My husband and I have been staying here for 10 days and we were planning on staying another 2 days, before moving on to cooler temperatures. Well, this afternoon, we got the dreaded knock from a police officer and a Ranger, who told us that this is state trust land, not BLM land, and a permit is required to stay here. We haven't seen any signs saying anything about that, but after reading the reviews here, it looks like one person mentioned it.
It's a busy, very dirty location, with tons of trash (literally there are dirty mattresses, old couches, bags of trash strewn everywhere - it's awful. I've never been to Slab City, but it's one step up from how I imagine it is) and big shards of broken glass in most of the camping spots, so I wouldn't recommend parking in any of the single spots. We chose to stay in the big communal area close to the entrance, even though we hate being close to people, because it was the only place that didn't have broken glass, and we've just been waiting out the cooler temps at our higher elevation spots.
On the plus side, the road is well kept gravel and almost all of the spots are huge and level. We have a 36' Class A and we fit into all of the spots, with room enough for a shorter Class A, a Class C or several toads to fit alongside us. It's really too bad that people are so irresponsible and selfish, because if there were no trash or glass, I'd give this place 5 stars, for how giant the spaces are, how many spaces are available, how flat the spaces are and how well maintained the road is. Also, people keep to themselves and it's relatively quiet most days and nights, so it feels pretty safe. But again, BE SURE TO GET A PERMIT BEFORE COMING HERE, or you'll definitely get THE KNOCK.
If we hadn't gotten THE KNOCK, I would have given it 2 1/2 stars, with points taken off for the spots being full of broken glass and trash, but I only gave it 1 star because I'm feeling salty about the fact that it requires a permit. Lol.