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Arroyo Seco Campground
Category: Hotels & Travel Campgrounds Campgrounds [Edit]
47600 Arroyo Seco RdGreenfield, CA 93927
(831) 674-5726
22 reviews for Arroyo Seco Campground
22 reviews in English
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Review from Colleen M.
San Mateo, CA
8/1/2011
This is an awesome campground and place to hike. I have come here 3 years now for a river hike. The campground that the group stays at is the Primative campground. It's got two gigantic bbq pits and couple of fire pits too. Nearby are some nasty toilets (but this is to be expected we are after all in the primative camping section.) If you go up the hill there are nice toilets and showers. Be sure to bring quarters for the showers!
Bug spray is a must!
The group I go with hike's up the river and we bring floaties with us so we can ride the mini rapids or just float around the calm spots. The river was super clear this year and you could see to the bottom in the shallower spots. There are also fish and crayfish swimming around too. I enjoy coming to this campground and plan on going again next year. =) -
Review from Corinne B.
Hermosa Beach, CA
6/23/2011
A Great campground! We stayed in a double site 001, nice location and lots of space. You get 2 picnic tables, and we had a screen in canopy. This is a must, because the bugs are bad! Bring lots of bug spray. The hike to the waterfall is gorgeous but can be hot. We went down the river on pool floats, it was perfect! The day camp has a rope swing. There is a store about 5 miles down and they had ice, beer, etc! The bathrooms were clean too.
Great place to spend fathers day weekend family camping! -
Review from Steve N.
Updated - 12/5/2010
Well, it's been a couple of months, a few phone calls and emails....all for nothing. I got nothing from dealing with Rocky Mountain Rec Co. It just seems like they don't want to hear from people or sort out any problems. I could push the issue further, but it won't do anything but waste my time. So I'm done with this company and it's camp grounds.
The Arroyo Seco campgrounds are ok-ish as far as the the sites to be reserved. The fire pit and parking spots and tables are fine. The river down the way was fun. That's where the positive ends for me.
The downsides, for me, out number the pluses. The ground had too many rock hard spots to sink tent stakes. The bugs are relentless! The water and the pressures were bad. The payment system followed by the secondary tag process are my biggest issues. I don't know where our money went, but when the hosts couldn't find it, they blamed us. I was never given a good answer by this company regarding what happens when THEY lose the money. How can a guest prove they paid? I found out you can't prove it. My personal opinion about the setup is that it is flawed. If you ever come across this company at a campground, you best let the hosts come to you. Have them see you put money in the envelope and get video of it with your cell phone. It's the only way to prove you have integrity.
As for the hosts - this company is not government so they don't have rangers. The hosts, during our visit, started off nice..... but it went bad the last day. A beautiful disaster of sorts. I will admit that my group got a bit loud one night. When we were approached, we stopped and apologized. Past that, I don't think we did anything wrong. However, we were not treated like there was a mistake made or misunderstanding. Bottom line is this company will never have my business again. There are just too many other places that I've been and can go to that I've never had a problem with. There's just too little vacation time in life. Right?1 Previous Review: Show all »
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10/16/2010
Since my previous review was too much, I'm writing a new one.
Me and my family had a bad experince… Read more »
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Review from Jenn N.
9/27/2010
Never before, have I felt so harassed and personally attacked. I will document my experience with the camp host below, in the hopes that no one else will have to re-live what I did this past weekend.
I wouldn't recommend this campground to anyone and I will never be back. However, if you are forced to go here for any reason, keep in mind the following:
The bathrooms are only cleaned once in the morning and half of the sinks are broken. Prepare for lots of bugs.
The ground is rock hard. Getting our metal tent stakes in the ground was a serious challenge. I am just glad we had metal stakes, as the plastic stakes were useless.
It's a bit of a hike down to the river from the campground & parking can be a challenge.
