Sycamore Grove Campground

Make sure you are reserving the correct spot or you'll be in a non-electric spot hoping to plug-in. The host (gentleman) was magically able to get us into an electric spot. The last one!
Showers were fine. A little on the cooler side but refreshing. 0.25(quarter) for about 4 minutes. The women's handicap stall gave hot water.
We would come back again.

We are full-timers in a 36 ft Class A with a Cherokee Trailhawk tow. We were in site 11 for 4 days in mid May. The CG is clean, quiet (except for some I-5 road noise) and fairly well maintained, except for the low hanging branches that could use some trimming around the CG loop and on the drive in/out. The CG varied from half to 3/4 full over the weekend. The men’s shower had a sign that there was not hot water and my wife said she’d not use the women’s bathroom or shower as they were a little nasty. There are several nice walking trails around the recreation area. There is also a nice winery, Tuscan Ridge Estate, about 10 miles west of town.

AT&T coverage was very fair, ranging from 1-2 bars of 5G, with speeds up to 3MB/s. Site 11 has one large tree at the back of the site that provided some welcome shade, especially in the afternoon when temps were pushing the mid 90s, but it didn’t block access the western DISH satellites. Starlink had speeds between 2 and 14 MB/s. We didn’t try any OTA channels with our fixed omni antenna.

We stayed here a few nights while driving from southern Oregon to northern San Francisco Bay Area. It’s a 50 minute drive to Chico; so, we took a day trip there to visit our alma matter. The campground met our needs. The bathrooms and showers need some maintenance, but were functional; we are self contained in our Airstream so the bathroom conditions didn’t bother us. The campground has a nice paved walking loop/trail that is very accessible for those with a movement disability. We will likely stay there again if/when we pass through. Mobile wifi is poor and unpredictable.

Stopped here for one night.... very confusing directions at the entrance as to how to register to camp.
no issues with noise

probably could have gotten away with parking in one of the lots for the night... as on our way out I saw the same vehicles that were there on the way in... but who wants the knock on the door by Johnny Law?

There is an automatic gate on this place on the WAY IN that closes at 10PM.... if you have a reservation, I guess they include the gate code in the confirmation email for late arrivals.

You would think you could just pick an open site, fill out the envelope, pay, post your tag and be done with it...

But Noooooo

They want you to reserve through recreation.gov pay the reservation fee + the campsite fee + 9$ for electrical.

I have an access pass which gives me 50% off on the camp fee... so even with the discount it still worked out to $47 really not cool on their part.

But unfortunately with COVID and nobody wanting to deal with anybody... this is the kind of crap we have to put up with now... I have seen other CGs like this... where because of COVID.... No walk-ups .... all sites reserved ahead of time. Lovely... thanks... I really enjoy paying an extra $5-$10 for inconvenience....

I second the others who mentioned the clapped out rigs and the camp host site that looks like a junkyard.
There were some folks far away that looked like they were living there...

we werent bothered by anyone.

Never saw the host once... we tried to go over to ask a question about the screwed up registration requirement.. but nobody would come out.

never did get the shower code... maybe it was in the reservation email?

The interesting thing about this place is... its a little sliver of the Mendocino National Forest... so although you are right outside a fairly big city.... its USFS

Selected this campground because it was close to I-5, had electrical and showers. The setting is very nice with many shaded campsites. Electrical at my site was broken so I moved to another site. The shower house was horrific.. dirty, smelly and mildewed. They actually require a code to get into it. I had reserved two nights. I left after the first night. The campground host had piles of stuff laying around. The camper next to me said one of the campsites was permanently occupied by people that harass other campers, had been there months and refused to leave.

My wife and I have been visiting this campground for years now is it is a great base camp to Lassen and fishing up in Redding. Unfortunately we have seen it decline over the years. When we pulled into the campground this past time we spent an incredible amount of effort and time pruning all of the trees that lined the campground driveway is they have not been maintained and would easily have damaged our new rig. We literally left piles of branches off to the side while the host helped drag them. Monday morning upon contacting the regional ranger responsible for the campground and expressing our frustration of the lack of care and the obvious decline that is occurred there he scoffed and chuckled at what I explained to him and suggested that he had no personnel to solve the problem that I described immediately or in the near future. He highly recommended I do not prune any more trees or he may have to send law enforcement out. I continue to prune the remainder of the trees with my wife to make sure we could safely get out of the campground later that day. It is looking like a homeless camp but I do believe many of the people there staying in the non-electrical sites simply can't afford to stay elsewhere and introduce a peculiar element to the experience. There are beautiful trails throughout and along the river which allows you to see some wildlife if you're fortunate. So sad to see it go downhill like this