Glory Hole Recreation Area

I tried several times to reach out to the site with questions and could never get in touch with anyone, I left several messages. I tried calling to rent a boat and no one would answer. We missed the first night of our reservation because we were getting a late start and tried calling to see what time they closed the gate and again couldn’t get in touch with anyone so we didn’t go for fear of being locked out. When we got there a day late there is no one at the entry to answer questions, no directions on how to find your campsite or access any of the amenities, you are completely on your own. When we got to the campsite, it was all on a hill and there was no flat place to set up the tent so we had to sleep at an incline. Finally the lake was so low so there was no way to access it without a boat which had no reservations available because we could not call ahead and get anyone to answer. It was over a hundred degrees every day with no relief. We finally had to drive 45 minutes to another location every day to go swim in a different lake and enjoy the outdoors and return to our campsite after 7:00 when it finally started to cool down. The other half of our party left early because they were miserable. Overall the trip sucked.

This is a beautiful campsite in a great area, but unfortunately very poorly regulated. When we arrived our campsite was littered with trash and we had to spend time cleaning up and picking plastic out of the fire ring. Additionally, although the site had listed quiet hours, there was no one there to enforce said quiet hours meaning that people were playing music and shouting until 3 am. The bathrooms were decently well maintained, there is a ton of wildlife at the site, and the scenery is beautiful, but overall the lack of management was disappointing. If you choose to go definitely bring extra trash bags and earplugs.

Does not have shower

Nice and clean. Nice park rangers. Clean bathrooms, always stocked with tp.
No annoying bugs that I've noticed.
Stayed at this site twice this month and will again towards the end of summer. Haven't been to the actual lake yet tho(even tho it's right there). Maybe next time.
Bring your own handsoap.
Shower takes quarters.

Overall a nice campground at Big Oak Campground, Glory Hole, New Melones Lake. the lake as usual was lots of fun even with the very low water level, but nothing can be done to change that in the short term.

loved the campsite reservation online made it so all fees included clean restrooms other campers were quiet late at night will be back soon

Either lock up everything you own or tie a guard dog to your campsite because the low life weekend people who come up from the city will steal it. I had over 450 dollars worth of camping equipment stolen. Avoid this place on the weekends because the druggie come out big time

Don't bother here during the summer. whatever the temp is in Angels camp, add 3 degrees to it. the camping sites aren't level, in general, they slope one way or another, there's 1 water spigot that I saw for our entire loop, and the shade is sparse. they had a single shower for each bathroom and a single toilet in the mens. the light was out in the ladies bathroom and I saw a maintenance guy who said they were aware of the work order but not sure when it was scheduled to be due. Their sister campground, tuttletown, had their septic pump fail and apparently it takes on average a year and a half to get replacement parts. The shower temp was 85f for cold. Also late August through end of October is tarantula mating season. LET ME SAY THAT AGAIN LATE AUGUST THROUGH END OF OCTOBER IS TARANTULA MATING SEASON. The lake level was about 100ft lower than what the pictures they provide, it's about a 4:1 slope, so for every foot lower it's approx 2 ft further from the bank, so at 100ft lower it was about 200ft further down a very steep walk, just be aware of the water level. Honestly I would go back ONLY after the rainy season, otherwise the heat, the ground and the spiders make this facility not worth the money.

With the reservoir's significant drop in water, campsites are not on or by the water. About 200-300ft down is the water line. The campsite overall is kept up well, but it was very dry, dusty, and sparse vegetation.

Always a great time camping at glory hole. I have small kids, so the fact we had a whole corner of the campground to ourselves was awesome!! If you could just encourage the fish to bite that would be great!