If the day use area is full, they will block off the gate. You can be stuck sitting on Arroyo Seco road for an un-disclosed amount of time.
Get a hand stamped, signed receipt of ANY and ALL cash/checks that you give to this place.
Here is a detailed account of my experience with the camp host, of which I will gladly go under oath and testify to. Does that seem dramatic? Perhaps but when you are directly accused of stealing - sadly, it seems appropriate.
We arrived and set up our tent. My daughter was trying to stay out of the way of the frantic camp set-up, so she went to an empty camping site and sat down at a picnic table to read until we were done. The camp host immediately came over to her and told her that she could not sit there and she had to return to our specific site.
We were the 3rd vehicle to arrive at our double site. As such, we understood that there was a charge of $5 for our vehicle. I took an envelope out of the bin, filled it out (Our camp site name, # and our vehicle license #, checked the "extra vehicle" box) on both sides and put a $10 bill inside ($5 for our extra vehicle - for each day). I sealed it shut, tore off the receipt and placed the envelope with the $10 in the brown tube labeled "PAY HERE".
Saturday afternoon, upon returning from the store we were approached by Cookie. I recognized her as the woman who had told my daughter she couldn't sit at an empty camp site picnic table. She introduced herself as the camp host and explained that we needed to pay $10 for our extra vehicle. I pulled out my receipt and told her I had put the $10 in the brown PAY HERE bin. She explained to me that getting the envelopes out was a tedious chore, in which she refused to do and she would just have to take my word for it.
Saturday evening, we ate dinner, cleaned up and gathered around the camp fire to chat. At approx. 10:20, the male camp host entered our site and yelled at us for making too much noise. I found this to be interesting, as I took a walk around the campground and there were 3 - 4 other groups of campers making twice as much noise, music, etc. I went to bed after the walk, so as to avoid any trouble.
Sunday morning, I was making pancakes for my children. Cookie entered our site & demanded to see receipts for the extra vehicles on our site. We had 2 extra vehicles, our truck and my cousin's truck. I reminded her that I had already showed her the receipt the day before, it was sitting front and center in our truck window & explained that I had put the $10 in the bin. We were in the middle of cooking breakfast, my husband asked if it could wait a few minutes. Cookie chased after him & said, "No, it really can't." So, I took over cooking breakfast and he went to get the receipt out of the truck...again. My cousin also went & retrieved his receipt. Cookie took both receipts and claimed that she couldn't find the envelopes for 1 or both of them.
I was bewildered at that point. She came over demanding receipts and as we pulled them out, again, without even so much as looking at anything else or verifying their validity - she said that they were useless. What receipt exactly were we supposed to produce if not the ones we had from when we first paid?
She then yelled at one of the guys in our camp and threatened to call the Sheriff and charge us with a misdemeanor because I "gave her my word but didn't pay".
Dear Cookie, since you were so quick to accuse me specifically of giving me your word but not actually putting the $10, I would like to know where the $10 went that I put in the bin? If you are going to point the finger at me, then I am going to point it right back at you. I put the $10 in the bin. I was ready to have you call the Sheriff and take that ride with you. My family put in another $10 just so you would leave us alone. So you wouldn't ruin our entire camping trip, of which you seemed hell bent to do.
I will be filing a formal complaint with the company that employs her and will leave it at that. -
Review from Z B.
San Mateo, CA
10/11/2010
My favorite place to camp.
Gorgeous CLEAN river. Multiple trails, swimming, cliff-jumping (carefully), floating (with a floatie of course), hiking, river canyoning and other adventures.
VERY popular in warm weather, yet I have always been able to get a campsite on the developed side. Real toilets and showers with hot water (.50cents) after an all-day hike through the river... priceless.
I was sort of shocked to see any negative reviews on here. Reading between the lines from the campers comments it looks like an isolated event and misunderstanding. I have been coming here for a few trips each summer for years and have only had good interactions with fellow campers and staff.
