Chilkoot
October 2026
About
Overview
Chilkoot is named for the creek that runs by the campground. The facility is shaded by a grove of Ponderosa pine, fir and cedar, and offers ample space for tent or RV camping.
This campground is located at an elevation of approximately 4,600 feet, providing a comfortable camping experience during the hottest days of summer.
Recreation
A popular recreation and resort area is a few miles away at Bass Lake. Activities here include motorized and non-motorized boating, fishing, swimming, hiking, sailing and water skiing.
Anglers can fish in Chilkoot Creek for channel catfish, sucker and brown trout. Other nearby activities include hiking the Buena Vista trail and paddling on Willow Creek.
Facilities
This rustic campground provides a host and vault toilets but no water. Each unit has a gravel parking spur, picnic table and fire ring. Some sites are located on slopes and are not suitable for tents, while other sites are tent only.
Natural Features
The Sierra National Forest, located on the western slope of the central Sierra Nevada, is known for its spectacular mountain scenery and abundant natural resources.
The terrain includes rolling, oak-covered foothills, heavily forested middle elevation slopes and the starkly beautiful alpine landscape of the High Sierra.
Nearby Attractions
Yosemite National Park can be reached in under an hour from Chilkoot Campground. The South Fork of the Merced River is also nearby, which is popular for whitewater rafting.
Charges & Cancellations
Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
Amenities
Is CHILKOOT 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 CHILKOOT in 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 CHILKOOT for cancellations is the paid part.