Buckhorn Recreation Area

Let me preface by saying I work from the road, so Internet/cell service is crucial. When I pulled in to this campground, the camp host (Beebs) was super kind and helpful, but she was not optimistic about cell coverage on T-Mobile. Since I was coming off a night Boondocking in Walmart after a disappointing trip to Stony Gorge, I wanted to give the campground a shot so I drove through to assess.

I drove every loop until I arrived at the very top of a short but steep hill, all the time monitoring the cell strength. When I crested the hill at site 65, my gauge went green! This is the only site in the campground that I could get reliable signal, so I booked 4 nights.

It’s a fairly large campground, some sites very close to the water and some quite a bit above. They seem to have everything I needed and then some - nice clean showers/bathrooms, lots of water sport options, water spigots (not hookups, you gotta Sherpa the water if you need it), a dump station, great road surfaces, and best of all, not crowded at all.

I’d highly recommend this place, and will be back. Unfortunately, Beebs told me they do not honor the America the Beautiful passes anymore - no discounts. Max stay 14 days.

You’ll like it here.

Friends found this lake so we joined them for the weekend (we live about 3 hours away), making reservations online so we could camp near them and make sure we had a site big enough for our 32' TT. We reserved site 50 as it was specified it was a 57' long (back-in) and on the lake.
Upon our arrival, after negotiating a tight and sloped turn, we realized there was NO WAY we were going to be able to level our trailer in our original site so back up to the guard shack to choose another site, 56, which was long enough and fairly easy to get into. Our friends have a 40' Montana fifth wheel and chose site 48, which was very dicey getting in (curved pull-through) but they did it! This recreation area has several loops, with sites 1-22 being the most level of the entire campground. Another friend (37' Winnebago MH) ended up in site 8 with plenty of room and gorgeous views of the lake.
Overall, a great campground with beautiful views of the lake but the water level drops throughout the summer and it gets HOT (we were here in early May)! Very peaceful mid-week and busy on the weekends, although not every site was full the weekend we were there. Great kayaking and fishing on this part of the lake (5 mph zone so few, if any, boats).
There are showers and bathrooms (including pit toilers), although showers are not near most of the campsites.

What a pleasant surprise! The Buckhorn campground on the Black Butte Reservoir is managed by the Army Corps of Engineers. There are 3 separate camping loops that cozy up to the main body or arms of the reservoir about 13 miles northeast of I-5 from Orland California.

We visited in February and only the south loop was open on a first-come, first-served basis. The mostly level and paved sites sit on a hill overlooking the reservoir and many have either a water view or a view of Mt. Lassen and surrounding mountains to the east. There are no hook-ups but water is available and there are flush toilets and showers. There is an RV dump available. The pull-through sites would handle very big rigs. We chose a back-in site and were able to leave our 21 foot (overall) trailer connected to the truck. The sites were nicely spaced as well although the lack of foliage means there's little privacy.

If fishing is your thing there's a boat launch and reports of great fishing. We saw/heard tons of birds and watched a small herd of deer that was enjoying the new grass growing near the campground. Other campers told us that winter and spring are the best time to visit because it gets hot and crowded in the summer months.

We got 3 bars of Verizon 4g service. Nightly rate is $20 but federal passes are accepted.