In my experience the camp hosts, especially Cookie, are sweet wonderful and hardworking people. Can you IMAGINE the bravery required to clean a campground restroom after 500+ day-users, 200+ campers, toddlers and drunkards have used it. Are they always spotless? No. But considering the uphill battle, THEY DO A FANTASTIC JOB!
The NEW extended stay option on SUNDAYS is pretty cool. You can stay until 7pm for $7.00 more, no matter how many cars in your site. It's worth it to enjoy another whole day and not start packing at 1030 to go home at noon.
Also it's a benefit to the community of nature-goers because the FIRE rules limit them to 126 cars/day but these extended cars aren't counted in that.
The CONs
Flies want your moisture. Mosquitoes want your blood. They want it bad. The FIX: use your fire pit. Make some smoke during meal prep. Then get to the river. I never found bothersome bugs at the water. The fire-road to water access has flies for sure... just keep moving.
The ground is hard. True. I sleep on a queen aerobed... but I've seen many campers sleep on the ground with no tent, just a bag and a 1/2" foam mat. Braver souls with younger vertebra than I... but it can be done.
Parking fills up on summer weekends. I have never had a trip here with more than 2 cars so it's never been a problem.
If you have a giant group, then #1 get more than one site and/or #2 bring less junk from home so you can fit more people in your cars and then actually "CAMP" #3 plan ahead and rent the GROUP CAMPSITE.
They would love to let everyone in to enjoy the space BUT they are limited by capacity. Best to plan ahead and reserve a spot or you risk waiting to be turned away on gorgeous hot weekends.
There are not a ton of trees. So there is a little less privacy and your voices and laughter will carry much farther. The FIX... have a lot of fun during the day, cook a giant meal to refuel and relax with a few drinks (not 20 drinks) and get some rest so other campers can sleep too. Remember: Silence is Golden... but Duct tape is silver... and coincidentally so are the Sheriffs handcuffs. :)
WHAT TO BRING IF YOU ARE HEADED TO THE FALLS:
A clear head and a BUDDY.
This trip is great but can be dangerous.
Use your head. Do some research. Pack appropriately.
Some rocks are slippery. Wading in cool water can make even the most elite athletes muscles cramp and... that's not good in deep water.
Old lace-up running shoes. NOT WATER SANDALS. You'll want the cush of socks for the 3+ mile fire road hike. The traction of REAL shoes on rocks. Support for your arches and the cover for your toes when rocks and sticks tumble over your feet for the 2 miles you will travel in the water upstream from the Horse/Marble Peak Bridge. It is tougher to swim with shoes but it's worth the foot protection.
Unless you are really easily sun-burnt or very modest... wear as little as possible. This helps you going upstream as the current is slight but noticeable when trying to fight the drag of long board shorts and a t-shirt.
The FALLS have 3 "slides"... the first one is an "L" and drops you into a slow 4-foot deep pool... the other two are TOO steep and dangerous to slide down without the "JACKASS 3D" movie crew and a helicopter waiting to evacuate your stunt double.
Sunglasses... cheap ones... the river has nearly claimed my FOAKLEYs on many occasions.
Water (30oz+ per person)
A dry bag: Camera, food, dry long sleeve shirt.
The water is warm by CALI river standards, but it is colder than 98.6F and even on a hot day the high canyon walls = shade... it's easy to get cold after a few hours of wading/swimming.
Any food/trash: you'll need to keep that dry. Wet tuna/aluminum cans and PBJ is as gross as it sounds... and you don't want to step on it... so pack in and pack out your TRASH!
Inflatable tube or mat. REQUIRED if you are not a strong swimmer. Also keeps you more comfortable and warmer with your body out of the water.
I love this place. Please keep it awesome!
If I see you out there, thirsty, shivering and hypothermic, don't say I didn't warn you, but know that I'm happy to share a chunk of my energy bar and remind you to do push-ups and hug rocks to keep warm. -
Review from Tatyana S.
