Summit Lake South
3Heads uppark alerts
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $22From, per site
- Sites
- 4845 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 9 notices
In the agency’s own words
Summit Lake South Campground (elevation 6,700 ft.) is conveniently located on the main road of Lassen Volcanic National Park. The campground is within walking distance of the small but scenic Summit Lake and eight miles from the 10,457-ft. Lassen Peak, the largest volcano in the park. Hikers will find one of the park's major trails only 1/4-mile away from the campground and many more within a close proximity. Summit Lake South is on the opposite side of the lake from Summit Lake North Campground. Keep reading
Recreation
The campground is a hub for hiking and backpacking trails within the park. Campers can access many of the park's 150 miles of hiking trails from the Summit Lake area. The Cluster Lakes loop trail--a major trailhead into the park's interior that bypasses several alpine lakes and is popular among birders--is located a short walk away at the Summit Lake Ranger Station. This is the closest campground to the Lassen Peak Trail and within 10 miles of the hydrothermal area, Bumpass Hell. Educational programs are presented at an amphitheater within the facility.
Facilities
This facility has vault toilets, drinking water, campfire rings, picnic tables and a more secluded tent-only loop. There are no flush toilets. For more information visit Campgrounds of Lassen Volcanic .
Natural Features
The national park is known for its volcanic history, as well as its diversity of plants and animals. It contains 300 active volcanic domes and many hydrothermal features, such as mud pots and steam vents. Lassen Peak is the southernmost active volcano in the Cascades, and the second-most recent volcano to erupt in the lower 48 of the United States before Mount Saint Helens. Lassen National Park boasts over 700 species of flowering plants and 250 native species including birds, mammals, reptiles and fish. The park is at the junction of the Cascade Mountains, the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Great Basin, thus providing many unique habitats.
What the agency tells you
Be bear aware; food and scented products must be stored in the bear lockers provided at each campsite
Pets are not allowed on park trails and must be on a 6-ft. leash
There are no electricity, water or sewer hook-ups
Everything else this campground posts · 6
An entrance fee of $30 per vehicle is required. We highly recommend visitors purchase the park's digital 1-7 day entrance fee or the parks annual pass throught recreation.gov prior to visiting park.
Campers must have a valid entrance permit/pass before camping
50 percent discount on camping fees applies only to lifetime pass holders and senior annual pass holders
Don't Move Firewood: Help protect our forests! Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by obtaining firewood at or near your destination and burning it on-site. Moving firewood is illegal in some states. Visit dontmovefirewood.org to learn more.
Campsites are limited to 3 tents, 6 people, and 2 vehicles (including RV) per site.
Please have a printed copy of your reservation with you.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 48 · 32 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 59 ft
- Paved pads
- 41 of 48
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets - seasonal
- Drinking water
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Historic site
- Swimming
- Visitor center
- Night sky · 117th darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 2
- Fall color · reported 12 days ago, 27 km away
- Peak color
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 45 of the 48 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 · 13
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $22 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
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
48 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 45 mapped sitesAll 48 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 48 of the 48 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 45 of the 48 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Loop C | C01 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 43 ft | 462 ft | 144 ft | $22 |
| Loop C | C02 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 43 ft | 437 ft | 105 ft | $22 |
| Loop C | C03 | tent only nonelectric | 35 ft | 60 ft | 370 ft | 60 ft | $22 |
| Loop C | C04 | tent only nonelectric | 35 ft | 60 ft | 342 ft | 62 ft | $22 |
| Loop C | C05 | standard nonelectric | 22 ft | 39 ft | 340 ft | 96 ft | $22 |
