McGill Campground

Excellent campground only an hour from Bakersfield! Two Camp Hosts, picnic tables, fire rings and vault toilets and cell service!! No water! Bring your own. This place was nice and clean and quiet. I did not make a reservation because there are first come first serve camp sites available. Lots of pine trees and a cool breeze. As a single female traveling alone I felt very safe here. I would highly recommend for female solo travelers. Plus, if you have a senior pass, it’s only $10 a night. What a bargain! I have Verizon and was able to get two bars of service. Enough to use the Internet, text, and make phone calls.

We've been here several times in the past, but never in our 35' 5th wheel. It's not something I would normally suggest, but we are able to fit in a first come, first serve spot. There are a couple other reserve spots that we think we could fit in, but definitely not most of them. The one drawback we experienced this trip were the flies! Swarms of them! Everywhere. However, we haven't always had this problem so I'm not sure if it's the time of year or the space we're in, but it's annoying.

We had 4 great nights up at McGill Campground. We live very close by (only 20 minutes away), so it wasn't a big change of scenery. But, the weather was perfect, the forest looks beautiful, and the campground was in great shape. There's a very nice, short nature trail walk to a lookout with a great view of Cuddy Valley below and the Sierras in the distance. It's a 5 minute drive to the Mt. Pinos parking lot, where there's always a good collection of amateur astronomers around New Moon Weekend throughout the Summer.

The campground was completely full by Friday night - undoubtedly from many people tired of being shut in from the coronavirus outbreak. Even when half the campers cleared out on Sunday morning, the campground filled up again by Sunday night! Nonetheless, everyone was respectful and reasonably quiet.

The campground host, Kerry, was very friendly and quite helpful. I'm sure her job was that much tougher given the packed conditions, but she was still a pleasure to work with.

Highly recommended campground - especially if you're looking for some good dark skies relatively close to the Los Angeles basin.

Had a really fun weekend here at McGill and that had a lot to do with getting a good spot. Having never been here before and reserving online, it turned out to be quite the gamble and somehow we lucked out. Our parking pad was plenty long for both our trailer and truck, but mildly uneven side to side and sloped back quite a bit. Of course we only realized how much after unhooking and lowering our tongue jack on the stand all the way and still sloping back. Next time, no jack stand and extra supports for our rear jacks so they aren’t fully extended. I highly recommend driving through the campground to see what fits your needs. I’m not sure how busy this place normally gets, but there seemed to be plenty of spots to choose from. The camp host came by one night to warn of bears nearby, but there are no bear boxes so keep your campsite clean and stuff put away. No running water here so bring plenty for cooking, cleaning, and drinking. Vault toilets were not pleasant, but clean as they can be. Pretty decent AT&T cell coverage. Be sure to check the website for fire restrictions.

Really great campground! Just an hour away from Santa Clarita. We stayed the Saturday after Labor Day weekend. It was not crowded. There was great weather. There were no wood campfires allowed when we were there. We brought a propane campfire and it was nice! Totally recommend staying here! Also, there were signs all around that bears had been sighted nearby, but there were no bear boxes...so be prepared for that!