Emeryville, CA
8/18/2009 2 photos
It was my first time in Arroyo Seco area. Going south on 101 and watching the Los Padres NF hills turn from pretty green in the spring to scorched brown in the summer and fall never filled me with much desire to explore this park. That was until I was invited to tag along on a hunting trip.
As soon as you exit 101 to Arroyo Seco Road, you start noticing unexpected changes in the scenery: luscious vineyards, cute farms, and, finally, a deep canyon with a river running through it. I was almost hopeless to see water there, judging by the name Arroyo Seco, which means Dry Creek. I was pleasantly surprised.
You arrive at the Arroyo Seco Recreation Area. There is a fee that you pay at the gate. Day use is $5 per car and overnight use is $14 (http://www.recreation....). That is totally worth it because you will leave your car at the secure parking lot and nobody would break in (hopefully, you never know nowadays).
There are several scenarios for your stay:
* arrive in the morning, hike up to the river, jump from boulders into
the water all day long
* stay at the local campground (make a reservation, for some odd
reason they fill up quickly), hike to the dry lakes, hike to the river
* hike into the wilderness, camp at one of the river's sleeves, hike up
to the highest ridge the next day
The dirt road leads from the parking lot to 18 miles along the river going up and down and up and down. There are also many trails maintained by the Forest Service winding through the ridges. Bring a lot of water with you! You'll need it.
We veered off to the side road along the sleeve creek. There are no developed campgrounds in the wilderness - camp wherever you like. Pick a spot close to the water, as it gets really hot and you'd want to dip a million times in a course of an hour.
Coming back was nice and hard, hot and sweaty. While passing by people panting up the hill I heard this conversation between a little boy and his mother:
Little Boy (LB): Look, mama, I found gold.
Mama: Honey, it ain't gold, it's fool's gold.
LB: I ain't no fool, ma, but I'll still take it.
Oh, great, I thought to myself and emptied my backpack full of pyrites...
This place deserves five stars in my book. I loved the river and the vast views. It also made me happy to feel that beyond the ridges - there is a Pacific Ocean. -
Review from Shannon L.
Fremont, CA
7/12/2010
Small and simple campsite.
My favorite thing was the hike. You can walk 2 miles, go down a side path to the river, and just play in there. You can waddle in the river or go up it more. If you want to do some cliff diving, then you'll have to continue the hike about 30 minutes further up. The hike itself can get very heated since there aren't that many trees to shade you so the river does seem like an oasis when you get to it.
All the individual sites are really close together so if you like your neighbors (which we did), then you'll have a great time. We ended up sharing food and playing with their kids. But if you don't like your neighbors, then it'll probably ruin your entire weekend or you may end up ruining theirs.
The bathrooms are clean in the morning but once people start using them, they end up with a daylong pee stench. The showers are surprisingly spacious and usable. I put in $1.50 worth of quarters and that was more than enough time; it felt like at least 10 minutes.
Parking per car is $5 and renting the campsite can range from $20-40 per night. If you need more supplies, you can drive 5-10 minutes out of the camping grounds to a small store which has all you need and even water tubes. Seems like everyone in the area is really friendly. -
Review from Tina S.
7/12/2010
I love this place!
Huge camp sites, hiking, gorge, swimming in the stream and pools of cold clear fresh water, and close to the bay area. If you like to jump off rocks into the water, or swing on a rope then this is the place for you.
I'll let you in on a little secret.... If you want to be away from the rest of the campsites, get site #29. If you want huge parking areas get anything with an RV picture on it. Bring bug spray, I left with over 5 bug bites!
Bathrooms can get nasty and smelly by the end of the night, so if you don't care for bathrooms you can be more hardcore and go to the primitive sites! -
Review from Eric M.
San Francisco, CA
9/7/2010
This is more of a review of Arroyo Seco than the campground. I didn't stay at the campground, I went backpacking FROM the campground.
