Tahoe National Forest Proposes Higher Camping, Day Use Fees

TAHOE FOREST — The Tahoe National Forest is proposing to raise recreation fees at 33 sites across the forest, and to begin charging at a campground that is now free. The proposal, announced Friday from the forest’s Nevada City headquarters, covers 25 campgrounds and one horse camp, three group campgrounds, and four day use and boating sites. The public has until the close of business on September 29 to comment.

For individual campsites, the proposal would consolidate a patchwork of rates around a single number. Nineteen of the 26 campgrounds and horse camps would charge $30 a night for a single site. Fifteen of those now charge $24, a 25 percent increase. Five other sites would charge $25, and two would charge $20.

A handful of sites face steeper jumps. Cottonwood and Lewis campgrounds would go from $20 to $30, a 50 percent increase, and Poppy Campground and the Skillman horse camp would rise from $18 to $25. Grouse Ridge Campground, which charges nothing now, would begin charging $20 a night for a single site.

Larger sites would climb as well. Double sites at Dark Day, Garden Point Boating, Giant Gap, Schoolhouse, and Shirttail Creek campgrounds would all rise to $60, from $44 or $48 today. Triple sites at Dark Day, Schoolhouse, and Shirttail Creek would go to $80, from $66 or $72. Among the group campgrounds, the nightly rate for 50 people at Coyote would rise from $143 to $160, the 75-person rate at Gates from $165 to $190, and the 50-person rate at Hornswoggle from $155 to $175. All three group campgrounds also offer a 25-person rate, now $82 at Coyote and Gates and $88 at Hornswoggle, which would become $99 at each.

Day use would see the largest proportional increase. The $5 daily fee per vehicle at the French Meadows, McGuire, and Sugar Pine boating sites and at the Manzanita picnic site would rise to $8, an increase of 60 percent.

Despite all the sites in the proposal, however, the forest says nearly half of its recreation sites would still require no fee, and it will continue to honor all nationally recognized fee-free days at day use sites. Campgrounds and group campgrounds remain reservable through Recreation.gov for an additional $8 per reservation.

The forest tied the proposal to the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, passed by Congress in 2004, which lets the Forest Service keep at least 80 percent of the money collected at a recreation site and spend it there. Planned projects paid for with fee revenue include replacing signs, installing bear-proof food lockers, repairing water systems, upgrading restrooms, and running conservation education programs, the forest said. Fee money also pays for additional recreation staff during the operating season.

Comments may be mailed to Tahoe National Forest, Attention: Mary Sullivan, 631 Coyote Street, Nevada City, California 95959, or sent by email to tahoe_nf_comments@usda.gov. The forest is also collecting comments through an online map tool linked from its website. Oral comments must be given to Sullivan, the forest’s recreation program manager, either in person at the Nevada City office or by telephone at (530) 478-6298, Monday through Friday from 9 AM to noon and from 12:30 PM to 3 PM.

Once the comment period closes, the proposal goes to the Pacific Southwest Recreation Resource Advisory Committee, a federal advisory committee created under the same 2004 law to cover California. Its 11 members are drawn from recreation user groups, outfitters and guides, environmental organizations, state tourism, local government, and tribal interests. Meetings are open to the public and must be announced in the Federal Register at least 15 days beforehand. The committee then sends a recommendation to the Regional Forester for the Pacific Southwest Region, a post held on an acting basis since November 2025 by Jacqueline Buchanan, who is also the Regional Forester for the Pacific Northwest Region. The Forest Service has not announced when any approved fees would take effect.

The Tahoe National Forest last sought comment on recreation fees in the summer of 2023, when it proposed rates for fire lookout rentals and an annual pass for four day use sites. The neighboring Eldorado National Forest opened a comment period on its own fee proposal in July, with the same September 29 deadline; that plan would raise overnight permit fees in the Desolation Wilderness Area from $5 per person to $10, rising to $15 by the fifth year, and would end the $20 annual pass.

The forest is separately seeking a private operator for dozens of its recreation sites. In June, it published a prospectus soliciting proposals for a concession special use permit covering 35 campgrounds, group campgrounds, boat launches, and day use sites on the American River, Sierraville, Truckee, and Yuba River ranger districts. Applications are due September 7, and the forest expects a permit to be issued and operations to begin by spring 2027.