Fallen Leaf Lake Campground - August 09

Our site, #10



We had no other campsite to the right of us



Narrow spot, not enough room to fully extend our awning



Narrow road through the campsite



Fallen Leaf Lake boat ramp, 4.25 miles from campground





Baldwin Beach - Lake Tahoe






Fallen Leaf Lake Beach - trail from inside the campground

Fallen Leaf Lake

We were all very excited about our trip to Fallen Leaf Lake. It had been a very long time since either of us had been up Highway 50, and I Must admit it was a little scary, especially towing our trailer. We survived the adventure and arrived at Fallen Leaf Lake Campground, which is managed by California Land Management. The campgrounds is located off of Highway 89, but sits back far enough that you hear no traffic at all. The campground is very well run and has at least 5 hosts in this much larger than you would expect campground. The campground has several bathrooms and also has showers that cost $1 for 3 minutes. There is also a camp store that sells mostly souvenirs but they also had beer, ice cream and toiletries available for purchase. All sites come with a picnic table, fire pit, BBQ and bear lockers. There are water spigots in various parts of the campsite and a few sites actually have them. Dogs are allowed. $28 a day.

My first thought about this campground is that it's really narrow and very difficult to get into spots if you have a travel trailer or a motor home. We pulled up to our site and wondered "how the hell are we going to get in here?". While the pad was long enough for our 35 foot trailer, the site was not angled and the pad and the road were both narrow. There was no way we could get in traveling the one way direction of the road. We found a camp host and asked if we could travel in the opposite direction to get into our site. The gentleman was very nice and went and closed down traffic for us so that we could get in. Another friendly camper came by and helped us in backing in. When t was all over it had taken us one very frustrating hour to get into our site. We didn't even want to begin to think about getting out of the site.

I was surprised to find that they were allowing camp fires given the High Fire Danger season and the poor air quality at the Lake due to other fires burning in Northern California. I am pretty sensitive to smoke and between the already poor air quality and the evening campfires my eyes were burning and I had headache every night.

Lots to do in this area. We biked 4.25 miles from the campground to the far end of Fallen Leaf Lake. Fallen Leaf Lake Road narrows to a one lane road, so bicyclists and pedestrians need to be very cautious of vehicle traffic, we had to pull over several times to allow vehicle traffic to pass us safely. Once you arrive at the lake there is a store and coffee shop overlooking the lake. There is also a boat rental where you can rant kayaks, paddle boats and pontoons. There is also a boat ramp here if you brought your own. They have a small swimming beach here at this spot as well. The lake is gorgeous and really worth a trip to this end of the lake, the beach here has sand, which is nice if you have children.

Later that afternoon we biked to Baldwin Beach on Lake Tahoe. Baldwin and Pope Beach's are a special treat as they are two of the very few sandy beach's around the lake. The bike ride from the campground to Baldwin is 2.5 miles and all bike trail once you cross Highway 89 out of the campground. If you have bikes, I suggest it since it is $7 to park at the beach. The Park does have parking outside of the gates if you want to park for free and walk in to the beach, I guess it depends on how much you have to carry. Baldwin is a designated swimming beach is great for families. The wind does pick up in the afternoons but we still enjoyed ourselves. There are picnic tables on the beach and there was a company renting kayaks on the beach as well.

If you are looking for a shorter route to the water at Fallen Leaf Lake, there is a path from the campground down to the water. We hoped on our bikes, it was about a mile from our campsite, but could be closer depending on your specific campsite. This is a rocky beach, and although not a designated swimming beach, you can swim here. This is a great place if you brought your own kayak or inflatable boats to launch from. You will have to hike in to the beach with your watercraft, but it's not that far from the campground road.

Once our trip came to an end it was another hour to get out of our spot. The site across from us was a pull through and when our neighbors vacated we made the mistake of thinking we could "pull-through" to get out. Not exactly. There are many "pull-through" sites here, but what we discovered is you can't really pull through them. The pads are so narrow and so closely surrounded by tree's that it makes it impossible to actually pull through them. I watched 2 different RV's have to back out of their pull through sites. We were so stuck at one point we had to unhook and re-hook the trailer back up to get out of this mess. Thankfully, the same friendly camper who helped us get in came along and also helped us get out. These spots are so narrow that you really need 2 people spotting. We survived and ad a great time, but the hassle of getting in and out was clearly very frustrating. We do plan on coming back and camping here. Being so close to Lake Tahoe but also out of the crowds and surrounded by the beauty of Fallen Leaf Lake was really a treat. However, now that we have been here we know which sites to camp in and which not to camp in. Just because the site says it can accommodate a 40 foot vehicle does not mean it will be easy to actually get into it.

There is no dumpsite here, so we ended up dumping at the South Shore KOA which is off of Highway 50. $15 to dump, kind of pricey, but better than carrying all of that extra weight down the hill.

As a side not, we drove past Camp Richardson, which was a place I had looked at camping, so glad we didn't camp there! Crowded!

Edit: We went back and looked at the website and realized that the site we stayed in said "pull in", guess I missed that when I booked it. So, a motorhome that could pull into the site would be okay, but obviously with a travel trailer pulling into a site was not an option for us.