Arroyo Seco is the only range station clearly listed on most maps (the other ranger stations appear in insets), and this folly led my brother, mother, and I to head to this side of the park rather than the ocean side. We were there to backpack, which usually involves making a plan, then going to the ranger station and finding you your plan sucks and learning of a new plan from the helpful rangers. We ended up settling on the Marble Peak Trail.
This did not happen. The ranger was not very helpful and didn't know the trails well. As a result, we went off with less of an idea of what to expect that we might have wanted. The trail started off alright, but about 4 miles in, it back narrow and over grown and there were tons of flies that never bit, but were really annoying. When the flies became unbearable and the trail to narrow, we gave up and decided to hoof it back.
We thought we had found salvation from the swampiness of it all when we stumbled upon the Tony Trail, which heads over a 1500' ridge to Tassajara Zen Mountain Center (http://www.yelp.com/bi...). What we didn't know was that the Tony Trail had been fire ravaged. It started off fine, but about 700' up (elevation wise), the switchbacks became very narrow and the trail went from gravel and supported sand to unstable sand and heavy underbrush. The 3 mile trail became an absolute death march. We were very nervous we had lost the trail, and were afraid we'd have to camp on the ridge.
We eventually found salvation at the Zen Center, and had a pleasant hike out a more heavily used trail (Horse Pasture Trail), but overall, it was a poor experience. The trails were poorly maintained, and signage was poor in spots (the Tony Trail had warnings on the Zen Center side, but none on the Marble Peak Trail side. -
Review from Raven M.
Fremont, CA
7/14/2009
We went to this place for camping in July 2009. As you see in other reviews, we had very average expectation about this place. I have seen other reviews where people have complained about this place being very crowded. Its absolutely true. This place is absoultely crowded. In fact we saw people have back to back tents quite near to ours. It looks like a rural village when its full. There is absolutely no quiet period or anything. So people keep playing music till mid night or may be all through the night.
Another thing is, this place is very very dry. There is no grass on ground. So it becomes very dusty in day time. All our tents were very very dusty and you would see a lot of dust floating around in day time. That was a downer as it makes your breathing very uneasy.
The river is very nice. But you have to walk 1.5 miles to the nearest trail and then climb down. The climb down part to the river is very dangerous. We had 2 kids with us and we had lot of problem climbing down to the river. Its very steep.
The good thing about this place is, the toilets and showers. They are very very neat and clean. However one morning, someone had pooped in the shower. But then what would the ranger do for this :) .
The ranger is ok but not too friendly. They try to seel everythign to you starting from firewood to a map of the place. I had to buy a hand drawn map from her for 1 usd which in my opinion should have been free. -
Review from John P.
Aptos, CA
10/19/2010
Me and the fam took my mother here for her B-day hoping to do a lil hiking and playing in the water. The first night the camp host approached our camp YELLING that we were being too loud. I took it with a grain of salt and gave him the benefit of the doubt being that he looked like a crazy old man. The following morning we were bombarded with flies and decided to use an old dilapidated awning with mosquito netting to sit in. The awning was easily in our site with no other campers remotely near by. After an hour we all decided to change into our trunks with exception of my brother's GF and our mother. At this point I heard yelling and looked out of our tent to find the same host in my brother's GF's face fanatically screaming that we've stolen his property, who do we think we are, etc, etc... He then approached my mother who was silently watching from the side and got in her face, I'm talking 2 inches away. I stormed out of the tent instinctively but was held back by my GF. We agreed to move the awning back while he continuously hounded us. Never before have we been harassed to the point that we had to order the host out of our campground and he was held back by one of his assistants. There was no professionalism what so ever, but more of a demented, power freak with delusional expectations. He continued to take pictures from the border of our site and then pounce on us if we left our site by ourselves. At one point he demanded written apologies from everyone in our site! Neighboring campers were far louder that evening with no responses from the host. Later, neighboring campers told us the awning wasn't even the host's, but was left by previous campers, explaining the scotch tape and stapled fixes. We met Cookie, the other host, and were very pleased by her, her charm, and her dog- but saddened when we noticed that the two hosts were married. After reading others review involving similar incidents with the host, I was easily inspired to write this, although several months late, and am pursuing a complaint with the involved supervisors....
