Tuttle Creek Campground

Such a beautiful campsite with the mountains in the background.
Potable water on site. Toilets blocks in good condition. Water and Toilet blocks strategically placed between certain sites. Bins at the entrance of the campsite. At the end of August there were only 4 other campsites in use.

Cons: No real shade. There are trees, but not many leaves.

But good site 👌

Tuttle Creek BLM is a beautiful little pay campground. It's no frills, but the views are beautiful.

We drove around testing the entire campground for cell service and found the lower loop gets the best signal.

Unfortunately, our spot was right next to a LTV (long term visitor) who's campsite was a little junky and smoked us out with their campfire in the 90 degree weather.

The speed bumps coming in are a little annoying and the recycle bin was "closed for the season."

There's a stocked river full of trout, if you're into fishing make sure to get a permit.

A simple BLM run campground on the outskirts of the sleepy town of Lone Pine. The scenery here is gorgeous with amazing views of the Sierra Nevada Mtns right out your window. The site quality is pretty good, but since the campground is on a hill many sites are slopped which can make it hard to get level. All the sites are large though and the south side of the campground seems to have the larger, more level sites. That side of the campground was closed during our stay. They close the south side between November and March, as well as shut off the water and close the dump station. That was a little inconvenient, but the host told us about a county run park (Portage Joe) nearby with a water spigot that we could use so it wasn't too big of a deal. This is a great campground to use as a base for exploring the area. Close to both Mt. Whitney and the Alabama Hills. As a bonus the cell service here is excellent, we got both 4G Verizon & AT&T.

We got several recommendations for this campground when planning our drive up 395. We would have loved to boondock in the Alabama Hills, but too many reports of unreliable internet sent us just down the road to Tuttle Creek Campground. I'm glad we did.

The campground was pretty empty mid-week, so we had a good selection of sites. Ours backs up to Tuttle Creek so we have the sound of water rushing just beyond our motorhome. We did not see any issues with larger rigs finding a suitable site. The only downside in site quality is the un-level nature of all the sites. There are very few that are level and will require a fairly significant amount of leveling. The sites are all packed dirt so use caution when selecting to make sure its packed enough. There are few shade trees, which seems good so that you can really soak in the views. Mt. Whitney anyone?

There is a dump station and potable water fill in the campground now so that is super convenient. Use of the dump station is $5. The asphalt road into the campground has speed bumps and is very narrow, but easy to navigate with your tow vehicle attached. Once you get to the dump station there is plenty of room to unhook and use the car to select a good spot. We had decent internet and phone without a booster. We could stream some tv shows while hiding from the mosquitos at dusk! The views, the clear air and the starry sky are incredible.

PROS:
Great Views
Decent separation between sites
Easy access to and from Lone Pine
Nice picnic tables and fire pits
Vault toilets throughout
Inexpensive

CONS:
Unlevel sites
Mosquitos :)

This was our first experience camping on BLM land, and we loved it! The pit toilets were clean, the views were amazing during the day and night, and it was a very peaceful place. There is a creek stocked with trout that runs through the campground, so we enjoyed freshly caught trout a couple of nights here.

We were a bit disappointed in the amount of broken glass in the campground. Our kids, ages 1.5 and 4.5, always want to clean-up any garbage they find outside thanks in part to some of the junior ranger programs requiring trash cleanup. We love that they have this great respect for our planet, but it's not so great when our 1.5 year old daughter is constantly finding and picking up broken glass. Thankfully, she yells, "glass, garbage!!" so we can get it away from her quickly. We made sure to carry a garbage bag with us everywhere we went and hopefully left the campground in a cleaner (and safer) state than we arrived.

This campground is in a great setting on Tuttle Creek and only 3 miles from Lone Pine, CA. The views of the Sierra Nevada and Mt. Whitney are nothing short of spectacular. The road in, while well paved, is narrow and has 4 speed bumps that are not well marked so beware. The sites are dirt and many are very unlevel so you may have to work to get level. Many are also fairly short and only several would accommodate a large Class A and tow vehicle. We had to try several before we could get level and long enough. We did not use the pit toilets so don't know how clean they were. This is BLM with a 14 day limit but it is also an LTVA (Long Term Visitor Area) with longer stays allowed with proper permits. Good walking for pets and also good internet and cell which Alabama Hills, the boondock site a mile away, doesn't have. Would stay here again.

