Pine Meadows Campground

We camped here for 3 nights in June of 2022. We had made reservations so our nightly rate is an average after any reservation fee and / or discount. This is a long campground on the E side of the lake - there is lake access in several spots. The lakeside sites are nice - I think 43 (if I remember right) was my favorite. We had a nice pull thru on the road side, so did hear road noise. A lot of the pull thrus have trees between the sites and the road, so watch as you pull in. Full of families on the weekends, so if you don't like "kid" noise this won't be your favorite spot. If you enjoy seeing families out camping, then it's good.
The signage going into the campground doesn't really show up until you are RIGHT on it - we saw at least 10 vehicles pass the entrance and have to backtrack. Didn't use the facilities, but liked that they had a playground and a swimming area for kids. No alcohol permitted.
Am including our campground info video - click on the VIDEO tab! Or Here: https://youtu.be/FjZnDqVg8y0

We choose to go into the primitive site, as it looked fairly empty and we did not have a reservation. Had to go to the main campground to pay and found out that just because it did not have any reservations on the pole did not mean it was not reserved (it seemed it was safe because they had multiple reserved dates on other sites). The personnel were very helpful and friendly checking to make sure the site was still available and signing us into recreation.gov. The site was large, no privacy between sites. There was a large tree that provided us with shade. It would have been nice to have access to the lake without going through another campsite, though the shoreline looked like it was filled with reeds.

We were in the primitive campground. Our site had some slope to it but we leveled up fine with blocks under the rear tires. The lake is way low, we could just see it through the trees, but it was not a short walk. The main campground is closer to the low water, but still some walking. The sites in our primitive campground were all back ins, mostly fine for rigs our size and a bit bigger, the exception being sites N and O which have some low hanging tree branches. We walked through the main campground and the sites there appeared being more of a mixed bag, some pull through some uneven, some back in and different sizes. I think if you go to recreation.gov there are descriptions of the individual sites there. From what we could figure out the difference between the main campground and the primitive campground is running water and showers in the main vs. pit toilets in primitive. In the main campground the roads and sites were paved, the primitive was dirt and dusty. We are going to have to pay $6 when we go dump in the main campground, I don't know if that would be included in the price for camping there or not.

Things I like: After moving to site 17, I was right on the lake. Peaceful huge site. I am van camping so I didn't need a big space. Site was level and bathroom had warm water and a lukewarm shower which was fine. Nice shade, firepit and room to spread out. Great place to Kayak. Away from major roads and freeways. Super quiet at night. Site 33 and 35 also on lake.
Didn't Like: Site 4 in the middle. Loud obnoxious, toxic campers close to me. Far from Bathroom and not enough shade. Fairly noisy campground, lots of kids, families and some generators. Jet skis on water.

I travelled to Pine Meadows in a 35’ 5th wheel and stayed in site 84, a back in site. The campground has no hookups, but has several non-threaded water spigots around and a dump station with potable water spigot for filling RV tanks. The roads and sites were asphalt. The road was a bit narrow making backing into the site a little difficult. If someone had been in the site across from me I don’t think I would have been able to get into it. Several sites had lots of heaving in the asphalt from tree roots. It looked like most sites had some sloping down toward the lake. I needed boards under the wheels to get level. The CG was pretty well shaded making it difficult to get sun on my solar panels. No wifi, Verizon had 2 bars in the early morning and late night with daytime connections being very spotty, didn’t check for OTA channels. The bathhouse was older and ran out of hot water on the weekend when the park was full. Loads of weekend traffic and people were pretty noisy. It was very quiet during the week. The sites were very spacious. I let my neighbors pitch a tent on part of mine since they were over their limit. There was some road noise since the CG is right along the highway. The camp hosts were very nice and the rangers were around if you needed them. It is a great park for families and people who like to do water activities. Lots of folks took advantage of the beach since it was over 100 degrees that week.

We had a good stay in the “primitive” campground (which has vault toilets and water spouts, but no hookups). Our site was very sunny, which turned out to be great for testing our new solar panels. The site was super off-level, but long and had a huge area around it. There was little privacy from other sites, but some newly-planted trees might help in a few years’ time.

One of the other sites had a huge group gathering that was quite loud into the night. It was strange to see that many people together given the pandemic. The frequent patrols by park rangers didn’t lead to anyone quieting down. However, all the other campsites were friendly and polite and overall the experience was good.

The nearby boat ramp and beach were awesome; we biked to Wilson Creek Park and enjoyed the water. There were lots of families and the water was wonderful.

Note that Garmin maps lead us the wrong way (to the regional office); Google Maps had good directions.

Just was looking for a spot to break up a longer drive. So glad i did. My first COE site. Not the best site in the campground but still roomy and open. Several closed sites due to covid regulations so not as busy. Select the lakeside sites if available. Had rafts so went swimming and enjoyed just relaxing. Did not use their bathrooms so cannot speak to it.

Great place to go if you just want to chill and fish, not much else to do, no close hiking (that we could find) there is a small swimming area but it was to cold. Just not much for kids to do. But it was calm and quite and I like it for those reasons.
Campsite 0 in primitive area was perfect. My daughter left flowers on that table to spread happiness.