Sandy Flat Campground

At first glance this looks like a very pretty campground, especially since part of it is right on the river, and there are lots of trees and boulders. However, the spaces have been shoe-horned in there, and you are elbow-to-elbow with your neighbors, who probably have screaming kids on bicycles or barking dogs. There are many large family groups with multiple vehicles and pavilion tents strung with lights. If you prize your privacy, your quiet, and your sanity, stay away from this campground.

My wife and I came up here for a long weekend. The temp was 96/66 with strong winds in the afternoon thru the late evening. The grounds had a little trash here and there, I blame that on the winds and the other campers not being as careful as they could be. When we arrived on Thursday a lot of sites were open but that changed by Saturday night when the campground was full. The great thing for us was that even will a full campground there was very little disturbance from any other site. The pit toilets are clean. The camp host (Bob) was great. On one of his trips around the camp he took the time with us to go over the area and gave us directions to a natural waterslide that was a lot of fun. There is a raft loading area at the campgrounds that has a great riverfront beach to hang out if you want and play in the water.

We stayed here in mid July and loved the location of this campground but not the riffraff. There were many family piled into a few of the sites listening to loud music and making a ruckus until late in the nite. The camp host was very helpful and did eventually get things quieted down. The campground was sold out and packed when we were there.

The location however is AMAZING and right on the river with easy access to the water. Water is moving swiftly right now and the river is swollen over its banks due to all the snow melt so be careful! Site spacing is a mixed bag. Some sites are pretty isolated while others are on top of each other. Look at google earth before booking if you care about being alone. Lastly they are doing a lot of repairs right now to put up awnings and clean up the sites. I'd imagine it will be much nicer in the next 12 months.

We brought our 27' trailer and that was a mistake. The road in and out is VERY narrow, winding and lots of obstructions. Definitely keep your rig under 24 feet unless you want a stressful entry and exit.

No fault of the campground but remember it gets VERY hot here in the summer 95-100 degrees. This could probably be a good spot in spring or fall when it is sparsely populated.

I wanted to stay in the general Kernville area, but I had little interest in any of the campgrounds around Lake Isabella, since the lake is nearly dry. So I chose Sandy Flat, about twelve miles downstream from the lake. It was midweek in April and I was the only one there besides the host and his dog. Very quiet. The day use area provides river access for rafters, kayakers and such. There's a footpath from site 22 that leads to another spot upstream. The campground is operated by a concessionaire which has been kind of lax about upkeep. Bits of trash here and there, vault toilets that needed cleaning, weeds growing out of pavement cracks... If you can overlook that, it's a very nice spot. The sites aren't very big and the road has some steep and twisty parts. Cell service started out with three bars of 1X then magically jumped to two bars of 4G the next morning. Internet response was slow because the bandwidth was narrow. Even though th campground is by water, I had no problem with mosquitoes.