Our original idea was to boondock in the Alabama Hills, but we heard that cell signal was practically nil (which we proved by driving around), so we opted for this campground. We had been warned that there were five large bumps on the way into the campground and were on the lookout, but they are not very well marked.

There were quite a few available campsites, but several were too short for our motorhome. We found a site with an unobstructed view (some sites have other sites just across from them), in front of the creek.

The sites are on dirt, and it looked like most are not level. We found a hole in our campground that someone dug to compensate for the higher ground the back tire on the opposite side was on. We still had to use quite a few level blocks but other than that the site was spacious and clean, had a fire ring and picnic table and good spacing on each side.

The area is soft dirt with some low brush, very nice for walking our dog. There are no showers, but there are pit toilets, which we didn't use. The dump station costs $5 additional, and there is fresh water as well.

The location is convenient to hiking around the Alabama Hills, the town of Lone Pine, various museums, and fairly close to Mount Whitney.

Contrary to the dear good Aluminarium's findings, we found that cell service was best in the northern upper loop. This was our entire reasoning for staying here: good enough 4G with both Verizon and AT&T to get work done, even stream movies at night without a hiccup.

This is the third to least beautiful of the various camping options in the area. A nearby Boulder Creek RV park and Portagee Joe's were the worse, though both had even better cell service, and Lone Pine Campground, the Alabama Hills and even way up high Mt. Whitney Campground were better, but those and this are all stunning places to stay. I'd recommend any of the other three over this one, simply because this is a larger, less tree-lined place and good neighbors are hard to come by.

A group of tenters nearby us, though still a good 75 yards or so away, were quite unhappy with our occasional generator use, and made it clear every time they walked by. I don't blame them, after all they were driving a Prius so were clearly of a higher quality humanity than ourselves.

I also found, and sarcasm is being left behind now, the cool breeze on my backside as wind blew up from the vault toilets, a welcome respite on hotter days.

Oh and we have horrible clearance with our 31' Airstream but found the speed humps on the way no issue at all.

We stayed here on a Tuesday night the day after Labor Day. I rate this with 5 stars for overall experience. Is it a perfect campground? It depends on your definition of perfection. If spectacular views, a beautiful creek, endless starry skies, quiet, and basic services such as water, table, RV Dump and trash collection qualify perfection, then this place is for you. If rutted dirt roads, non-level sites, and lack of trees bother you, don't stay here.

The roads are all dirt, as are what would count as parking pads. Leveling the Airstream was a challenge but with a bit of Yankee ingenuity we accomplished this by trenching a slight depression on the high side and raising the low side with some Anderson levelers. The payoff was worth it with a steel fire pit, a nice new concrete picnic table and big steel post hanger thingy out the front door along with a spectacular mountain view. You can't see Mt. Whitney from Tuttle Creek Camp, so if you want that, go to Lone Pine Camp a short distance away.

The cold, clear, creek was right behind us and was delightful to cool off in on the 85 degree day. The dogs really appreciated it too. The sites are large and generally speaking, there is a lot of space between you and your neighbor. Generator use and it's associated noise can be a problem but we were lucky to not hear any. In fact, the campground was only about 15% full. After some star gazing, we were happy to sleep with the windows open and have the gentle breeze and the sound of the babbling creek lulling us off to dreamland.

Go explore the nearby Alabama Hills, and go climb Mt Whitney (easier said than done). Head down to Lone Pine and do some shopping at the Rock Shop if so inclined. Most of all, just relax.

After dry camping in the Sierras for over a week, the dump station on site was very welcomed., and $5 to dump was a bargain in my book as was the $5 per night camping fee. All the water faucets have threads so you can fill your water tank too. The faucets are kind of strange though... Cell service varied from 1X to 4G-Lte depending on where I was. At the campsite it was mostly 4G.

Really nice campground. At the foothills of the eastern Sierras near Mt Whitney and Lone Pine, CA. This is a BLM campground with no hookups, does have vault toilets. During winter their is no water and the dump station is closed. There is a dump station available at the Boulder Creek RV park about 10 miles away.

I had no problem with leveling my 30' motor home. Really liked that the sites are spread out. Their was only one other camper while I was here so it was very quiet 😀.

Another plus is the price, just $5 per night.