Live Oak South
October 2026
About
Overview
Reservations not being accepted. Live Oak South Campground is located across the road from Lake Isabella, a popular destination for boating, windsurfing, fishing and swimming. Lake Isabella sits within Sequoia National Forest, just 6 miles from the town of Lake Isabella.
Recreation
Water activities at Lake Isabella are popular and include swimming, water skiing, windsurfing and fishing. The lake is known for its trout fishing during the colder months. Other species include black and white crappie, bluegill, catfish and largemouth bass.
Facilities
The campground offers sites for tent camping only. Each site is equipped with a picnic table and campfire ring. Flush toilets, showers and drinking water are provided.
Natural Features
The campground is situated in a grove of scenic oak trees at an approximate elevation of 2,500 feet.
Lake Isabella sits at the southern end of the Sierra Nevada range. The 11,000-acre lake marks the division between the Upper Kern River and the Lower Kern River.
Sequoia National Forest is named for the giant sequoia, the world's largest tree, which grows in more than 30 groves on the forest's lower slopes. The forest comprises about 1.1 million acres. Elevations range from 1,000 to 12,000 feet, creating precipitous canyons and mountain streams with spectacular waterfalls such as Salmon Creek Falls and Grizzly Falls.
Nearby Attractions
Live Oak South provides a good base for day trips to Sequoia National Park. The Trail of a Hundred Giants and numerous sequoia groves can be found nearby within Giant Sequoia National Monument.
The Giant Sequoia Mercantile is just 5 miles away in Kernville, and offers a wide variety of books, maps, gifts and camping equipment.
Amenities
Phone: 760-376-1815
Is LIVE OAK SOUTH 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 LIVE OAK SOUTH 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 LIVE OAK SOUTH for cancellations is the paid part.