CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
The map
National Park Service · Death Valley National Park · CA

Sunset Campground

2Heads up1 park alert · 1 fire 1.0 mi away
Wildfire
Pole fire · 1.0 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 12, 2026
Information
Gas Pumps at Panamint Springs Resort are Closed at Night Gasoline is available at Panamint Springs Resort from 7am-9:30pm, daily. Gas is available at Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells 24hrs.
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 12, 2026
Alerts: National Park Service alerts API · Oct 16, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: all 230 sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directions
Right now
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
Sites
230230 of them walk-up
Photos · NPS Photo / Jason Gray
-150 ftElevation
3,222 ftWater · an unnamed pond
15.3 miSW of Amargosa Valley, NV
230Walk-up sites
0%Tree cover

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

***Scheduled to open mid to late November 2026. Check our Alerts and Conditions page for up-to-date information. Open seasonally, typically late fall through mid-April. First-come, first-served, large campground that rarely fills. This location has little to no vegetation and is comprised of desert gravels. Car and tent camping is permitted. No picnic tables or fire rings. Campfires are not allowed in Sunset except at a few established community fire grates within the campground.

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
Flush Toilets - seasonal
Drinking water
Yes
Dump station
Yes
Source: National Park Service and agency records

Around the campground

Night sky · 209th darkest of 1,201 in CA
Bortle 2
Source: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate · Sep 8, 2026
Official page: Sunset Campground Official Website →

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.

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.

BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe agency’s record
Runs itNational Park Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 3

What you actually pay

The sign priceNational Park Service
The National Park 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.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
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: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

rules read Sep 7, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Coordinate36.45729, -116.86192
The agency’s pageOfficial page ↗

Where it is

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Today96°Sunny
Tonight71°Mostly Clear
Saturday93°Sunny
Saturday Night69°Mostly Clear

NWS forecast for Furnace Creek, CA

Source: National Weather Service, VEF forecast office · Oct 16, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 64°F, day 93°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical December night 41°F. Bring the bag rated for it.

130°30°

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: DEATH VALLEY NP, CA (USC00042319), 0.4 miles away and 44 ft lower
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

What threatens this place

Watch

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Sep 30, 2026

Who answers for this land

Kevin Kiley, official portrait

Sunset 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 →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: National Park 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: the number below is the only way to be sure.
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.054 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 1,201 rated federal campgrounds in California · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Cell signal: the Park 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: Furnace Creek, CA, 0.2 mi NNE (a census designated place). Straight line.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026