Sweetwater
2Heads up2 fires, nearest 20 mi
- Right now
- Closedrecreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend, read 16:08 UTC
- Sites
- 12In the agency’s record
- Season
- June 1Opens June 1. No closing date published.
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 10 notices
In the agency’s own words
Sweetwater Campground remains closed due to the 2020 Creek Wildfire Sweetwater Campground is laid out in a single loop along Chiquito Creek, shaded by pine, oak and cedar trees. Most sites overlook the creek or a brook that also runs by the campground. Keep reading
Recreation
The campground attracts visitors primarily for its fishing and swimming holes. Many recreational activities are available at Mammoth Pool, including boating, trout fishing, hiking and swimming.
Facilities
Each campsite contains a picnic table, grill and campfire ring. Vault toilets are provided. Campers must bring drinking water. Supplies are available nearby at Wagner's Mammoth Pool Resort. Parking spurs are dirt and paved, but tight turns and trees at the edge of interior roads make this camp most ideal for pop-up tent trailers, slide-ins and tent campers.
Natural Features
The Sierra National Forest, located on the western slope of the central Sierra Nevada, is known for its spectacular mountain scenery and abundant natural resources. The terrain includes rolling, oak-covered foothills, heavily forested middle elevation slopes and the starkly beautiful alpine landscape of the High Sierra. Sweetwater Campground is located close to Mammoth Pool Reservoir near the Ansel Adams Wilderness. This area is known for its jagged peaks, including 13,157-foot Mt. Ritter, and numerous lakes and streams.
Nearby Attractions
A popular pastime in the area is taking a drive on the 83-mile Sierra Vista Scenic Byway.
What the agency tells you
Maximum RV length is 20 feet
Drinking water is not provided at this campground
This is bear country; please store food properly in provided food storage lockers
Everything else this campground posts · 7
Mammoth Pool is closed to boating and fishing May 1st to June 16th for deer migration
In accordance with standard industry practices, Sierra Recreation will be assessing a $7 additional vehicle fee per day on the second vehicle in each single family campsite, and on the third and fourth vehicle in any double family campsite, provided these vehicles are not joined to the first vehicle by a hitch and towed onto the site. In the case of motorcycles, the first two are considered as one vehicle for determining additional vehicle fees. The third and fourth motorcycle would also be considered as one vehicle. No additional vehicle fees are collected for bicycles.
This facility is operated by Sierra Recreation A Division of California Land Management and your comments are appreciated; comment forms are available from campground hosts or on CLM's website
Click here for more information about Sierra National Forest
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. For current fire conditions or weather closures contact the Sierra National Forest Headquarters, (559) 297-0706.
No more than two pets per site
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.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 12
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 20 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…a picnic table, grill and campfire ring. Vault toilets are provided. Campers must bring drinking water.…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “Campers must bring drinking water.”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake, Creek
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Swimming
- Night sky · 570th darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 3
- Fall color · reported 12 days ago, 37 km away
- Peak color
Nothing to book until it reopensread 16:08 UTC
recreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend
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.
Tell me when it reopens
Watch for it to come back
One email when the agency reopens it, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check the agency’s own record once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time it stops saying closed.
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.
Every line of the receipt · 9
What you actually pay
“In accordance with standard industry practices, Sierra Recreation will be assessing a $7 additional vehicle fee per day on the second vehicle in each single family campsite, and on the third and fourth vehicle in any…” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own agency notice
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 · 4
Why this page can’t say why
recreation.gov lists every site at Sweetwater closed this Friday and Saturday night. The U.S. Forest Service has published no closure notice we hold, so this page can’t say why, and it won’t fill the gap with a guess. A closed night isn’t a sold-out one: the reservations its record still carries were taken before the sites were closed.
There’s no notice to quote and no reason to argue with, so this page offers you the watch and the list below, and no letter.
Open within 60 miles · 4
The agency’s own word that these are open, not our reading of a season.
- Little Jackass CampgroundSierra National Forest · 2.6 mi · walk-up
- West Kaiser CampgroundSierra National Forest · 6.4 mi · walk-up
- Sample Meadow CampgroundSierra National Forest · 11 mi · walk-up
- Cedar BluffSierra National Forest · 11 mi · 22 sites
recreation.gov availability, read 16:08 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
12 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 9 mapped sitesAll 12 sites
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.
| AREA SWEETWATER | 001 | standard nonelectric | 76 ft | 95 ft | |
| AREA SWEETWATER | 002 | standard nonelectric | 26 ft | 39 ftChiquito Creek | |
| AREA SWEETWATER | 003 | standard nonelectric | 26 ft | 32 ftChiquito Creek | |
| AREA SWEETWATER | 004 | standard nonelectric | 37 ft | 38 ftChiquito Creek | |
| AREA SWEETWATER | 005 | standard nonelectric | 37 ft | 38 ftChiquito Creek | |
| AREA SWEETWATER | 006 | standard nonelectric | 37 ft | 60 ft | |
| AREA SWEETWATER | 007 | standard nonelectric | 37 ft | 48 ft | |
| AREA SWEETWATER | 008 | standard nonelectric | 102 ft | 154 ftChiquito Creek | |
| AREA SWEETWATER | 009 | standard nonelectric | 76 ft | 119 ft | |
| AREA SWEETWATER | 010 | standard nonelectric | |||
| AREA SWEETWATER | FS1-20 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | ||
| AREA SWEETWATER | FS1-20N | standard nonelectric | 20 ft |
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 agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Mammoth PoolSierra National Forest · 1.8 miSoda Springs CampgroundSierra National Forest · 2.3 miLittle Jackass CampgroundSierra National Forest · 2.6 miLower Chiquito CampgroundSierra National Forest · 3.8 miRock Creek CampgroundSierra National Forest · 5.1 miFrom Fresno, California, take Highway 41 north. Turn northeast on Forest Road 200 and pass through North Fork. Take Minarets Road east and follow it 37 miles. Turn right on Mammoth Pool Road and follow it 2 miles to Sweetwater Campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for North Fork, CA
Typical weather
Typical June night 51°F, day 81°F.
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
Sweetwater 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 →