrals or while dispersed camping Use the provided corrals or hitching posts to stage horses; use high lines with tree saver straps to protect trees and minimize impact while dispersed camping Natural Features Snake Lake is a shallow reservoir that promotes the growth of Lilly Pads. Swimming is not in the best interest of the user. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (530) 283-0555.
Nearby Attractions
The hamlet town of Quincy hosts many activities during the warm summer months. Music festivals, the Plumas County Fair, and other random activities are within a quick drive from the campground.
What the agency tells you
Did you know... that your campground fees come directly back to the Plumas National Forest? Fees Pay for: - Toilet paper - Maintaining and pumping vault toilets - Annual maintenance - Staff costs for site maintenance - Information signs and kiosks - Campground upgrades: bear storage containers, picnic tables, and fire rings
Paying for a site $15 is the standard daily rate - Two ways to pay: - Cash or check: - Use and fill out the provided fee envelope located at the information board in the middle of the campground - Rip off the envelope tab and place it on your site post - Put the envelope in the fee tube - Scan the QRcode - Load the RECREATION.gov app to your smart device before you get to the campsite - Scan the QRcode at the campsite and complete the registration on the app (this works when your phone is offline) - Use a fee envelope and fill out the tab to place it on your site post - IMPORTANT: This method is only good for one day. Each day you stay you must resubmit a payment with the QRcode
Water is not provided at this campground
Everything else this campground posts · 3
Trash services are not provided. Pack out all of your trash!!!
14 days is the stay limit in ALL Plumas National Forest Campgrounds
This campground is managed by the Mount Hough Ranger Station 39696 Hwy 70, Quincy, CA 95971 530-283-0555
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 21 · 8 equestrian
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 25 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 15 of 17 campsite records, ACCESSIBLE VAULT TOILETS on 8 of 17 campsite records
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…permitting, until September 28th. Bring your own water; No water is available at this campsite Trash is…”
- Bear boxes
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake
- Night sky · 442nd darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 3
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 15:34 UTC
recreation.gov lists 17 of the 21 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.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
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 · 17
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $15 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 15:34 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
21 sites · the site map
All 21 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. 9 of the 21 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| Scan and Pay | ScanPay 2 | type not stated | |||
| Scan and Pay | ScanPay 3 | type not stated | |||
| Scan and Pay | ScanPay 4 | type not stated | |||
| Scan and Pay | Standard | type not stated | 147 ft | ||
| Snake Lake | 01 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | $15 | |
| Snake Lake | 02 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | $15 | |
| Snake Lake | 03 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | $15 | |
| Snake Lake | 04 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | $15 | |
| Snake Lake | 05 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | $15 | |
| Snake Lake | 06 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | $15 | |
| Snake Lake | 07 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | $15 | |
| Snake Lake | 08 | equestrian nonelectric | 25 ft | ||
| Snake Lake | 09 | equestrian nonelectric | 25 ft | ||
| Snake Lake | 10 | equestrian nonelectric | 25 ft | ||
| Snake Lake | 11 | equestrian nonelectric | 25 ft | ||
| Snake Lake | 12 | equestrian nonelectric | 25 ft | ||
| Snake Lake | 13 | equestrian nonelectric | 25 ft | ||
| Snake Lake | 14 | equestrian nonelectric | 25 ft | ||
| Snake Lake | 15 | equestrian nonelectric | 25 ft | ||
| Snake Lake | 16 | standard nonelectric | $15 | ||
| Snake Lake | 17 | standard nonelectric | $15 |
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 phone number
Where it is
HallstedPlumas National Forest · 4.3 mi
Spanish Creek CampgroundPlumas National Forest · 4.5 miSpanish Creek CampgroundPlumas National Forest · 4.8 miRock Creek CampgroundPlumas National Forest · 5.1 miDeanes Valley Family Cg (CA) Plumas NfPlumas National Forest · 5.8 miThe weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Meadow Valley, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 33°F, day 69°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January 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 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
Snake Lake Campground and Equestrian Camp 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 →