Heart Bar Campground

Tried Coon Creek yellow post sites but no luck so came back down here for a sure thing on Memorial Day weekend.

Thursday through Monday. Even on a busy weekend it was really quiet. Thought it would be a bit challenging as the busy weekends are but no problems. Did a great MTB ride up 1N05.

Hosts are very friendly and helpful. They cruise around several times a day so they are readily available if you have any issues.

Beautiful breeze all weekend, lots of trees for shade in most spots.

An incredibly beautiful drive to 7,000 feet in elevation. Very steep, lots of switchbacks, but lots of pull offs. Not for underpowered vehicles but a spectacular drive along The Rim of the World Scenic Byway.

1. They say water is “nearby” - there is water scattered throughout the Campground but no place to pull over to fill your tank. Most of the roadways are narrow one-lane roads. If you’re lucky, you might get one close to your site. They do have hose bib connections.

2. The dump site is not in the Campground. I’m not even sure where it’s at, but within a couple minutes drive after leaving the Campground.

3. The roads are lined with posts right next to the road (see photos) making it nearly impossible to back into many of the sites. Beware if you have a longer trailer or 5th wheel. Very frustrating.

4. Most of the sites are also lined with posts, making it difficult to use slides (ours went over the top of the posts) and your RV steps may hit a post on the other side. The place is really geared best for tent campers. For many sites they’ve removed a post or two so rigs can back into their sites. But it’s hit and miss.

5. They provide a campground map, but it doesn’t show where water is, the pit toilets, or the dump station. The toilets are spaced quite always apart.

6. Campsites are spaced a good distance apart making for a fair amount of privacy and room to really enjoy the towering pines.

7. Each site has a picnic table and fire pit - but in dirt, so a bit dusty.

8. Lots of squirrels, ground squirrels, blue jays, and bears. Didn’t see any bears, but they do provide metal bear-proof containers throughout the Campground. This is a very popular tent camping spot.

9. This Campground is about 15 miles from Big Bear Lake. The town of Big Bear Lake has its downtown Village, which is fantastic. Big Bear City is about 13 miles away next to Baldwin Lake. Gas, groceries and just about everything you might need can be found in these towns.

Overall, a beautiful setting, and well maintained.

We opted to camp here after flying into LA from UK to recover from jet lag.

The site is lovely, clean, we'll run, the only reason it doesn't get 5 stars is we thought 25 was a bit expensive (drop toilets, no shower)

Walks from there are great. We walked up to Coon Creek (dispersed camping) which looked great, would go there next time.

Thanks to reviews on this app, we chose to stay here. Husband was section hiking the PCT (Onyx Summit to Big Bear City) so we wanted to be close to the trail, but away from crowds. We have a 5x8 Cargo Trailer Camper Conversion (Stumblesandfumbles on YouTube if you are interested) that we built ourselves so fitting into a campsite was no problem. I randomly picked the site ( based on availability) at Recreation.gov and it was perfect. A very quiet campground during the week. It did get busier on Friday night, but we were leaving Saturday morning, so majority of the time we were alone. Toilets were clean and always had TP, but it’s like sandpaper, so bring your own lol...water was close by, and the camp host was very friendly.The roads around the campground are very bumpy so take your time driving through. We were very pleased with our stay and will definitely stay here again if we are in the area.

Boyfriend and I wanted to go camping but didn't make any reservations anywhere. We found Heart Bar through Campendium and decided to try our luck Friday evening.
Luckily, when we got there, there were plenty of sites available on the non-reservable loop - Santa Ana loop - which is really nice.
We went around three times to pick a spot just cause there were so many great options.
We ended up picking number 88.
All sites are very spacious and have a drive-in spot for cars, RV's and such.
The hosts are very friendly and come by to sign you in. They also sell firewood.

Toilets were vault Toilets only, no faucets or hand sanitizer. There is a spigot right outside the restroom as well as all around the campground.

Big Bear Lake is only 30 min away, so that's a plus.
We did suffer a bit from mosquitoes, so come prepared.

Overall, great spot for a last minute camping trip!

I live about 40 miles from here and wanted to find a "close" campground that does not have a lot of people. I found it at Heart Bar campground. Unlike close by Barton Flats which it seems everyone has heard of, this is further up the road, beautiful spot and uncrowded.

Sites are large and spread out. There are about 100 sites, but because it is spread out it doesn't feel that large at all. I usually camp during the week to avoid weekend crowds, as a result there were only a few other campers here. Even if it had been full, it still would be nice because the sites are spread out.

I camp in 32 foot motorhome and had no problems getting in or getting level. There is potable water but no dump station, although there is apparently one close by. Mix of shade and sunny sites, I prefer more sun so my solar panels will charge the batteries. Verizon signal was strong enough to get connected; 2 bar LTE in the Santa Ana loop. Maybe different in other loops that are somewhat lower in elevation.

Plenty of hiking opportunities in the area. Big Bear Lake area is 20 miles away. Elevation here is about 6900' with other nearby mountains much higher, so temps in spring and summer are mild.

Camp host was very friendly. Only down side was a generator running long hours from the next site over. Most others only ran generator for short periods.

We LOVED Heart Bar Campground. We arrived without a reservation and read the "fees board" which tells you what to do if you show up without a reservation, like us. You can drive around to find open spots and lucky for us, there were plenty!
We found a loop called Santa Ana which was in the back and to the right. This is the first come first serve area and there wasn't a camper in sight. The spots are super spacious with great views and they were very clean.
You can drive into Big Bear Mountain to hike and check out the lake. There are also grocery stores and such there so if you forget anything I'd recommend heading that way rather than heading back down the mountain (depending on which way you came in).
The camp hosts were very friendly. They drove by occasionally on their carts to make sure all was well. They also collected our payment and put a sticker out indicating how long we have served the the campsite.
This is definitely a top 5 campground for us.