South Shore Campground
- Right now
- Closed for the seasonOut of the season the agency publishes
- A night
- $36–$108Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 2221 on recreation.gov
- Season
- June 1 – September 30Open June 1 through September 30
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 10 notices
In the agency’s own words
South Shore Campground is located next to Lower Bear River Reservoir in the Eldorado National Forest the central Sierra Nevada Mountains. It's a prime location for fishing and boating. Keep reading
Recreation
Lower Bear Reservoir covers 166 acres and has 2.5 miles of shoreline. Activities include fishing, swimming, boating, canoeing and picnicking. Anglers may catch rainbow, brown and mackinaw trout. A boat ramp is located within a mile of the campground. The Pardoe Trail can be accessed a short distance past nearby Upper Bear River Reservoir, and borders Mokelumne Wilderness.
Facilities
Each campsite comes with a picnic table and grill. One campsite is accessible, as is one of the vault toilets. Drinking water is provided. A general store is about a mile from the campground on the northern part of the reservoir.
Natural Features
The campground is nestled in a mixed conifer forest on a hillside just above the south shore of Lower Bear River Reservoir at an elevation of 5,900 feet. Some campsites offer partial views of the lake through the trees. A Mediterranean climate extends over most of the forest, with warm, dry summers and cold, wet winters.
Charges & Cancellations
Recreation Fee: Recreation fees are the fees a visitor pays for things like overnight camping, a day-use pavilion, group facilities, a tour or a permit. Recreation fees vary by location and/or activity. Reservation Fee: A fee may be charged at the time a reservation is made to cover the cost of reservation services. This fee is in addition to the Recreation Fee and is non-refundable. Fees for camping, day use, group sites, cabins and lookouts: $8 if made on-line; $9 if made through the call center; $3 if made in-person. Change Fee: A service fee may be charged at the time a modification is made depending on the changes. Cancellation Fee: A $10 service fee will be withheld from any refunds for a cancelled reservation. Cut-Off Window: The latest date and/or time that you can make an advanced reservation or a change to an existing reservation. Cut-off windows can vary by location, but are typically 4 days before your arrival date. A customer who cancels a reservation the day before or on the day of arrival will pay a $10.00 service fee AND forfeit the first night's use fee (see Late Cancellation below). Late Cancellation: If you cancel your reservation too close to the start date, additional service fees may be withheld.
What the agency tells you
Bears frequent the area; all food must be kept in approved containers
Keep family pets on a leash at all times.
Forest Order No. 19-15-01: Prohibits camping for a combined total of no more than 14 days during a calendar year (January-December), forest-wide. Visitors may book campsites annually but the maximum stay may not exceed a total of 14 days each calendar year (January-December)
Everything else this campground posts · 7
Please Note: One (1) vehicle per single site. Most sites can accommodate 1 extra vehicle that is not included with the reservation fee. Extra vehicle will be charged a per night fee.
Fire Restrictions: Fire restrictions may be imposed at any time due to hot, dry weather conditions, at which time campfires and charcoal fires may not be allowed. Call (530) 644-6048 for local information and conditions.
Reserved Sites will be held until check out time (NOON) the day following your arrival date. Sites must be occupied by the checkout time of that following day to hold a reservation or the site will be forfeited and released to other guests. Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
Refunds: Refund requests made through www.recreation.gov will be charged a $10 processing fee. This fee is retained by the reservation service contractor along with the non-refundable reservation fee. All requests for the return of the non-refundable reservation fee and the cancellation fee will be declined by the campground concessionaire as they did not receive these fees (these are the fees retained by the reservation contractor, a different entity).
Don't 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.
Click here for more information on Eldorado National Forest
There is a fee to move from a reserved site to a first come first serve site. Site Transfer Policy
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 22 · 12 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 35 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…campsite is accessible, as is one of the vault toilets. Drinking water is provided. A general store is…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…as is one of the vault toilets. Drinking water is provided. A general store is about a mile from…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Store
- Nearby
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake, River, Beach
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Swimming
- Night sky · 585th darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 3
- Fall color · reported 13 days ago, 35 km away
- Peak color
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 21 of the 22 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
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 · 16
What you actually pay
“$28/single $56/double $84/triple $5/extra vehicle fee” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $36–$108 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.
“Fees for camping, day use, group sites, cabins and lookouts: $8 if made on-line $9 if made through the call center” · this campground’s own terms
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 · 7
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
34 records
All 34 records
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 22 of the 34 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Area South Shore Campground | 002 | tent only nonelectric | $36 | |
| Area South Shore Campground | 004 | tent only nonelectric | $36 | |
| Area South Shore Campground | 008 | tent only nonelectric | $36 | |
| Area South Shore Campground | 010 | tent only nonelectric | $36 | |
| Area South Shore Campground | 012 | tent only nonelectric | $36 | |
| Area South Shore Campground | 013 | tent only nonelectric | $36 | |
| Area South Shore Campground | 015 | tent only nonelectric | $36 | |
| Area South Shore Campground | 020 | tent only nonelectric | $36 | |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | 001 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | $36–$108 |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | 005 | tent only nonelectric | $36 | |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | 006 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | $36–$108 |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | 007 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | $36–$108 |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | 009 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | $36–$108 |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | 011 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | $36–$108 |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | 014 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | $36–$108 |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | 016 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | $36–$108 |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | 017 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | $36–$108 |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | 018 | tent only nonelectric | $36 | |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | 019 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | $36–$108 |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | 021 | tent only nonelectric | $36 | |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | 022 | tent only nonelectric | $36 | |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | XXX | unnamed record | $33.97 | |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | XXX1 | unnamed record | $33.97 | |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | XXX10 | unnamed record | $33.97 | |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | XXX11 | unnamed record | $33.97 | |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | XXX2 | unnamed record | $33.97 | |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | XXX3 | unnamed record | $33.97 | |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | XXX4 | unnamed record | $33.97 | |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | XXX5 | unnamed record | $33.97 | |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | XXX6 | unnamed record | $33.97 | |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | XXX7 | unnamed record | $33.97 | |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | XXX8 | unnamed record | $33.97 | |
| AREA SOUTH SHORE CAMPGROUND | XXX9 | unnamed record | $33.97 | |
| Host Site | 003 | type not stated | 35 ft | $33.97 |
The agency files 12 more records here that aren’t sites for the night. It types every one of them MANAGEMENT rather than a campsite. They’re in the table above, marked for what they are, and none of them is counted as a site.
25 of 34 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Bear River Group Campground (Eldorado National Forest, CA)Eldorado National Forest · 0.9 miSugar Pine Point CampgroundEldorado National Forest · 1.0 miWhite Azalea CampgroundEldorado National Forest · 3.6 miMokelumne CampgroundEldorado National Forest · 4.2 miMiddle Fork Cosumnes CampgroundEldorado National Forest · 5.0 miFrom Pioneer, CA, take State Route 88 east 21.9 miles to Bear River Lake Resort sign. Turn left at the sign and go 3.4 miles to campground on right side of the road.
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 June night 38°F, day 72°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical September night 35°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or moreOutside the published season
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
South Shore Campground 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 →