Chalk one up for private enterprise: The Alvord Ranch (which also owns the Alvord Hot Springs) is charging $60/night to camp at Pike Creek with no amenities other than open-air vault toilets (be sure to bring your own toilet paper!) I like the idea of paying for a campsite on private land to show the owners that there is intrinsic value in land in its natural state and that you can make money off your land without exploiting it. However, this land owner is trying to have it both ways, because the cows are not fenced out of the campground land (there was cow manure in our campsite.) Also, if you are going to charge for camping, you need to do some work on the land to make it into a campground and maintain it, such as: make it clear where the campsites are (there are no signs or markers), block off unnecessary side roads causing devegetation and erosion, make it clear where day-use hikers should park (they parked in our campsite), fix the road (2WD low clearance vehicles would have difficulty), provide level areas for tents (I saw only 2 places), provide picnic tables (there are none), and pick up litter (there was used toilet paper in our campsite.) The camping fee includes access to the hotspring, but when we drove there, both pools were totally full of people so we didn’t go in. We would rather have the option of paying less just for the campsite, or else let us reserve a time to use the hotspring and set a reasonable limit on the number of people in the pools at one time. The camping fee also includes access to the Indian Creek Canyon trail, but hiking the Pike Creek trail takes all day so we didn’t have time for another hike. The camping fee also includes the use of their private road to the playa, but you can drive onto it for free at Frog Springs just down the road, which is where we camped the night before. The gate to the campground is supposed to be locked, but both times we drove up, the lock was open. There are 2 locks on the chain and they only give you the combination to one of them, so whoever is using the other lock could accidentally lock you in or out. The Pike Creek trail is great and we enjoyed listening to the creek gurgling, the crickets singing, and the coyotes howling.