PS- as for the campsite? was very pleased with the land and river, but overall the outing was stained by the senile host. -
Review from Jess I.
Fremont, CA
9/15/2008
I have been to a lot of Campgrounds, And experienced a lot of things, but this place left me with mixed feelings. The natural scenery is amazing, there is a ton of wild life- deer are everywhere, there are wild pigs, turkey and many different types of birds. The employees are really nice people. The river is clear, there are different levels of rocks to jump off of and lots of room for swimming. There is also plenty of natural shade in the family campground. There were a number of unpleasant things tho-
1- There are no maps available, and NO hiking trails were open at all because of all of the fires this summer, which wouldn't be such a big deal had I not driven from Fremont and that hiking was advertised on the parks website.
2- The pit bathrooms in the family camp look and smell like they haven't been cleaned in a year. I have used bathrooms in some of the doggiest of places-- camping, locally, and internationally, From Oakland to Spain, and seen some nasty things, but the arroyo seco bathrooms motivated me to pee outside.
3- The hike to the river from the family campground is too long, and too uphill on the way back to walk with children, you have to drive there.
4- I watched a seemingly nice camp staffer wake two campers up by banging on their tent before 10:00 in the morning after we told him that they didn't get in to the campground until late the night before. I suppose they needed to pay for the site they were occupying, but the campground was almost completely empty, and there is very little chance they could have gotten out of there without paying.
5- No bare feet for kids on the river, there is broken glass all over the place.
6- Bugs do not bother me but there is a serious fly problem at this camp, I have never seen flies like this before, and they swarm at your face- and eyes. Good luck sitting at a picnic bench between the hours of 10:00am and sunset, because if you hold still they come at you. I was so tired of picking flies off my son's face. They are at every site, in every campground. You cannot get a bite of food to your mouth without flies landing on it, it was, really, really, really, strange. I would not go back there without a screen tent.
All in all this place was not worth the drive, Check out the Pinnacles about thirty miles north for a much better camping experience. -
Review from Carlene n Cynthia S.
Oceanside, CA
10/13/2011 2 photos
I thought this campground was great. It was our first time here and we has a wonderful trip! We camped in the primitive area on a double site. The bathrooms were decent...primitive no flush toilets. Will work for only a couple nights (It's camping!) I like the privateness of the primitive sites, the other area seemed to be all families and the sites were close together. We got a little loud one of the nights and there were no complaints. The weather was perfect, not too hot or cold (we camped mid-August). After reading other reviews, we were prepared for the trip. The ground is hard! We had trouble getting our stakes in, bring a hammer, tarp, and an air mattress or something extremely plush to sleep on. Bring bug spray! We had a problem with bees in the morning. We had a grand ol time playing in the river at the day use area. There was a rock to jump off and a rope to climb up. Definitely bring water shoes and an innertube or raft of some sort. Pretty cool place!
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Review from Michael D.
San Jose, CA
10/17/2010
There are two types of sites there; the Modern and the pimative sites.
We stayed at the Modern site.
PROS: Wonderful and extremely helpful camp hosts, Cookie and her husband who unfortunately I can't remember his name (shame on me for that as he helped to make me feel welcome there from the get go), beautiful scenery, clean campgrounds, CLEAN restrooms and shower!!
Bring bug spray as those litle black flies will do their best to ruin your day though eventually left us alone around 6:30'ish. I didn't have any issues with mosquitos though I heard they can be a nuisance. -
Review from Mayra P.
