Best Equestrian Camping near Mojave River Dam

This is a really fun place to stay and has a bunch of awesome amenities. Right behind the campground is the Pioneertown Main Street, featuring replica buildings from the old west. They have stores, gun fights, and a restaurant nearby. The campground itself has a communal fire pit and bbq area that all campers can use. Each site has a table and fire pit. The layout of the sites is a little cramped and there is no privacy. It is designed mostly for equestrian camping and has horse stalls you can rent along with your site. The restaurant (Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace) is somewhat of a local icon, and has amazing food and is known for their live music.

Been here many times since it is local to me.

This place has changed a lot over the years, and not necessarily for the good, in my opinion.

What there is:

• Trailer camping
• Tent camping
• Fishing
• A playground
• Small water park
• Two lakes to fish at
• Trains, lots of them
• Bathrooms with showers
• Frisbee golf
• Picnic tables and shelters

What there is no longer:

• Paddle boats
• Horse riding stables
• Horses and cows
• Other interesting animals
• Water in the grass fields where the animals roamed
• Arenas

Beware of skunks and loud trains!

It is still a somewhat nice place to visit for a couple hours with the kids.

We have camped in a tent. The tents sites are adjacent to the lake.

Trailer camping isn't too bad, other than being adjacent to the busy railroad. Most sites have grass.

Campground Review

We come to this campground throughout the year, and its one of our favorite spots for summer camping when we're short on time. It's an hours drive from LA and because the campground is at elevation it stays cooler during the hot months. This is my third review for this campground, and one thing I will say that I've noticed over time is that as the popularity of the campground has increased, so has the noise. We've been kept awake by other campsites on three different occasions now. Part of the issue is that rangers aren't regularly monitoring in order to enforce the quiet hours. We usually only see rangers come around in the morning. With that said, we still like Horse Flats because there is usually a spot or two open if we arrive on a Saturday. Also, the sites are relatively well spread out compared to other SoCal camping options. And it's dog friendly, which is a must for us.

Things to know before coming

• bring all your water with you. There is no running water at this campground
• purchase firewood before driving up the mountain. I've unfortunately seen too many campers collecting wood around the campground to use for fires. Don't do it! Different woods burn differently and also carry differently in smoke, and the Angeles National Forest is often at elevated fire danger levels
• the drive from the base of the mountain to this campground is about 45 minutes. make sure you have enough gas and have a map / driving directions ready, because there is no cell phone service

Things to do nearby

• bouldering, just a short hike away. See more info on routes here
• hike the Pacific Crest Trail to historic Glenwood Cabin. Here is the route I mapped out if you want to pick up the trail near Bandido campground. And here is more info on the cabin
• take a scenic chair lift and play disc golf at Mt Waterman, a 10 minute drive away. More info here
• Hike Rosenita Saddle to Mt Hillyer, see route here

Product Review

As a Ranger for The Dyrt, I get to test products to review for some of my camping trips. On this trip, we tested out two meals from Mountain House. (See my review of other meal options in my Meander Lake campground review). After cooking these pre-made camping meals, I may never go back! On this trip we had the Noodle with Chicken for dinner and Granola with Milk and Blueberries for breakfast. They were seriously DELICIOUS. Better than anything I can cook with my backcountry kitchen set-up. Here's what I love about these meals:

• super great taste
• quick to make. These meals are ready in 10 minutes or less, some are ready as soon as you add water. After a long day of climbing or hiking, or when you're waking up in the morning, it's so nice to have food ready so quickly
• easy to make. Just add water (boiling, usually). This also means that all we need to pack is a Jetboil, which is so much more convenient than packing a stove, pots, cooking oil, ingredients, cutting boards, etc.
• lightweight, and you can choose among packaging options for more compactness

All in all, I'd say these meals are a game changer for short trips or backcountry camping , when you want to pack minimally. If you're doing a week of camping with easy access to your car, then these meals aren't necessarily your cheapest option for the whole week, but it's totally worth the money in terms of taste and convenience (so you can spend more time on other outdoor activities!).

There are only two things I'd like to see change to further improve Mountain House meals. First, there are no vegan options, and very few vegetarian options. Second, I find the serving amounts to be unhelpful in their current format, because the calories per serving are so low. For example, with the Noodle with Chicken, the pouch says "2.5 services", but there are only 220 calories per serving. If this were your sole meal item for dinner, I'd say that more like 1 serving, especially if you're consuming these meals after a day of rock climbing or hiking. So if I meal plan with Mountain House pouches, you have to calculate servings based on the calories, rendering the "servings" as advertised uninformative.

Best place ever!! Tent camping, RV camping, they have a restaurant and bar, best burgers in all of southern California!! They also have a small store, there's showers, restrooms and a swimming pool! Tent camping along Santa Ana River, you can also fish and hike. So amazing and beautiful, awesome memories made!!

We stayed here for the weekend, the only issue is the gates around the lake and the fact that you can no longer cook off in the spring. The other issue is how many ground squirrels there were! I ended up with two in my tent and one in my van! Very unsettling. There is also a great lack of shade. The camp is fairly clean, but some of the prices are pretty high

Water and electric only on camp sites. No dump site there. There's nice shade on probably half the sites, the other ones have little or none. Nice views of the lake but it's fenced off and access to the lake and park close in the evening. There is a small older bathroom there a flush toilet and a shower

Really good site. Showers, pit toilet, running water, but it's 10$ a night. Hardly any shade unless you get a good site. However they have glamping tents and even own personal hotsprings for a ridiculous fee. I didn't stay there. There is supposed to be blm land around there but everyone keeps it a secret on how to get to where you need to go. The hotsprings is clothing optional, so if you don't mind naked people, or you wanna strip down yourself, you should go check it out 💯💯. Went in early April and it was already really warm in the area

Easy access to the hot springs and no services to speak of. Basically a patch of dirt you can occupy for $10 a night. Loved it.

Rough ride in but totally worth it

The hike to the springs is pretty rough but also worth it when you get there. No hot showers

Super fun place to visit with the hot springs trail. Went in January with snowfall, hardly any campers and nature all around! Two nights are perfect.

• Easy going campground with all the necessary amenities for camping and a great spot for our large group of 18 adults & 10 kids to gather and camp out together. You will have to drive 6 miles of mountainous dirt roads to reach the property, but it takes you away from all signs of the city and surrounds you in nature when you get there, making a very nice camping experience.  The spring pools at our site were so relaxing to have all to ourselves and well worth it to reserve for our party! The deep creek hot springs were absolutely fabulous, as they were situated next to a cold creek where we could do therapeutic hot cold plunges. The hike to the hot springs was fairly tough, but we found it easily with the trail starting right on the property! Definitely recommend camping here, just make sure you download directions prior so you don't end up at the wrong place and run into a crazy guy at a shack next door!

Jake from the Dyrt here! Deep Creek Camp is a great spot to get out in nature and check out one of the coolest geological features in the area!  Check them out and leave a review about your stay on the Dyrt!

Grear to camp here in the fall season !

I used to go here a lot as a kid, both for RV camping and fishing. It's an interesting area, as a rockbed forces the normally underground Mojave River to the surface here, meaning that this is one of the only parts of the river to flow above ground year round. As a result, a small forest of Cottonwood trees abounds, which are the only native tree to this area. The lakes are nice, there are mountain views, and some cool hikes to explore in the riverbed area. It's a green Oasis in the desert, spring is probably the best time to go as it can get very hot in summer and very cold in winter. I do miss the houses, cows, and camels that use to be housed in the stables.