Glory Hole Recreation Area

One of my favorite places to camp when not busy. Beautiful vistas, interesting hikes, so many birds, and Murphy’s and Sonora nearby—both fun cities to visit. I love Angels Camp which is just up the road and has two grocery stores, dollar general (I like Angels Market), and several restaurants.
Hot showers, clean restrooms, and nice campsites not on top of each other. Good Verizon signal.

The gate at entrance does lock at 9pm. I’ve been locked out twice because I cut it close and with the gas station at the turn down Whittle Road now closed and completely dark I missed turning when I should. My tag was pulled even though I paid for multiple nights and my stuff was there (so save your extra car tag to use on campsite post if needed).

Water is lowest I’ve seen since I started coming in 2005. Dramatically lower.

Rec.gov needs to come up with a more affordable fee to use their reservation app. I used to pay camping fees at a digital kiosk at entrance and could skip $8 (!) fee each transaction. Give feedback so they make changes.

Great place to dry camp. We used this as a base to travel to Yosemite NP.

Great fall weather, and a beautiful location overlooking the lake

Very nice staff although they don't bring you your and you're tickets to put on your post until it gets dark and I'm almost ready for bed but that's OK very friendly very nice people.

Glory Hole campground is all about powerboating, big trucks (even a big rig!), and partying. If that's your scene, go for it. If you prefer peace and quiet, look elsewhere as people don't respect quiet hours.

New Melones reservoir is the main attraction, but there don't seem to be nice beaches accessible from the campground to enjoy it from. There are some worthwhile walking trails in the area with great views of the lake.

We chose New Melones in part because it offers electric vehicle (EV) charging. Unfortunately, the charger does not work properly because it's limited to just 6 Amps, which is only 5 miles range per hour. Called the campsite afterwards - apparently that's deliberate because they don't want locals charging there, never mind that it also prevents campers from charging.

The camp site was beautiful and although it did seem like the site's were very close to each other, we didn't encounter a privacy issue because there were only a few people camping. The location is TERRIBLE for bank fishermen. If your plan was to fish the lake, turn back and find somewhere else. The bank is 99% unimproved, there is little to no areas where bank fisherman can fish. The lake is also extreme low. The water levels are substantially below a reasonable amount to fish. Also going during the fall like we did, almost everything was closed. The trails, the accessible areas, the creek, literally everything outside of walking through a mountain with no trail

Did not feel to safe. Neighbors were loud and playing music all day and past quiet time. I saw only 1 ranger drive by the whole time we were there.

If you like hot sun and dry grass, go ahead and camp here. Wasn’t the camping environment we were looking for. Only makes sense to go if you’re really into boating, and I can’t speak to the boating experience here. Site itself was large and level, but we ended up leaving and going to a shadier, forested campground.

Location and amenities are absolutely wonderful. Very well maintained and clean. Campsites we’re predominantly flat with decent shade. Friendly staff and wonderful views. The water is extremely low but that didn’t deter us from having a good time. Coming here again for sure!

Paid for a spot then got woken up by a ranger passively as they searched around my car and left a ticket but didn’t bother to actually check if I had a reservation. I then had to search high and low for a non existent number to handle said citation. Pretty interesting that I got a citation and not a sliver of information to take care of citation even though the citation made threats of action if not handled. Super disappointed. Usually have good experiences…