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POTENTIAL FIRE BANS - CHECK BEFORE CAMPING Last report - bans in effect til 11/2020 (reported 10/2020) Located on the east side of Lake Isabella off Sierra Way. Open camping; Free use area; Chemical toilets. No limit on trailer length. Open year round. Supplies at Kernville
Keysville (formerly Keyesville) is a historic mining area that offers a wide variety of recreational opportunities. Set in rolling terrain amidst a blue oak and foothill pine woodland, Keysville is dissected by the lower Kern River. A little exploration can turn up a wealth of historic resources, including a variety of mining structures and features, a historic fort, and the famous Walker Cabin. Keysville offers commercial and noncommercial white-water rafting opportunities as well as fishing, recreational gold panning, and dispersed camping. A network of over seventy miles of trails provides for mountain biking, equestrian, and motorized recreation use.
Travel Responsibly - on designated roads and trails or in permitted areas
Respect The Rights of Others - including private property owners and all recreational trail users, campers and others to allow them to enjoy their recreational activities undisturbed. Educate Yourself - by obtaining travel maps and regulations from public agencies, planning for your trip, taking recreation skills classes and knowing how to use and operate your equipment safely. Avoid Sensitive Areas - such as meadows, lakeshores, wetlands and streams, unless on designated routes. Do Your Part - by leaving the area better than you found it, properly disposing of waste, minimizing the use of fire, avoiding the spread of invasive species, restoring degraded areas and joining a local enthusiast organization.
https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/documents/files/Keysville%20arch%20E%20low%20res.pdf
Dispersed Camping on the shore of Lake Isabella. Vault toilet available. No trash recepticals available (Pack In-Pack Out). ALL Upper Kern Dispersed Camping sites, under restrictions - No Camping or Campfires are allowed within 25 feet of the water___s edge.
The entire OHV area and surrounding public lands are open to primitive camping. Within Jawbone Canyon, there are a number of excellent primitive camping sites and OHV staging/off-loading areas. Most of the sites within the OHV area are accessible by 2-wheel drive vehicles with trailers.
Either "Green or Red Sticker" OHV registration is mandatory for ALL vehicles that are not "street legal." Visitors from outside the state of California must have a valid permit/registration from an off-highway vehicle program in your home state. If you do not have a valid permit/registration from your home state, you will have to purchase a "Non-Resident OHV Permit" for California. This sticker can be purchased at the Jawbone OHV Station.
Campfire Permits required for campfires, barbeques, and camp stoves. Campfires and barbaques may be prohibited during fire restrictions, camp stoves allowed with current Califronia Campfrire Permit.
Scout
Clean Spots, recommend! lot of space and different places.
Guide
35.08627305276245,-117.54092669125416 Great space. Easy to find. Away from highway enough. Very windy. Great sunset and sunrise.
Guide
We love lake Isabella and just discovered this free camp spot right on the beach…
GuideAll the spots at the front were taken here so we had to drive almost all the way to end. Don’t go down the final steep hill, you might not make it up. It’s very tight there and you have to do a 20 point turn to turn back.
We walked down the hill and our friend saw some random guy come out the trees and follow us as we were walking back up. He might be living there because there was so much trash
2 stars because the area itself is nice, there’s the river nearby and internet was good
Travelerwe looked around the indicated GPS point but at this location, but house or ranch, nothing that looks like the photos posted previously. too bad the spot looked magnificent but with night falling and fatigue from the road we finally slept facing the road in the post office parking lot.
GuideWe stayed here two nights and felt so peaceful and out of sight ! Def recommend
TravelerWe pulled in at night time around 10:30PM. I was scared it would be sketchy, but turned out to be a smooth dirt road. We encountered multiple other campers as well before we found a suitable turnout. Loved the accessibility. We woke up to a beautiful little spot near the water; would definitely camp again here
Traveler
We were looking for a place to car camp on our way up toward sequoia and stopped here. Was easy to locate even at night. Would suggest 4x4 and wouldn’t recommend heavier vehicles as it’s a sandy dried up lake bed and we had to dig ourselves out in the morning. No fire pits or bathrooms.
ScoutI’ve been camping at This lake since I was 11. My favorite place caught 100’s of fish out of there. I’ve camped in all the camps over the years but I like steins cove when we had a boat. Camp right on the water and the price is right FREE. I live in Az now but when we go back we always hit the lake. Love it great memories with my mom and dad and our kids and grandkids. Enjoy❤️
Scout
I really liked it! The place looks beautiful, especially with sunset and sunrise and there is a lot of space. Just the toilet was hard to find. You just have to drive 2 min more on the road. It doesn‘t have water, showers or trash dispencers.
Traveler
Very remote absolutely nothing out there. Definitely somewhere you need to be aware of your surroundings. You can get far enough away from the highway that you don’t need to worry about people driving by. There is nothing out here. The road to it is unmarked and very unmaintained Would definitely recommend high clearance vehicle if you want to be further away then 100 feet from the highway. Lots of wash outs. Beautiful sunrise. We were the only people there.
Scout
I'm driving a large Nissan can converted into a camper. I made it to where Forest route 26S06 meets black gulch. I might have made it the rest of the way but it was getting dark and scary. A motor home or camper trailer would surely not make it. The whole Keyesville SRMA is open for dispersed camping.
GuideLots of space and lots of ppl with their toys. Pack it in, pack it out!
GuideAccess to the river is closed as of 26 January, still plenty of dispersed places down the road to camp. Bathrooms and trash dump and lots of trails to ride bikes! Some of the sites are a little rough for trailer access.
GuideI’ve camped here multiple times, sometimes with multiple RVs in a group, it’s very private with wide vistas.
