South Fork Campground — Sequoia National Park

My fiancé and I stumbled on the campsite because Sequoia NP is temporarily closed due to the fires.

The pictures shown don’t portray the site. There aren’t Sequoias at the actual site.

This campsite is accessible from South Fork Rd, which you do not have to enter the park to get into but the site is actually considered to be part of Sequoia NP.

We decided not to stay at the site but definitely have plans to in the future. It’s right by the river but not accessible from the campsite. This site is also super secluded but does have fire rings and Bear lockers.

There were also signs that said it was an active Bear area but not too sure how active the bears are there. There were also tons of mosquitoes, since it is right by the river. We also actually crossed paths with two tarantulas, one on the way to the site and one on the way out (different parts of the road).

Something to note is that the road to the campsite starts off paved then turns into a dirt road. The road is narrow and once you get closer to the site the road gets rocky and bumpy. I would highly recommend a car with 4WD and some clearance. I would also advise that if you’re not experienced with off roading, this road isn’t for you. I thankfully had my Jeep and fiancé who is seasoned in off roading.

I hope this review was helpful!

So I gave it an extra star because the closer you get, the more beautiful the scenery - but I never made it all the way. The description of the road is a bit deceptive. There’s 7+ miles paved but bumpy, tight turns, and quite a bit is barely one car wide. People were polite about working it out to get around each other but I also almost got hit head on as this guy came around a corner too fast and even after aimed right at me, apparently didn’t see me until I hit my horn so he didn’t ram me. He apologized but seriously if I hadn’t honked, I’m not sure I’d be typing this. So you struggle up all that and get not “almost” to the campground, but 3+miles out when the dirt road starts. I’m in an SUV so not a low clearance vehicle and I’m often driving at about 5-7 miles per hour for most of that to avoid hitting every rock, pothole, etc. I kept counting down how much further as it was closing in on 40 minutes for having covered maybe 8-10 miles. Despite it being a difficult drive, I was confident I could make it how things were going. I’m finally glad to see that i have only 1/2 more mile to go only to see what looks like God, Itself, took a jackhammer to the road and threw out about half the pieces leaving large ruts and holes between large rocks that are sticking up all over the road. I really wanted to keep going but with over 8 miles of no cell reception and not having seen anyone else for the last few miles, I made the incredibly frustrating decision to back up until I could find somewhere to turn around and go back to start. No passing go. No collecting $200. Just no campsite and a wasted hour and a half or so in total. I really believe without monster truck type tires, I’d have either embedded a huge rock into a tire and been stuck or had a tire get lodged between a couple rocks and been stuck. It’s great to be near sequoia national park but if no one hears from you until they send a search party, it doesn’t do you much good.