| Loop C | C06 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 74 ft | 291 ft | 106 ft | $22 |
| Loop C | C07 | tent only nonelectric | 21 ft | 39 ft | 308 ft | 135 ft | $22 |
| Loop C | C08 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 53 ft | 216 ft | 187 ft | $22 |
| Loop C | C09 | tent only nonelectric | 35 ft | 53 ft | 174 ft | 183 ft | $22 |
| Loop C | C10 | standard nonelectric | 22 ft | 45 ft | 241 ft | 80 ft | $22 |
| Loop C | C11 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 45 ft | 250 ft | 61 ft | $22 |
| Loop D | D01 | tent only nonelectric | 24 ft | 63 ft | 586 ft | 29 ft | $22 |
| Loop D | D02 | tent only nonelectric | 21 ft | 58 ft | 631 ft | 77 ft | $22 |
| Loop D | D03 | tent only nonelectric | 23 ft | 63 ft | 538 ft | 34 ft | $22 |
| Loop D | D04 | standard nonelectric | 26 ft | 52 ft | 592 ft | 80 ft | $22 |
| Loop D | D05 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 52 ft | 570 ft | 120 ft | $22 |
| Loop D | D06 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 69 ft | 548 ft | 182 ft | $22 |
| Loop D | D07 | tent only nonelectric | 24 ft | 27 ft | 428 ft | 322 ft | $22 |
| Loop D | D08 | tent only nonelectric | 26 ft | 27 ft | 403 ft | 350 ft | $22 |
| Loop D | D09 | standard nonelectric | 22 ft | 37 ft | 367 ft | 361 ft | $22 |
| Loop D | D10 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 59 ft | 338 ft | 313 ft | $22 |
| Loop D | D11 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | 85 ft | 437 ft | 130 ft | $22 |
| Loop D | D12 | standard nonelectric | 23 ft | 58 ft | 398 ft | 62 ft | $22 |
| Loop D | D13 | standard nonelectric | 23 ft | 83 ft | 518 ft | 94 ft | $22 |
| Loop D | D14 | tent only nonelectric | 35 ft | 83 ft | 482 ft | 62 ft | $22 |
| Loop E | E01 | type not stated | 21 ft | 747 ft | 187 ft | ||
| Loop E | E02 | tent only nonelectric | 59 ft | 69 ft | 698 ft | 152 ft | $22 |
| Loop E | E03 | type not stated | 24 ft | 817 ft | 244 ft | ||
| Loop E | E04 | type not stated | 27 ft | 783 ft | 174 ft | ||
| Loop E | E05 | tent only nonelectric | 26 ft | 75 ft | 910 ft | 234 ft | $22 |
| Loop E | E06 | tent only nonelectric | 24 ft | 65 ft | 858 ft | 156 ft | $22 |
| Loop E | E07 | tent only nonelectric | 21 ft | 46 ft | 922 ft | 204 ft | $22 |
| Loop E | E08 | tent only nonelectric | 26 ft | 67 ft | 862 ft | 128 ft | $22 |
| Loop E | E09 | tent only nonelectric | 21 ft | 46 ft | 937 ft | 203 ft | $22 |
| Loop E | E10 | tent only nonelectric | 35 ft | 54 ft | 927 ft | 188 ft | $22 |
| Loop E | E11 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 33 ft | 816 ft | 79 ft | $22 |
| Loop E | E12 | tent only nonelectric | 26 ft | 77 ft | 789 ft | 101 ft | $22 |
| Loop E | E13 | tent only nonelectric | 25 ft | 33 ft | 784 ft | 47 ft | $22 |
| Loop E | E14 | tent only nonelectric | 29 ft | 51 ft | 693 ft | 69 ft | $22 |
| Loop E | E15 | tent only nonelectric | 22 ft | 77 ft | 723 ft | 37 ft | $22 |
| Loop E | E16 | tent only nonelectric | 31 ft | 96 ft | 628 ft | 116 ft | $22 |
| Loop E | E17 | tent only nonelectric | 28 ft | 42 ft | 661 ft | 120 ft | $22 |
| Loop E | E18 | tent only nonelectric | 21 ft | 33 ft | 653 ft | 159 ft | $22 |
| Loop E | E19 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 28 ft | 634 ft | 192 ft | $22 |
| Loop E | E20 | tent only nonelectric | 16 ft | 28 ft | 611 ft | 217 ft | $22 |
| Loop E | E21 | tent only nonelectric | 24 ft | 56 ft | 652 ft | 172 ft | $22 |
| Loop E | E22 | tent only nonelectric | 28 ft | 79 ft | 741 ft | 111 ft | $22 |
| Loop E | E23 | tent only nonelectric | 23 ft | 56 ft | 699 ft | 188 ft | $22 |
25 of 48 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Summit Lake NorthLassen Volcanic National Park · 0.3 mi
Summit Lake Stock CorralLassen Volcanic National Park · 0.4 mi
Warner Valley CampgroundLassen Volcanic National Park · 3.6 mi
Backcountry Camping in Lassen's WildernessLassen Volcanic National Park · 4.1 mi
Southwest CampgroundLassen Volcanic National Park · 6.8 miSouthwest Campground - Winter/SpringLassen Volcanic National Park · 6.9 miFrom Redding, California take State Highway 44 east approximately 48 miles to the Manzanita Lake entrance of the park. The campground is 14 miles south of the entrance on the main park road.
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Warner Valley, CA
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
Summit Lake South is in California’s 1st congressional district. Whoever holds it votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. See how its representative votes on public lands →
Our roster still carries Doug LaMalfa for this district and the current federal record doesn’t list them as sitting, so we’re not naming a representative here until the two agree.