San Jose, CA
9/12/2011
Just spend the weekend in Arroyo Seco and the place is beautiful yet the park manager was so annoying and racist. We reserved a double site and 2 single sites. We were a family of about 25 people and would get together in the double site for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The campground has no Ranger and just park managers that would not leave us alone. He came up to us to complain about us not recycling correctly before we were even done unpacking (we had not even had any drinks yet) so obviously it was not us. They tried being nice about things at the beginning but towards the end of the night Howard (park manager) would come up to us and YELL at us. Even though he would talk to us very rudely we still tried to keep it in good terms so we wouldn't have him on our backs the whole weekend but it was no use. He was extremely rude and would not let us talk. He yelled at us like if we were kids. That man came to our campsite like 10-12 times during the 2 days we were there to talk to us about everything you can imagine; move the truck the tires are on the dirt area, parking issues, too many tents, how many people per site, too noisy, etc. I understand the park has rules to follow but one of the times he said we were noisy and I know for a fact that it was not us because we were all sleeping by 12:30am when he said he heard loud noise. He just picked on us.It got to the point that he said the reason he couldn't get a ranger out to talk to us was because we don't pay our taxes and if would pay our taxes this wouldn't be an issue and California would not be going bankrupt. I was very offended with this comment and of course defended my family and myself by telling him that "Just because we are Mexicans it does not mean that we are not citizens of the United States and that just like him we all pay our taxes. We pay for his ass to do his job and that he should focus on what he considers the issue instead of picking on us for being Mexican", this made him even more upset and he went on by answering "don't give me that bull shit" and drove away.
One of the times he came up to us and said "I need to talk to someone that speaks English clearly". WTF I told him that he can talk to any of us we all speak English.
I will never go back to this place. The place is nice but , the river is clear but rocky and cold, there are so many bugs and bee's that make it so hard to eat your food comfortably. -
Review from marco c.
Danville, CA
11/7/2010
Hi, I have to say that after camping for 20 years in California, this was my least favorite camp site.
Pros: showers and bathrooms are great, easy drive, the river and the lakes are nice for fishing and water play. Nice shaded sites.
Cons: the camp sites are way too close together, saw gang members in the river area, too much noise at night, camp host "Cookie" rude and unprofessional, she burst in to camp with out introducing herself and went off, talks about other campers, said she calls the police for drunk persons (we had no alcohol) and then was nice at the end. The funny apart was when she said she makes the rules! I thought we were staying in a National Forest with laws. Maybe she was having a bad day, her husband was okay. It would help her if she used the company uniform or at least used a name tag & if they were better organized on running the site. This way one won't mistake her for another crazy camper. We won't return to this place. -
Review from Elisabeth D.
San Francisco, CA
6/16/2009
This is camping for dummies: Affordable car campsites. Restrooms with flush toilets and showers. General store down the road.
It got pretty loud and crowded when I was here on a Thursday and Friday night--think radios blaring, 8-person ridiculous tents with little children running around, bright lights, errant soccer balls, etc. I brought ear plugs and my friends were really jealous.
The one and only reason it gets four stars is because the gorge is AMAZING. Cool, beautiful water to swim in on a hot day, lots of rocks to climb on and jump in off of, beautiful scenery to look at. NOTHING by way of signage or comprehensible directions.
So here's the deal: You can get in to the gorge at the "day use area" down the road towards the general store (the way you came in), from a trail going down from a small asphalt lot right next to the campsites, or you can hike upstream along a road that was once open to car traffic but is now foot traffic only, keeping your eyes peeled for several VERY non-obvious traces down to the gorge on your right-hand side. (Seriously, we could not find them until we ran into some locals who showed us.) My friends and I hiked up this old road for about 2-3 miles and then went into the gorge and walked/scrambled/floated/swam downstream to the campsite. Other people apparently hike UPSTREAM to some waterfalls, but there are also traces that will put you in closer to those. The trace we took down to the gorge was a little ways past an obvious bridge, so use that to judge whether you've gone too far.