Sometimes you can go days without a single car passing by, and there are a lot of spots to just camp since it is all completely level. There are a lot of insects, birds, and the occasional cow and deer.
To swim in the lake this area connects to Stine Cove campground - via a very soft sandy road - which is also free, has a vault toilet, but is shaded by mountains and less private.
There’s a $12 dump station with potable water at Camp 9 and one at Old Isabella Recreation Site.
T-mobile was very slow but Verizon had a good connection.
Heads up that the lake is MUCH lower than anything you see on satellite view, from Stine Cove I still had to walk 30min before getting to the shore.
GuideWe stayed here in June and there were plenty of open spots we just couldnt see many since it was dark. We eventually found a spot about half a mile back. Only one other person nearby. We had a few bars of service on verizon and at&t.
Overall nice secluded spot off the road with great scenery would recommend
GuideYou can park RVs right next to the water but it gets very busy, there are more secluded spots accessible to even Class A rigs further down. My Class C was able to make it through a few of the dirt roads no problem. Best part is the nature, trails, river, fire rings almost everywhere you need, dumpster and vault toilet near the main road. Worst part was the dirt bikes passing by my campsite on the weekends but it wasn’t loud honestly. The busiest spot is the one down next to the river , easily 20+ vehicles on an April weekend.
Guidedispersed camping along keyesville rd. big open areas for group or big rig camping, lots of pullouts with fire rings. vault toilets and dumpsters at staging areas. this recreation area has lots of trash, easily could spend days picking litter. keyesville rd. has plenty of traffic though from 2200hrs til morning is fairly quiet. it’s a rec area, so with that in mind the weekends are getting busy. a lot of motocross, ohv and atv traffic from late thurs to sunday. other than that it is a wonderful free camping.
GuideHey, it's free. Weekends are busy but weekdays are exceptionally peaceful. Be advised the Jawbone canyon store charges RV's $40.00 for potable water. Fill up before you come out here.
LegendWe pulled in to spend the night on our way to Death Valley. We ended up leaving and camping down the road at Hanning Flat. Was a big open dirt area with not much more than some scrub grass. Didn’t seem like a lot of privacy or character.
LegendWe stopped here on our way to Death Valley and ended up staying for several days because we love it so much! There’s another dispersed site a few miles away (Stine Cove) and we found this one to be much more pleasant. The two are actually connected by dirt roads. Our site was shaded and had a fire pit as well as trees perfectly spaced for our hammock. Temps were lovely during the day, but quite chilly at night and during the mornings/evenings.
The area is also used by lots of cows for grazing so beware of the patties and lots of mooing. They didn’t bother us, we actually quite enjoyed watching them.
Literal MILES of dispersed sites so plenty of room to spread out. There’s a bit high spot of rocks in the middle at the beginning of the road which was great to climb for sunset views!
GuideTook a bit to find as the marker on this map isn’t where the entry is. Go past it and take a left on Sierra way, follow to Stine Cove. Toilets and trash at entrance. The dam is being rebuilt so the water is real low. Easy to drive along the beach until nobody else is around. Great views, sunsets, sunrise, stars, cows… truly wonderful. Early January (2022) is great temps for me around 65. Nights are windy so prepare accordingly.
GuideOn my way into Sequoia NF I was so excited to see Hanning Flats dispersed camping area. My pup and I stayed for three nights and didn’t see another person or vehicle the whole time. So peaceful, quiet, sunny, green. My dog did get lots of ticks and we had a mouse find its way into the van but I still really have no complaints. Such a gorgeous spot, lovely sunsets and sunrises. We loved walking on the sandy dirt roads at golden hour. My van is only 2WD and did fine. As with all dispersed camping.. pack in pack out and we found a pre-made site to park at. No services/facilities. About 35 mins to Isabella for groceries/gas. We will be back :)
TravelerCame here with friends to ride and we had a great time. We showed up on a Friday with plenty of sites still available. Everything is so spread out that we had a lot of privacy to ourselves.
It can get really warm so we set up under a shaded tree which helped a lot. We had a fire pit for the evenings too, so that was nice.
Lots of trails to ride - for beginners to advanced. We zipped around in a side by side and everyone was responsible and nice.
I'd definitely recommend this spot of you are looking for a quiet place to camp with privacy and ample space.
GuideThere are several very dispersed spots, but its all open so dont expect too much privacy or shelter from the wind. Gorgeous sunset to sunrise. Watch eagles prey on ducks, pelicans gather, hear the frogs croak. Gnats get a little crazy before the bats show up. Nightime lights permeate the sky across the lake, but star viewing is still possible.
TravelerWater is low due to them repairing the dam, where I'm camped at should be underwater and it is gorgeous. The night sky has no light pollution, and is beautiful enough to knock you off your feet because of all the stars. Good location. I would definitely do this again. I'm planning to stay for the full 14 days.
Tip - Evening winds come from a westerly direction. When rebuilding your site's fire ring, make sure to leave some gaps near the bottom and ensure clear avenues for airflow, yor fire will have a much more complete burn and less smoke.
TravelerSay hello to the cows for me! They gave me a warming welcome which set the tone for this ideal overnight spot. I visited in February which was most likely the reason why I had the area to myself. I appreciated the rough feel of the lake and how close the road was. There is a restroom and a dump bin at the entrance which locked this spot in for convenience. I didn't have any trouble coming in and out and I loved waking up with open space and the sounds of the lake shore. One big word of caution! Winter winds here almost blew the tent over with my pup and myself inside. Although occasional gusts may seem obvious for location and time of year I would have lost that tent had I not been inside. Coming back soon to launch into Kernville from here.
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