Glacier View Campground

So one hand, there are big beautiful mountain views on each side of the park: the snowy Sierras to the west and the red and orange burned White Mountains to the east.

The campground is about 40 minutes to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, and it's a gorgeous drive all the way there. Big Pine is a cute enough little town and has the basic necessities to get you by for a night or two, and nearby Bishop's Vons grocery store is more or less a Safeway (your Safeway card will even work there).

In the opposite direction, there's a beautiful campground and trail near the Palisade Mountains and Glacier.

The campground has some permanent residents, though a sign states a 14 day maximum limit. It's owned by the same people who own Brown's Town and Brown's Millpond, or so the campground host told me.

Eight of the spots are water & electric for $20. The remainder are dry camping for $15. I would argue that, for dry camping, you could do much better and cheaper in some of the NFS or BLM lands just north in Bishop or just east on the road to the Bristlecone Pines.

Oh, and the spots range from decently medium sized to very small. We ended up in a "very small" one, but there was no one in front of us. This is a cheap enough place to get a few hookups, pay $2 for a 6 minute HOT shower, and regroup for your next adventure in all of the really awesome campgrounds in this area.

Plus, the cottonwoods here are just dripping with fallen sticks which will make easy work of any campfire. If you end up in Site 35 let me know how you like the fire pit! It's a custom made Rock-7 model that my children and I assembled from local resources, perfectly sized for maximized heat source yet minimized risk of exploding your propane tanks which will no doubt be no more than a few feet away!