U.S. Forest Service · Tahoe National Forest · CA
Sterling Lake Campground
1Heads up1 fire 29 mi away
Wildfire
Old fire · 29 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 16, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 16, 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.
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
7,050 ftElevation
313 ftWater · Lake Sterling
10.5 miW of Truckee, CA
49%Tree cover
Bortle 3Night sky · 797th darkest of 1,201 in CA
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
Sterling Lake Campground is adjacent to Sterling Lake. Campground is located on a steep, winding road and supplies must be hiked in a short distance (approx. 400 feet) after parking your car.
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake
- Fall color · reported 11 days ago, 34 km away
- Patchy color
Source: Stated in the agency description
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (34 km) · Oct 6, 2026
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 16, 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
Every line of the receipt · 4
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.
Site$15
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 a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4
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
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
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Where it is
Also near hereWoodchuck CampgroundTahoe National Forest · 2.0 mi
Hampshire RocksTahoe National Forest · 3.0 mi
Big Bend Group (Yuba River)Tahoe National Forest · 3.5 miMeadow Lake CampgroundTahoe National Forest · 3.8 mi
Indian SpringsTahoe National Forest · 4.4 miMeadow Lake Shoreline Campground4.4 mi
Hampshire RocksTahoe National Forest · 3.0 miBig Bend Group (Yuba River)Tahoe National Forest · 3.5 miMeadow Lake CampgroundTahoe National Forest · 3.8 miIndian SpringsTahoe National Forest · 4.4 miMeadow Lake Shoreline Campground4.4 miSource: 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
Overnight45°Clear
Saturday62°Sunny
Saturday Night41°Clear
Sunday58°Sunny
NWS forecast for Kingvale, CA
Source: National Weather Service, STO forecast office · Oct 17, 2026
Typical weather
Typical October night 33°F, day 59°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 21°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: TAHOE CITY, CA (USC00048758), 23 miles away and 820 ft lower
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.
Source: USFS Inventoried Roadless Areas via MTJP Roadless Map · Jul 29, 2026
Who answers for this land
Sterling Lake 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 →
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
Tree cover: NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC), one 30 m cell at this coordinate · Sep 9, 2026
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (34 km) · Oct 6, 2026
Reported by: iNaturalist fall color observations, reported patchy color · Oct 6, 2026
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 place of any size: Kingvale, CA, 2.9 mi NW (a census designated place). Straight line.