Ponderosa Campground

Upon checkin we found nice quiet spot and walked to the river to skip rocks. It was really clean in the restrooms and plenty of places to grab food nearby. Kids even found a rock stump witttons of paired rocks to take ad leave. Spots are my full hookup and are 30amp.

Nice area. Shaded, next to a stream, lots of wildlife, hiking nearby. Did not have my prepaid reservation. Lots of mosquitoes and poison oak. Quite a few homeless with shopping carts of belongings. Not much sleep because other campsites are loud all night long.Host is there for what?

This is a gem of place to camp with only one black mark against it (I’ll get to that in a minute). This site is run by the US Forest service and sits alongside the really pretty Nacimiento River. If you don’t mind the noise from the road, the best two sites with the river running next to them are right in front across from the pay station and host site. The river is great for wading and supposedly for fishing. There are some swimming holes further up the river (but still in the campground area) as well. There are no hookups for RV’s and the road is very narrow; probably not the ideal place to bring your rig, which makes it perfect for tent camping. Some sites are really private and spread out, and others are on top of each other. They all have picnic tables and fire rings with grills, and there was water available.  Alright, now for the bad part. The vault toilets were terrible! They definitely needed to be pumped out, and were in desperate need of a good cleaning. The flies and smell was overwhelming. They had obviously been “maintained” as they were stocked with toilet paper, but that was the extent of that. There are lots of nearby hiking trails to pick from and you are not too far from the coast.