Need some help from my homies on the SP... What is the current availability as far as camp grounds on the east side? It's going to be a family trip which will include my 5 year old son. I know there are some lower elevation camp grounds (Onion Valley comes to mind) along the east side. How about Alabama hills? Anything else open/available?

Requirements are a bathroom and the ability to make a fire.

Respek! - Ghop

Taboose Creek just before Big Pine & Millpond Just outside of Bishop come to mind for a very quiet yet pleasant family outing.

A-Hills is available year round as well .... Tuttle Creek CG has pit shitters.

Oh, just figured it out––it's Lone PIne Campground . . . if you head up Whitney Portal road, just past Olivas Ranch Road (by maybe half a mile) intersection, there's a turn-off on the left side that goes out to a paid camp ground. clean, quiet, bathrooms and I think we paid $18 to spend the night there. Take the little guy up the road to the portal in the morning and get him fishing for the big ones in the pond, or just nail a few burgers.

If you google "Lone Pine campgrounds" you'll get a few more . . . and if you find some lawn chairs . . . My dad was always dragging us out to the eastern sierra and one summer, around LP somewhere, we found a nice spot and some lawn chairs amongst the scrub . . . came back a year or so later and the chairs were still there . . .

Thanks lads, very helpful...

Wow, some of those campgrounds look nice! I wanna go! Whaaa.

We stayed at Taboose Creek a few weeks ago on a Friday night and there was only one other person there. I got the sense that pretty much all of the eastside campgrounds were mostly empty. I think it is still early in the season for most of them and pretty much all the USFS ones seemed to have restrooms and firepits.

Check out this site if you haven't already: http://www.inyocountycamping.com/