Thorndike Campground (Primitive)
2Heads up1 park alert · 1 fire 18 mi away
This is how it should work.
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- FreeNo camping fee
- Sites
- 66 of them walk-up
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
***No Potable Water Available in the Wildrose Area. Closest available water ~38 miles north at Stovepipe Wells, CA. First-come, first-served primitive, forested campground with no additional fee located at 7,400' elevation. Accessible to high clearance vehicles (no longer than 25') and 4x4 may be necessary. Closest available water ~38 miles north at Stovepipe Wells. May still be impacted by snowy/icy conditions in late spring.
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets - seasonal
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
Around the campground
- Night sky · 83rd darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 2
Nothing to book, just show up
One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and it costs nothing at all. 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.
Every line of the receipt · 4
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s own record says there’s no camping fee, and no booking fee, because this campground takes no reservations. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
How we know this receipt · 5
record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Where it is
Mahogany Flat Campground (Primitive)Death Valley National Park · 0.5 mi
Wildrose CampgroundDeath Valley National Park · 6.9 mi
Sunset CampgroundDeath Valley National Park · 19 mi
Death Valley Backcountry Roadside CampingDeath Valley National Park · 19 mi
Furnace Creek CampgroundDeath Valley National Park · 19 mi
Texas Springs CampgroundDeath Valley National Park · 20 miThe weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Furnace Creek, CA
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Thorndike Campground (Primitive) 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 →