Boca Rest

View of the reservoir and morning fog from our site

View of the campground from the trails above

Mountain biking trails

June 2009

Boca Rest is located north of Truckee off of Highway 80. There are no hook-ups and no dump station here but tents and rv's are welcome. We had a nice spot on the reservoirs but there was enough shrubbery between us and the water that I didn't have to worry about the kids. There are pretty much no trees at this campground but it wasn't hot while we were there and the lack of trees was not a problem. It is dry and windy, so if you are looking for mountainous and shady camping, this is not the spot for you. On the bright side, you can boat and fish here. Lots of folks in their inner tubes fishing in the morning. There are also lots of dirt trails for mountain biking and ATVs or dirt bikes. I do not recommend biking on the main road, as there is no shoulder and doesn't feel safe for biking, but the mountain biking was lots of fun and challenging! There are vault bathrooms and a water spigot outside of the bathrooms but that's about it as far as amenities. We group camped here and had a great time. The park is managed by California Land Management and they do come around and count vehicles etc. Dogs are allowed as well, in fact almost everyone had a dog. You can reserve online through Reserve America. We had a good time as we were with a large group of people, but if you're looking for amenities and trees this probably is not the place for you. If you do come be sure to watch for the Hot Air Balloons on the weekends, pretty cool to watch them coming up over the reservoir.

Deerwood RV Park, Eugene OR

April 2009

We stayed two nights at Deerwood on our way to Washington. We had plans to visit family and visit the college campus and Deerwood was in a great location for us to do both. This park is an all RV campground, no tent camping. The first thing you notice about the campground is it is exceptionally clean and was pretty quiet. There appeared to be several folks who were set up for the summer here and then some, like us passing through. We lucked out and got a nice end space which had a nice patch of grass that was enclosed with shrubbery which made a nice spot for the girls to play. Full hook-ups including television and free wi-fi are among the amenities. Probably not the type of campground for "real" camping but who is "really" camping in a 35 foot trailer anyway. The point is, this place was perfect for our needs and in fact we stayed again on our back home from Washington.

Timberlake Campground and RV Park, WA

April 2009

Timberlake was a real treat for us, especially being so far away from home. The campground is located 50 miles east of Portland. This a fantastic campground for either tent or RV camping. I checked out several of the tent sites and thought how awesome it would be if I could convince some of my tent camping friends to drive all of this way to camp with us. The RV sites offer some with full hook-ups and others with electricity and water and there is also a central dump station in the campground. The campground allows dogs and even has a specific dog area in the campground. There is also a hall that can be rented for group activities and a great playground for the kids. And being the diligent critic that I am, I even checked out the bathrooms. Showers and bathrooms were exceptionally clean, I don't even think my own bathroom is as clean as these were. In fact, the entire campground was super clean and just really enjoyable. We enjoyed Timberlake a great deal because we had the luxury of hook-ups but also had the trees and mountains and fresh air. If you enjoy walking, the lay out of the campground is nice for walking or running if you are brave. But it is very steep. Our spot was at the top of the hill the walking and running through the campsite was an added challenge for anyone trying to keep up on their exercise. But don't misunderstand, it was also no problem for the kids or elderly to walk around. I just got an extra workout on my morning runs.

We enjoyed the Columbia Gorge and the Bonneville Dam while here. Just a note that some of the photos may look like the sites are close together, but I felt the sites were spacious and we had plenty of privacy. We also happened to be here for rally so we knew all of our neighbors.

Again, worth mentioning, Leroy the owner is very hospitable. He has put together a great campground here and I only wished we lived closer so we could camp here more often. But we will be back for sure.

Big Sur Campground and Cabins

February 2009
We must have picked the wettest week to go camping. We arrived to the campground to find we had it basically to ourselves. There was one other RV and one other trailer and that was it. We were pushing it at this park with our 35 foot trailer. Our spot backed up to the river which was really cool especially with all of the rain. It was good that we were the only ones here, as it would not have felt so private otherwise. We were right in between a cabin and another trailer spot, on a crowded summer weekend, we may have been bummed, but it was not an issue during the time we were there.

The sites have a picnic table and fire pit as well as water and electricity hook-ups. There is a central dump station on the way out of the campground. The campground also has a children's playground, bathrooms with showers and laundry facilities. They also have a small store in case you forgot something. Despite the rain and the muddy campground, we had a great time and enjoyed having the place to ourselves. My daughter loved throwing rocks in the river. We would consider going back but for sure not during high season. It is also worth mentioning that the folks who own this place are super nice and everyone who worked there was very friendly and helpful.

We did a day trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium while we camped here and the drive from Carmel to the campground is gorgeous.

Lake Almanor NSF - North

Spot 32



Beach and Boat Ramp with view of Mount Lassen



Bike trails


August 2008

When we pulled up this was exactly the type of camping I had been hoping for. Nice private spots with lots of trees and shade. Each spot has a picnic table, fire ring and BBQ. We havea 35 foot trailer wit slideouts, while we found the spots to be narrow, we were still able to get into our spot and extend our slides and awning out. We stayed in spot 32 which backed to a meadow and then to the main road, but we were far enough away that we never heard any road noise. We also happened to be acrs th way from a water spigot and were able to stretch our water hose which allowed us to refill our water tanks, which was an added bonus. No hook-ups and no dump station.

The park has no flush toilets just vaults. Dogs are allowed and there are some great trails around for biking and walking. We enjoyed the paved trails with our strollers and bikes. They also have a beach and boat ramp which were closed while we were there. The beach is rocky so not great for water or beach play. But they do have picnic tables, BBQ's and restrooms by the beach.

$18 a day and cheap for such a beautiful area.