Advice about gear: Wear swimsuits and maybe shorts that can get wet. Wear old tennis shoes or even better, pick up some water shoes at Target or Wal-Mart. Bring some flotation device, whether it's a life vest, an inner tube, or even a bunch of empty water bottles in a mesh bag like we did. (They can start out with water in them and then you can drink it as you go.) A waterproof camera is priceless. You can easily make it back to camp from where we got in just past the bridge in an afternoon.
It's crazy fun, and while the campsite is crowded, the gorge itself is not--you'll run into a few other groups, but everyone else must apparently hang out by the day use area. A great weekend getaway that can be as lazy or as active as you want it to be. -
Review from Kevin D.
San Francisco, CA
11/10/2010
I had a very pleasant stay with my friends at the campground. Both camp hosts were nice and non-abrasive. When we did get too loud one night, the camp host came over and respectfully asked us to quiet down.
There were good views during the day, bugs didn't seem that bad, and bathrooms we're fine for me. All in all, a good time. -
Review from laura w.
8/14/2010
This campground is certainly a drive to get to, however the drive is well worth it.
While I did not camp here, I did hike the trails and made my way down to one of the little beaches along the river. The water runs crystal clear and you can catch (and please release!) crawdads, see tons of fish, turtles, dragon flies... .and unfortunately bees if you happen to bring a ton of food with you, as we did.
We set up a little camping legal bbq and sat in the river, munching away on fresh fruit, enjoying the huge cliffs and soft rapids.
ADVICE:
- Bring watershoes!!!
- The trail we took down to the river was not a well manicured trail.... it involves going down steep rockfaces and at one point you even use a well placed rope to avoid sliding to your certain death... well, injury at least. Small kids could probably do it, but make sure to have at least two adults to help them down.
- It gets extremely hot in the sun... -
Review from Nic W.
Berkeley, CA
8/7/2009
This being the first place I went camping, I have to say, not bad. Not bad at all.
If you follow the fire trail and go past the bridge making kind of a U turn back around, you will find an amazing place to go cliff jumping / diving. If you go on a sunny day remember to get lots of fluids and it'll be perfect. The water is cold and the rocks are warm from the sun. Wonderful experience. -
Review from hen a.
8/14/2007
easy access drive making arroyo seco a safe bet for a weekend wilderness trip....tent and gear in tow....pitch a tent and enjoy outdoors....arroyo seco hosting full service quater showers, flushing toilets and water faucets around....."modern camping" they call it....while pit toilets the difference for "primitive camping"..if one prefer at a lower cost....not an ideal place for fishing or boating....what arroyo offers is hiking by the "gorge", waterfalls and a easy getaway.....
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Review from Natalie H.
San Francisco, CA
11/9/2007
I've been here too many times to count and I've always had a good time. I always go in the summer(it gets pretty hot) because my friends and I go what we call "creeking". Hopefully the gorge is full with water so that you can jump off rocks! Make sure you wear some sort of shoes when you hike down to the creek. Once you are in the creek and you're going up stream, having a good grip on the rocks below becomes very important. You may stub your toe.....a lot, but it's all worth it to be out there. Bring goggles to explore and look at fish. If you're going to be out there all day, try to bring a back pack with some H20 and some cliff bars. You will get dehydrated....oh, and always bring sunscreen!!! Try creeking it up as far as you can go. I promise you will not be disappointed. Let me know if you ever reach the waterfall. The really treacherous one. That's as far as my friends and I have gone. We conquered the waterfall....barely. I got beaten up pretty bad by the waterfall and almost got taken down but luckily a friend helped me. Very important to have a buddy out there and to be careful and not do anything stupid. If you get hurt it's gonna take a long time for them to get to you. Other than that, have a great time. The campsite is fine and we always partied until late in the night. Happy camping!
