Hungry Gulch

This is the absolutely most horrible experience I have ever had. There was a group of people that were listening to loud music and singing till 6AM and we could not sleep. We tried talking to them, they said they would only listen to the ranger. Ranger stopped by but nothing changed. At 5 AM we went back to the ranger, but he sent us away. We could not sleep a single minute. Group was extremely aggressive and absolutely horribly loud. Most disappointing was that ranger did nothing and ignored us.

The campsite is really nice if you looking to get away from big crowds. You have to get there early if you want to get a shaded site. Working toilets were a plus and you have room to work with when setting up your gear. The lake or river you do need to drive too which is the only negative remark I have.

I do a lot of camping, this one is a great campground if you want to go swimming, waterskiing, windsurfing, fishing, or just enjoy the beautiful scenic views of Lake Isabella. If this campground is full check out my other review on Boulder Gulch. These camps do get full on holidays and in the summer so always reserve in time. Also what I do like about this site is that they have flushed toilets lol the host is always nice and welcoming. Also your phone will have some service but just make sure to turn it off and enjoy being out in nature. That’s the whole point right 😁. But other than that awesome camp, very clean and only some camps offer shade not all.

CONS: when it does get full, obviously there will be so many people and it does get loud and noisy. People will be playing loud music.

Review

Made reservation on Recreation.gov. Arrived at 4pm. Sites are said to be assigned upon arrival. Camp host was the only tent found pitched in the entire campground. It’s during the pandemic and some places are closed. Campground sign said full. Yelled to see if anyone was there in the campsite and no answer from the camp host. Left a voicemail with campground to let them know my name and reservation info and I have was going to look for a spot. Picked a spot with shade - very few available. Some trees, but not large Sequoias like you may expect since it’s near the Sequoia National Forest. This place is desert hot and might be a bit miserable for folks to just hangout here. There’s no hookups. It’s near Lake Isabella. Went to bed and didn’t see a camp host that evening. ANTS!! So many ants in my camper in the morning. Ack!! Talked to a waitress in town and she says the campground I was at is known for an ant problem. Had to get diatomaceous earth at the hardware store in town along with ant traps galore now that my camper was overrun. Find out from the locals this campground has a reputation for being bad. I had to reconsider my plan to stay there and went elsewhere... so frustrating.

Our experience here was really frustrating for multiple reasons, but for the sake of this review I will try to highlight what is important for other campers to know. We had a bad experience from the beginning when we arrived at Hungry Gulch and were blown off by the camp host for asking who we could ask some questions of since we had made a reservation online at Recreation.gov and it was unclear what to do since there are not assigned camp spots. Since we had a kayak lesson to get to we called the Sequoia Recreation line and were told that we could pick any empty campsite, put our tent there and then it was OK to leave and the camp host would come along later to check our reservation (again which was done online so we had no other proof besides our email). We pitched our tent, went off for our kayak lessons, and when we got back to the campsite around 9 pm there was another family in our site and our tent was gone! The camp host took down our tent and gave our spot to someone else because we "didn't have the proper tag and hadn't checked in with him,"which of course we tried to do.  So, I had to go find him and explain to him how I had done exactly what I was told by Sequoia Recreation and then he had to drive around for 15 minutes to find us a new spot and didn't even offer to help us put our tent back up that he had taken down (at what was now almost 10 pm). We were surrounded by people playing really loud music on a speaker on one side, another group that was drunkenly yelling on another and loud road noise. Someone came around the sites at like 10 pm and of course everyone was quiet for all of 5 minutes and then we didn't see anyone else after that checking on things. At 12:30 am we had enough, asked both groups to be quiet and while it helped some, both were still making lots of noise. After a long day of kayaking I was exhausted and gave up. We packed up our site at almost 1 am and left out of sheer frustration and ended up having to get a hotel in Bakersfield just to get some sleep. Beware of this campground and know that they're tricky with their sites. There are not a ton of bathrooms and the sites on the periphery of the campground are really close to the road with lots of noise. There are some sites with shade but not many. I am giving it 2 stars for location and proximity to Kern River activities and Lake Isabella.