Best Cabin Camping near Camp Nelson, CA

Most reviews here are dated. Campground has been abandoned for years so: no fees, busted up roads, no water, no trash, no bathrooms, no cell/wifi. Basically dispersed camping in an awesome location on concrete spurs/pads.  Each site still had picnic table and fire pit.  The mosquitos here are biblical at night so bring your nets and deet.  Kern creek and trails right from campground. General store and Grumpy Bear tavern close down the road.  Only 2 other campers here when I stayed in October. Great place as long as you are expecting disbursed camping experience.

Sentinel was the only campground available for a visit to Kings Canyon and Sequoia. Be prepared for a LONG drive to get anywhere.

The campsite was amazing!!! You are nestled by the river and under beautiful big trees. The site was spacious with a picnic table, fire pit and bear box.

The restroom is dated, but it’s a flush toilet and running water, which is a gift. They do have a sink to clean dishes.

I found it to be pretty quiet. Most sites were dark shortly after sunset. A lot of people were up and out early in the morning. So many amazing hikes and walks to do within the two parks.

We stayed at one of the group campsites with about 15 people total. Plenty of space and picnic tables my only complaint was that there was only one normal sized bear locker for a group campsite. Hard to fit coolers and food for 15 people into one bear locker.This might be normal for group campsites but this was our first time using one so we were caught off guard. Parking is also an issue as they have 4 giant group campsites with maybe one small parking lot with 15 spaces to share between them. Most of your group will have to park on the side of the road outside the entrance to the campground. Besides those two things the campground is great. There is a general store about a mile down the road if you need ice or snacks and they have WiFi if you absolutely need to get ahold of someone.

Lodgepole is a very popular camp ground in the Sequoias. There is a river that runs through the camp ground that is easily accessed and made for a lot of fun during our visit. The lodge offers many accommodations including food, laundry, visitors center, and shuttle access. The camp sites we stayed in were only for tents and included fire pit with grate (needed to be dug out a bit) and picnic table. Bear box on each site and additional shared boxes in walking distance for additional storage. Water and bathrooms within short walking distance. This is a busy campground and I find that it's hard not to get to know your neighbor. We were very fortunate to have other kids our daughters age by us however I can see how this could be inconvenient for some. Rangers patrol sites often and lots of wildlife in area. We enjoyed our stay and felt that it offered great access to both parks and enjoyed the trails that led directly from the campgrounds.

Getting there: A long drive on windy roads behind people generally doing 10mph under the speed limit. Take your time because you sure wont be able to rush. Once inside the campground the road looks more like a lunar landscape with more potholes than pavement. Campsites: The group campsites are fairly spacious and easily fit 15 of us, they are rated to hold 20 people but that might be a bit of a squeeze. All the campsites provide 3 picnic benches, 3 bear boxes (not enough so be weary of how many coolers you have), and only one fire pit with grill grate. Trying to get 15 people around a single fire pit and still within range of the warmth was a major issue. There are shared restroom areas with full plumbing and potable water through the campsite. This campsite was also really, really far away from most of the stuff we wanted to do, I would NOT stay at this campsite again. WARNING: The rangers here are asshats. They were constantly patrolling and searching for a reason to write us a ticket (-1 star). They gave us 3 warnings the first day of our stay for BS nit picky reason (we don't want to put our shit in the bear bin when we are sitting around snacking on it you dick). The Park: Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park were nice but everything you want to do is at least an hour drive each way on windy roads. Kind of a pain. What to do: Go out on some hikes, there are a ton of trails. Go see the giant Sequoias, either General Sherman or General Grant. Go explore some caves, they are awesome.

Stayed in Site 78 in the upper part of Lodgepole, which was perfect. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, no one was in the site next to us. (That one, site 74, seemed really cramped. Someone had moved the picnic table to the tent pad, but there wasn't really much space to move it anywhere else. If someone had been in that site, we'd have had neighbors pretty close to us.) On the other side of this site is a hillside, so the neighbors on that side are further up. The river helps to drown out the other campground noise, but we lucked out with all good neighbors, even on the weekend.

Site 78 is NOT listed as a "walk in" site, but you do have to walk your stuff down a little hill to get to the site, which has a lovely, flat tent pad. (Only issue was on one part of the pad, Lodgepole chipmunks had made holes. We were able to put our 4-person tent so it wasn't over those holes. I'd be concerned about the chipmunks chewing through the tent if you put it over their two holes.)

