I stayed at this campground with my daughters while on a road trip to So. Cal. It is on a first come, first served basis and is only $20 per night. The staff was friendly and offered suggestions for a good spot when asked. The reservoir was beautiful, but the ranger warned us against swimming due to algae and recommended a different swimming spot on the reservoir.

We set up camp just fine, setting up our tent under a beautiful fig tree. My daughter watched a white egret in the reservoir. It was very windy which would make cooking difficult so we decided to eat dinner at a nearby restaurant that seemed like a kitschy tourist spot called Pea Soup Andersen’s. It was a fun place that I’d take the family to again. The staff there was very friendly and the food was good.

When we got back to the campsite it was dusk. We got ready for bed. By this time it had gotten dark. We watch a frog hopping along and then I felt something land on my foot. It was a GINORMOUS Spider. I kicked it off and then looking around. In the light of the headlamp I saw MANY LARGE spiders. They'd come out to hunt, apparently. This is no exaggeration, they were so large that their eyes gleamed when they caught the light of the headlamp. Many, many eyes were staring back. We immediately headed into the tent, made sure that the zippers were high and tight and went to sleep.

Except I couldn’t sleep well. The gates to the park close at 10pm, but I was consistently woken up by vehicles driving around. It took me a very long time to realize that they were probably patrolling the land. Between the spiders and the patrols it wasn’t a very good night’s rest.

We woke early to load up. The large spiders were gone, but there were tons of spider webs on the outside of the tent and small spiders in them. Those didn’t really bother me. It just seems like it’s a very spidery location.

I don’t know that I’d camp here again. While the location has a real beauty to it and nice wildlife, the large hunting spiders freak me out. No one was bitten though. The patrols I could deal with now that I know about them. But the spiders.