Hirz Bay Campground

oh wow what a fantastic and gorgeous location. really well maintained when it comes to their bathrooms (flushing & sinks) and trash cans… but holy bear. around 4am a black bear (maybe 500lbs?) came through our site and pulled on the bear box and kept it moving to check neighboring sites (which were vacant) only to come back shortly later for a few sniffs. this would’ve been less scary had we been in an RV buuuut tent camping + bear is not the vibe guys. it definitely smelled us and knew exactly where we were & we’re incredibly fortunate but of course we were terrified. i’d definitely come back with different equipment and plenty of mace and really wish there were more signs about the likelihood of bears in this area at this time. there were a handful of signs but so small and easy to get lost amid all the other super valuable information.

Thought I share some updated photo since there weren't much online photo of campground.

This campground is inland, not close to the lake. you can walk down from the campground thru the wood, but it's a steep hill going down, and it's coming back up is a pain. like a 10 min walk. you can drive to the boat launch.

at the boat launch,  on right side of lake, we were able to swing where the stair goes down the water..that spot the water was ok. everywhere else it was either to hard to go down or water was too dirty (muddy)..

there was lots of shade at the campsite, which was good, ground was not level only certain spot,no flushing toilet or shower. lots of poison oak and mosquito in evening.

we had a  bear that came on the campground in the afternoon..chase it away and it came back again in the evening. we ended up going home later that day, just wanna be safe than sorry.

Despite the 100 degree temps in August, there is a trail down to the lake and we were able to swim to cool off.  The campground was basically empty.  Our site was a good size and we had shade.  Bathrooms were clean.

We came here for our summer camp trip from LA. There was 14 of us and one site was fine because they were so big. It took us 11 hours to drive there and even the little kids thought it was worth the drive. We had so much fun walking down to the lake fishing, swimming and playing with the dogs. The restrooms were clean. There was even some bigger sites that would have been even better for our big family. We’re looking forward to coming back.

The campground is about 30 mins from the highway, in beautiful forest and has easy access to the water. Campground was quiet, clean and empty when we were there. Ate handfuls of wild blackberries and swam in a small, secluded cove with warm water. We felt like we had the whole place to ourselves. I would stay here again.