Boulder Basin
October 2026
About
Overview
Black Mountain Road is is poor condition at this time. A four-wheel drive (4WD) vehicle is recommended with a minimum ground clearance of 6 inches. Drive at your own risk.
The San Bernardino National Forest is submitting a proposal to increase fees at various sites across the Forest and is seeking public input. Please visit the https://www.fs.usda.gov/sbnf for more information and to submit comments regarding this proposal.
Boulder Basin Campground offers solitude and primitive camping in a scenic mountain landscape. The area provides ample recreational opportunities, including hiking, mountain biking, boulder climbing and more. Black Mountain Road, which accesses Boulder Basin Campground, is a narrow rough dirt road which may not be suitable for all vehicles.
Recreation
The campground provides access to a number of trailheads, including the Black Mountain Trail, a 3.6-mile, moderately strenuous hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding trail that travels through the forested slopes of Black Mountain.
The trail provides excellent views of the Banning Pass and Mt. San Gorgonio. The trail provides access to the famed Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail, which begins at the Mexico border in Southern California and leads to Washington border of Canada.
Facilities
The campground offers multiple single-family campsites, available for tent and small RV / van camping. Each site is equipped with tables and campfire rings with grills. Vault toilets are also provided.
Natural Features
The campground is located in a mixed conifer forest, which provides ample shade throughout the day. It is situated at an elevation of about 7,300 feet. Roads to the campground are not paved but the campground does have paved roads.
Nearby Attractions
This group site is located approximately 50 miles southeast of San Bernardino, California, and 14 miles north of Idyllwild, where fuel and a variety of small town shops and restaurants are available.
Phone: 909-382-2922
Is BOULDER BASIN fully booked?
A campground showing no availability is almost never full for good. People cancel — plans change, weather turns, someone books three weekends and keeps one — and the site goes straight back into the booking system, usually without warning and often at odd hours. The reason sold-out campgrounds feel impossible is not that sites never free up; it is that nobody is watching at the moment they do.
CampHawk watches BOULDER BASIN in Idyllwild, CA for you. We recheck it every 15 seconds, around the clock, and the moment a site opens we send a text, an email and a push notification — and on Recreation.gov we can put the site straight into your cart, so it is held while you get to your phone.
Searching is free and needs no account — the calendar above is live right now. Watching BOULDER BASIN for cancellations is the paid part.