Overlook Campground

I am so surprised that during my stay only one other camper came. This is a great dry camping area. Sites 1,2,3,5 are right on the cliff and view of the lake. There is about 14 sites and 3 pull thru for larger RV's. The mile of dirt road is tough in spot but passable. There are picnic tables with covers, fire rings and pit toilets. I will be back.

Stayed 10/14-10/16 - 1 mile very wash boarded road to loop campground. As previously stated sites 1 - 4 have a great view of Santa Cruz Lake and snow capped mountains to the Northeast. Sites were pretty private with some trees/shrubs separating each site and within each site, the area for a tent or RV was separated from the shelter, picnic table and fire ring - very nice! While site #1 has a great view, it's right next to the DAY use loop where people park cars, so sites 2, 3 and 4 would offer more privacy and a nice view of the Lake.

A clean pit toilet and multiple trash cans were provided. Area was clean; BLM folks stopped by each day to check the payment box and take the trash and were all friendly and upbeat. Cell signal was strong enough to send and receive emails, texts and of course make phone calls.

This is a small 12-site, first-come-first-serve BLM campground located on a bluff above a man made reservoir. The 1-mile dirt road into the campground is washboard but passable. Four of the campsites have an incredible view of the lake below, but they’re all back-in sites for cars, campers, and vans. There’s three drive-thru sites that can accommodate large rigs, though none of them have a view of the lake. The pit toilet hasn’t been serviced in a while. The wind carry’s your voice across the bluff to other campsites so let’s keep our voices down.

We were not only lucky enough to get 2 sites overlooking the lake, but we mostly had this entire place to ourselves! Seems like locals come up for day use purposes or to see the sunset, but we couldn’t believe that no campers were there. We found out about the trail that goes down to the lake and we did it twice. The forest service actually connected me to a real person who gave me his cell number if we needed anything and told us about the trail. Maintenance was there each day keeping things clean. We had no problems, it was quiet and beautiful. Looking forward to going there again!

* cell service was hit or miss at one site, nothing at other *

The campsite area has a beautiful overlook of the lake; however I ended up leaving a day early (even though I paid for 2 nights) due to the noise and well, unsavory people with lack of respect for your "paid" campsite.

I really wanted to like this place even though the dirt road in was very washboard with ruts from water run off down the canyon and the graffiti all over the rocks and picnic tables.

Day use people would come in and literally park behind me in my campsite and traipse through my site in order to look at the lake even though there was an area for day use. Even though I mentioned it to them they would just still keep on walking in.

The graffiti was a little off-putting and I guess I should have known by that indication that people had a lack of regard for personal space.

I slept there one night and it was relatively quiet, a bit windy - but I don't mind that too much. There seems to be confusion about payment. There is no self pay station, but a notice that the park ranger will come and collect payment. He decided to show up at my door at 8:00 in the morning to collect. That may not seem early for most people but I like to sleep in or eat breakfast, etc until around 9 am.

The nightly fee is $7 and on top of that they charge a $5 day use fee. I'm not sure why there is a day use fee considering there's literally nothing to do except walk around the loop of the campground. You're up on a very very steep cliff and the lake is lower down into the canyon. Regardless, I paid and am happy to support the parks but want you to know about the fees.

There are pit toilets but no trash. There was all kinds of broken glass and alcohol bottles littered in my campsite when I arrived. I did however enjoy some yoga overlooking the lake with the sun on my face before I left for a quieter space.

I work on the road and the data signal was pretty bad. Verizon was the strongest but even boosted I was barely moving and AT&T with one bar boosted was useless. As I was trying to pick my campsite from the loop, the ones overlooking the lake had the "best" signal while the ones on the back of the loop overlooking the mountains had almost no signal.

This campground is NOT free. After two nights stay, we woke to a Highway Patrol stopping in to ask if we’d had paid our fees. ALL signage is down, torn down it looks like. The lake is really low. There is graffiti all over the picnic shelters. Looks like a campground turned to BLM. So we asked where the pay station was located. He pointed over to the roped off CLOSED campground by the boat ramps. The ramp and docks are non-functioning at this point. Again no signage here at the OVERLOOK. You have to drive 18 minutes out and around to get to the pay station, or stay one night and take your chances. Nice campground but irritating circumstances.