Trumbull Lake
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $34–$65Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 4130 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
Trumbull Lake Campground is located next to its scenic namesake at an elevation of 9,980 feet. The lake is one of ten alpine lakes in the area. Visitors enjoy fishing, canoeing and exploring local trails. Keep reading
Recreation
Trumbull Lake offers canoeing and fishing for rainbow, brown and brook trout in a beautiful natural setting.
Facilities
This campground contains several single-family sites, a few double sites and one triple site, all with picnic tables, food storage lockers and campfire rings with grills. A few sites closer to the water have partial lake views. picnic tables, food storage lockers and campfire rings with grills. A few sites closer to the water have partial lake views. Vault toilets, drinking water and trash collection are provided. Firewood is available for purchase from the host. Roads and parking spurs are dirt. Check in for campsites is 2pm, check out is noon.
Natural Features
The campground is situated on the shores of quiet Trumbull Lake, a 100-acre lake surrounded by towering peaks and glacier-carved cirques. A dense forest of lodgepole pine covers the campground, providing ample shade in most campsites. Aspens and summer wildflowers dot the landscape.
Nearby Attractions
The Virginia Lakes area is very close, offering additional canoeing and fishing. The Virginia Lake Trail, for hiking and horseback riding, provides access into the adjacent Hoover Wilderness Area and Yosemite National Park. Bodie State Park.
What the agency tells you
Caution: Black bears frequent the area; all food must be kept in approved containers
Opening and closing dates depend heavily upon weather conditions
A fee for extra vehicles will be collected at the campground
Everything else this campground posts · 3
This campground has first-come, first-served sites
Click here for more info about the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forests
Don't Move Firewood: Help prevent the spread of tree-killing pests in our national forests by obtaining firewood near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 41
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 82 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…to the water have partial lake views. Vault toilets, drinking water and trash collection are provided.…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…have partial lake views. Vault toilets, drinking water and trash collection are provided. Firewood is…”
- Bear boxes
- Yes
- Firewood
- Sold here
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake
- Boating
- Fishing
- Night sky · 111th darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 2
- Fall color · reported 6 days ago, 13 km away
- Patchy color
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 30 of the 41 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 · 15
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $34–$65 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 Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
42 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 24 mapped sitesAll 42 records
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 24 of the 42 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. 41 of the 42 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
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.
| BDBL | 002 | standard nonelectric | 37 ft | 99 ft | 571 ftLittle Valley | 64 ft | $34–$65 |
| BDBL | 006 | standard nonelectric | 18 ft | 49 ft | 736 ftLittle Valley | 236 ft | $34–$65 |
| BDBL | 009 | standard nonelectric | 42 ft | 122 ft | 524 ftTrumbull Lake | 599 ft | $34–$65 |
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 20 | type not stated | $34 | ||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 21 | type not stated | $34 | ||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 25 | type not stated | $34 | ||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 26 | type not stated | $34 | ||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 28 | type not stated | $34 | ||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 29 | type not stated | $34 | ||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 31 | type not stated | $34 | ||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 33 | type not stated | $34 | ||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 35 | type not stated | $34 | ||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 36 | type not stated | $34 | ||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 45 | type not stated | $34 | ||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | XXX | unnamed record | 45 ft | $34 | |||
| TRPL | 040 | standard nonelectric | 27 ft | 83 ft | 353 ftTrumbull Lake | 1,057 ft | $34–$65 |
| TRUM | 001 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 246 ft | 519 ft | 246 ft | $34–$65 |
| TRUM | 003 | standard nonelectric | 53 ft | 129 ft | 657 ftLittle Valley | 177 ft | $34–$65 |
| TRUM | 004 | standard nonelectric | 47 ft | 82 ft | 668 ftLittle Valley | 162 ft | $34–$65 |
| TRUM | 005 | standard nonelectric | 82 ft | 129 ft | 771 ftLittle Valley | 269 ft | $34–$65 |
| TRUM | 007 | standard nonelectric | 58 ft | 49 ft | 768 ftLittle Valley | 278 ft | $34–$65 |
| TRUM | 008 | standard nonelectric | 38 ft | 137 ft | 649 ftTrumbull Lake | 463 ft | $34–$65 |
| TRUM | 010 | rv nonelectric | 26 ft | 122 ft | 402 ftTrumbull Lake | 716 ft | $34 |
| TRUM | 011 | standard nonelectric | 27 ft | 95 ft | 282 ftTrumbull Lake | 846 ft | $34–$65 |
| TRUM | 012 | standard nonelectric | 52 ft | 80 ft | 191 ftTrumbull Lake | 970 ft | $34–$65 |
| TRUM | 013 | standard nonelectric | 46 ft | 52 ft | 182 ftTrumbull Lake | 1,038 ft | $34–$65 |
| TRUM | 014 | standard nonelectric | 26 ft | 52 ft | 191 ftTrumbull Lake | 1,084 ft | $34–$65 |
| TRUM | 015 | standard nonelectric | 32 ft | 57 ft | 229 ftTrumbull Lake | 1,106 ft | $34–$65 |
| TRUM | 016 | standard nonelectric | 39 ft | 58 ft | 278 ftTrumbull Lake | 979 ft | $34–$65 |
| TRUM | 017 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 64 ft | 297 ftTrumbull Lake | 886 ft | $34–$65 |
| TRUM | 018 | standard nonelectric | 29 ft | 68 ft | 356 ftTrumbull Lake | 798 ft | $34–$65 |
| TRUM | 019 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | $34–$65 | |||
| TRUM | 027 | standard nonelectric | $34–$65 | ||||
| TRUM | 030 | standard nonelectric | $34–$65 | ||||
| TRUM | 032 | standard nonelectric | $34–$65 | ||||
| TRUM | 034 | standard nonelectric | $34–$65 | ||||
| TRUM | 037 | standard nonelectric | $34–$65 | ||||
| TRUM | 038 | standard nonelectric | 38 ft | 83 ft | 215 ftTrumbull Lake | 1,191 ft | $34–$65 |
| TRUM | 039 | standard nonelectric | 32 ft | 72 ft | 283 ftTrumbull Lake | 1,125 ft | $34–$65 |
| TRUM | 041 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 58 ft | 313 ftTrumbull Lake | 921 ft | $34–$65 |
| TRUM | 042 | standard nonelectric | 42 ft | 66 ft | 363 ftTrumbull Lake | 832 ft | $34–$65 |
| TRUM | 043 | standard nonelectric | 32 ft | 78 ft | 434 ftTrumbull Lake | 728 ft | $34–$65 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It types it MANAGEMENT rather than a campsite. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
25 of 42 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Lower Virginia Creek Primitive CampgroundToiyabe National Forest · 2.1 mi
Green Creek GroupToiyabe National Forest · 4.3 mi
Saddlebag Lake Trailhead Group CampInyo National Forest · 6.0 miSawmill Walk-in CampgroundInyo National Forest · 6.5 miJunction CampgroundInyo National Forest · 7.7 miEllery Lake CampgroundInyo National Forest · 7.8 miTravel 13.5 miles south of Bridgeport on Highway 395. Turn right at Conway Summit. Travel 5.9 miles on Forest Road 21 to where the asphalt turns to gravel. Turn right at campground entrance.
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Virginia Lakes, 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
Trumbull Lake 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 →