CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
The map
Bureau of Land Management · King Range National Conservation Area · CA

Tolkan Campground

First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
Drawn from the record · 1,820 ft · 73% tree cover · South Fork Bear Creek within reach · Bortle 2 sky
1,820 ftElevation
1,057 ftWater · South Fork Bear CreekOcean · 1.5 mi · to the Pacific Ocean
12 miSW of Redway, CA
73%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 13th darkest of 1,201 in CA

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

4 tent sites and 5 trailer campsites Wheelchair accessible sites Fire rings, picnic tables, bear-proof trash cans, vault toilets Trailhead for the Tolkan Terrain Park Trailhead for Paradise Royale Mountain Bike loop $15.00 per night for campsites First come-first served No day use fee No OHV access. NO POTABLE WATER A quick drive to the town of Shelter Cove, this campground is located 15 minutes up King Peak Road which is unpaved. Providing access to the only mountain bike trails in the King Range, Tolkan is surrounded by large oak trees and nearby hiking trails. Keep reading

Paradise Royale Mountain bike trail, Pacific Rim and Tolkan Terrain Park are all open year-round, with no day use fees. The perfect getaway for mountain bikers, hikers and backpackers looking to access the Lost Coast Trail from a different perspective. This campground provides access to Horse Mountain Creek Trailhead and is a 45-minute drive to Lightning Trailhead for those who want to hike to King Peak (4wheel drive and good clearance recommended for this drive.) Wilderness permits are required for any overnight stay in the King Range Wilderness. Cell reception is unreliable, please recreate responsibly.

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

Facilities

Toilets
Vault Toilets
“…picnic tables, bear-proof trash cans, vault toilets Trailhead for the Tolkan Terrain Park Trailhead for…”
Drinking water
None, bring your own
“…served No day use fee No OHV access. NO POTABLE WATER A quick drive to the town of Shelter Cove, this…”
Source: read from the agency description, shown above · Sep 12, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Creek, Coast
Biking
Playground Park Specialized Sport Site
Cell signal · Cell signal · BLM says
Spotty
Source: Recreation.gov activity records · Aug 23, 2026
Cell signal: the BLM’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. · Sep 8, 2026

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 itBureau of Land Managementthe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 4

What you actually pay

The sign priceBureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management 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.
Night for campsites First come-first served No day use fee$15
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
Coordinate40.08165, -124.05740
The phone(707)986-5400

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

Overnight50°Mostly Clear
Saturday75°Mostly Sunny
Saturday Night50°Partly Cloudy
Sunday59°Mostly Sunny1% rain

NWS forecast for Shelter Cove, CA

Source: National Weather Service, EKA forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 39°F, day 76°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical December night 32°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

100°32°20°

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: COVELO, CA (USC00042081), 47 miles away and 407 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

who answers for it

Who answers for this land

Jared Huffman, official portrait

Tolkan Campground is in California’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Jared Huffman (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A. 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: Bureau of Land Management 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: 0.015 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 BLM’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. · Sep 8, 2026

“…any overnight stay in the King Range Wilderness. Cell reception is unreliable, please recreate responsibly.”

Nearest place of any size: Shelter Cove, CA, 1.3 mi N (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