steep, slippery hike down to the springs, which are a couple of hot streams falling into pools by the river
mostly fisherman, got a great spot at the dead end right by the lake, a few miles from Terwilliger Hot Springs
20 miles north of Ketchum Route 75 opens up into a beautiful, wide valley. The road follows the west side, the Big Wood River is on the east side, and along here there is a big, flat open area in between, with good-ish gravel roads over to the edge of the river where many dispersed campsites are set up. Pretty cool! This is the same river that flows through Ketchum and Sun Valley.
An excellent spot up a little canyon off Cougar Reservoir. It's a free-form natural spring, but it's pretty easy to control access, so the Forest Service has set up a little booth to collect $5 from soakers. Good for them!
On a bend in the Trinity River. The main deal here is the heavily used boat ramp, I think the campground was built as an adjunct to it. Just seven sites, a couple of which are really nice. Busy Route 299 is only 30 yards away, so when a truck passes you hear it. Fortunately, the road is not busy after dark. Not quite as torrid as Redding, but still pretty darned hot until the sun goes down.
Elevation 9,500. Weather is very gloomy, so I'm not seeing it at it's best. Site 22 is very nice, level, large, with an excellent vista looking over the wide, green valley with the busy highway on the other side. The camp host says she saw moose tracks at the next campsite!
on a little creek near the busy road = occasionally sketchy neighbors
very restful and quiet, in the piney woods near the dunes. Actually, now I can hear the off-road vehicles in the distance, still restful though. The walk along the river bluff is very nice.
There is an actual Forest Service campground right down the road, but it's closed half the year, and these dispersed spots are so nice I usually stay here anyway. Coming from 395 on Buckeye Road, you first encounter the pull-off for the hot springs. 300 yards later at the bend in the road is the real campground, then another 300 yards up the hill on the left is the dispersed area. It's really nice. you can see out over the wide valley through the pine trees. It is sometimes crowded.
Nice little spot, 1/2 mile off of 70, on the North Fork of the Feather River, near where it joins the main river. It is not well marked that the campground is at this turnoff so it's easy to drive right past. Once you make the turnoff it's well signed. $25 seems like quite a high price, but the concessionaire needs to make a profit I guess. $12.50 ain't so bad!
huge-ass campground on ever-diminishing Eagle Lake. Full of giant RVs with hookups and run by a concessionaire, so it is much more bureaucratic and rule-bound that most. Site 159 is pretty sweet, unobstructed lake view (150 yds away), open, but the tall pine behind (south of) me give it pretty good afternoon shade.
quiet, except for the crows. Arrived at 3-ish on Thursday, plenty of sites. Right next to the dunes, the cool thing to do here is head due west into the dunes. The idea of walking to the beach is very appealing, but a steep hill and two miles of dunes is a lot of sand to slog through.
busy but pretty quiet, very scenic. nature trail. a short hike past the swimming pond to a great sunset over non-swimming Sardine Lake, shining off the Sierra Buttes to the left.
I am in Thumper Loop! A lovely, very well maintained large campground. The area is thick grass, but a wide area is mowed around each campsite. Very pleasant place to be out of the madness of Black Hills traffic.
Nestled between too-busy US 395 and the West Walker River. Everybody is either a fishermen or folks bombing down 395. The first nice federal campground coming south from Reno. This place should be open more days of the year - closes too early in the fall, opens too late in the summer.
A lonely outpost of Mendocino National Forest - a little chunk of federal land next to the diversion dam. The parking lots are huge, making it seem like it was full of action back when the dam was being used create the diversionary lake. Emptying the dam a couple of decades ago was sad for the boaters of Red Bluff, but great for the salmon, who were being killed off by the salmon ladder. This beautiful campground suffers from being too close to the town of Red Bluff. The bathroom has a security code to prevent random weirdos from moving in.
The largest of the three USFS campgrounds between Sedona and Flagstaff in Oak Creek Canyon. I think this is the least cool. Manzanita is the coolest but always full (11 sites in this giant tourist attraction0), Pine Flat is right next to this one, and looked to be the second coolest. This one's still pretty sweet though ... although I find myself worrying about evacuation routes if this dry, hot canyon was swept by a forest fire. We would all be screwed I think.
5 miles outta town on a good road. Panoramic view of many miles between the trees, closed-in feel in the scrub oaks, sketchy, kinda creepy campground host.
A very handy place, in the next valley over from Front Royal. It stays open later in the year than the other federal campgrounds in the area.
a real find! On a stretch of road otherwise bereft of camping, maybe 3 rarely traveled miles off the busy highway. Not a soul has been here in my 18 hours or so of residency. Sites are primitive. There is a place to put a kayak into the slough. The site is right on the edge of USFS property, there are barns and farm buildings 1/2 mile away. Bathroom is unlocked!