Nice fire pit, with views of the river and of the bridge through the campground. We could watch people coming and going on the Tokopah Falls Trail across the river. Our picnic table was SLIGHTLY slanted, but not a big deal. Our site was just across from the bathrooms. (Bring a light for that. Bathrooms have no lights here, but there are flushing toilets and sinks.) It's uphill to the bathrooms, but not too bad. The water spigot was right by our site, too. And we were within easy walking distance of both the Tokopah Falls trailhead and the shuttle bus stop at the campground to other parts of the park. (In June of 2021, the shuttles were running regularly along routes 1 and 4, with 2 and 3 not running because of the pandemic.)

The showers were listed as "closed for the season," which also appeared to be pandemic related. This was a bit disappointing because we were hoping to shower at some point during our 4-night stay. So beware of that, if you really want a shower. The Lodgepole visitor's center was also closed because of the pandemic, but the market was open, where you could buy souvenirs, typical items in a camp market (wood, marshmallows, drinks, ice cream, etc…)

Rangers were friendly. (Look for Ranger Alex and say hello!) Put your food and scented items in bear boxes. We were told that a bear had been in the campground in the previous week. We also saw one up the Tokopah Falls trail, in the meadow upstream from the campground. There is a kitchen sink at the bathrooms. The trash and recycle bins were across from the bathrooms. There were also extra bear boxes here and there, in case your stuff doesn't fit in one box.

You're welcome to scavenge for kindling and small pieces of wood here or else just buy wood from the market. (It was about $11 per box.)

Overall, we enjoyed our stay. We loved some of the other sites along the river, as well, also in Upper Lodgepole. Lower Lodgepole was more open, with what looked to be more party types and larger groups, plus more RV's. Across the bridge was another area, which seemed to be a mix of RV's and tents, but my group agreed we'd stick with Upper Lodgepole as tenters.

Also, as noted on various websites, there's no cell phone service here. If you need to pop in to check a quick work email, there's slow wifi at the lodge about a 10 minute drive up the road. You can grab a wifi signal in the lobby there or grab a bite at their grill, but it's not fast wifi. Good enough for quick email answers though.

Somewhere up near the starry night a pinecone the size of a cat begins its descent to the soft, needle laden ground below. It softly thumps against a branch, and then another, and still another. What seems like minutes, indeed enough time to walk a ways down a path, or find the restroom, or toss a ball many times with kids, the soft thumping grows a little louder, and boldly becomes a clunk…clunk…thunk…until the pinecone emerges from the cover of limbs and lands…bouncing…on the ground at my feet. This is the mighty sugar pine; a tree whose girth is so large in its own right that our family of five cannot manage to stretch our arms, hand-in-hand, around the whole of the tree. And yet, like the small dog that mercilessly barks, the giant sugar pine displays its fantastically large pinecones as a means to say, "I am here", rather than get lost among the biggest trees in the world by volume---the giant sequoias.

This isn't just a land of giant trees. Sequoia and King's Canyon boast some of the most grandiose monuments in all of the continental United States: the deepest canyon, the tallest mountain, incredible caves, the view from Morro Rock, a collection of some of the highest mountain passes, and an expansive backcountry wilderness. Despite the many wonderful park visual aids to teach visitors about the size of these great sequoias, and even standing at the foot of these great trees, I found it impossible to comprehend their size. The extremes of this beautiful place bring with them a sense of humility, much like standing at the edge of the ocean, and all that remains is peace and serenity. While we found this park to be far more awe-inspiring than Yosemite, really than any of the any parks we've visited, it is far less touristed and crowded.

And then there is the wildlife. California Black Bears were resting in every meadow that we walked by, usually making a meal of grubs in the rotting logs. We stopped to let a mama Quail pass with all her babies in a row behind her. Marmots greeted us from the hidden nooks, running here and there to find something to nibble.

With a national park like this, I'd be willing to sleep in my car! But I didn't have to, fortunately. We stayed in a cabin in Grant Grove, centrally located in the park. The cabin was furnished perfectly, and included all that we needed for bedding. There was a lovely fire fueled stove outside on the covered patio. The showers were good enough and there was a place to wash dishes. Grant Village has a large market for groceries, a restaurant and a visitor center. There is a free shuttle that runs through the park to alleviate any concerns about parking. This review is for General Grant Cabins, which are reservable from a separate entity via the National Parks system. However, it is alongside a campground area where tents and RVs can be parked. This is marked cabins only due to the NPS divisions--search for the campground to learn how to set up a tent or park an RV at the very same location.