Tent & Tree
Destinations / Stanislaus National Forest
Pinecrest Campground
Lakeside family campground at Pinecrest Lake with swimming, paddling, and an amphitheater. Loops D and E sit closest to the water.
Getting a site here
Popular weekends here book up soon after they open on Recreation.gov. After that, the realistic path is cancellations.
When does your date go on sale at Pinecrest? Find the release day →
Cancellations we've caught here
In the last 30 days, 232 booked site-nights at Pinecrest came back up (125 of them Friday or Saturday nights). Of the 132 that someone rebooked, at least half were gone within 169 minutes, and 23 within an hour.
Latest:
- Sun Oct 18 · Site A014 A · opened Fri 5:35 PM PT, closed
- Mon Oct 19 · Site A014 A · opened Fri 5:35 PM PT, closed
- Sun Oct 18 · Site D041 D · opened Fri 3:41 PM PT, closed
- Mon Oct 19 · Site D041 D · opened Fri 3:41 PM PT, closed
- Mon Oct 19 · Site D036 D · opened Thu 9:35 PM PT, closed
- Sat Oct 17 · Site D039 D · opened Thu 9:00 PM PT, rebooked within 42 min
From our own checks of every site here, lately about every 20 minutes for nights this month and next, less often further out. A site that opens and is rebooked between two checks isn't counted, so these are floors, and each time is a bound. Cancellations at every campground we log →
Pinecrest Campground cancellation policy
Cancel by 11:59 p.m. two days before you arrive (Wednesday night for a Friday arrival) and you lose only the $10 fee; after that you also lose the first night. That's Recreation.gov's site-wide rule.
From Pinecrest's Recreation.gov page, read Sep 30, 2026. How cancellations work, and how far ahead the cancelled nights are →
Set an alert for your dates and we check every site in Pinecrest every 30 seconds. When one opens, you get an email with a direct link to the site and night — you book it yourself, in your own Recreation.gov account.
Loops worth knowing: D, E. You can restrict an alert to specific loops.
Read before you book
- How Recreation.gov cancellations actually work (and when sold-out sites open up) — Sold out on Recreation.gov rarely means sold out for good. The fee rules decide when people cancel, and knowing them tells you when to look.