Nelson Point
October 2026
About
Overview
Nelson Point Campground is situated along the Sacramento Arm of Shasta Lake, easily accessible from 1-5 and located nearby many other recreation areas on Shasta Lake.
Recreation
The nearest public boat ramp is 6 miles away at Antlers. Nearby lakeside resorts offer boat rentals and fuel.
Shasta Lake is popular for power and non-motorized boating, fishing and water skiing. Anglers can fish for trout, catfish, Chinook salmon, crappie, bluegill, white sturgeon, brown bullhead and bass.
Facilities
Nelson Point is open for walk-ins April 1-May 13. The campground is available for group rental on a reservation basis from May 13-September 11. Reservations are not allowed for individual family camping during the peak season unless the entire campground is reserved. All campsites have a grill or stove, picnic tables, fire rings, tent pads, bear boxes and paved parking spurs. Vault toilets are provided, but there is no drinking water.
Natural Features
Shasta-Trinity is the largest national forest in California with a diverse landscape encompassing five wilderness areas, hundreds of mountain lakes and 6,278 miles of streams and rivers.
Lake Shasta sits at an elevation of 1,067 feet, with 365 miles of shoreline punctuated by steep mountains blanketed in manzanita and evergreens. A snow-capped Mount Shasta, the second-tallest mountain in the Cascade Range, looms in the distance.
Nearby Attractions
Lake Shasta Caverns is located on the McCloud Arm of Shasta Lake in an area known as the Grey Rocks. Tours are given daily at this privately owned facility.
Amenities
Phone: 530-275-8113
Is NELSON POINT 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 NELSON POINT in Lakehead, 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 NELSON POINT for cancellations is the paid part.