Boat-in Sites (Lake Sonoma)

A nice little get away from the city. I hiked in instead of boating in with my dog. We were the only ones camping the entire stay. The lake has definitely receded and you do see the the burnt hills on the other side of the lake. This part of the lake had kayakers, boaters, and water skiers so it does get a bit noisy, but it is really peaceful when they are not there. During dawn and dusk, there were a lot of deer around the site.

The camp site comes with a picnic table, trashcan, and fire pit (although you cannot use them currently). The campground has two outhouses. There is no drinking water available so make sure you pack it with you.

Great place to get away, also you can definitely hike in to camp if your up to it.

Went to find out camp and it didn’t exist, looked like a dozer made a fire break right where were supposed to stay.

I couldn’t camp, and nobody answered so i don’t know what do to get my refund

Recreation.gov allowed us to reserve a campsite on the far northeastern corner of the lake without any warning on the website that Yorty Creek was closed. After the fact, it was still very difficult to find this information, even when going to the Lake Sonoma website. Make sure you do your homework to see if there are any closures before renting a site.

The campground was charming, but about two miles from the water. The lake level has receded a lot so no easy access. As a result there was garbage every where and the out house had not be serviced in a LONG time. In August 2020 the news said that the campground had been burned down. We do not know what condition it is in now.

Poor

We used our “boat in” site as a camp for backpacking around the west dry creek arm. We booked “Old Saw Mill”, but as we hiked closer, realized there was no water in the lake that far back- it would have been nice for the website to stay up to date on current conditions! So... we had to turn around and go back to Buck Pasture- not ideal when you’ve already Hiked 12 miles with a pack and have to go back! The campsite: while the sites are nice, a lot of trash around. There are garbage cans at each site, so clean up after yourselves people! Also, tons of yellow jackets (end of July) which was annoying. Loved the trails- mostly well maintained, and challenging (especially day 2) ! Saw a few wild boars 😬!

I had a wonderful time rowing, and camping at Loggers Camp. I rowed 26 miles, and was able to explore all navigable waters on the upper reaches of the Dry Creek arm of the lake, where I saw several Osprey, and two Bald Eagles.

We'd planned on kayaking to a campsite within range of the Yorty Creek Recreation Area. I saw nothing online to indicate there would be a problem with this. However, when we arrived, we discovered that Yorty Creek was closed. I found nothing online about this. Local authorities had apparently decided that because there were picnic tables at Yorty Creek, it would present a COVID-19 risk for everyone (even people like us, who always wear masks in public and planned on avoiding people anyway).

I assume the one other entry point to Lake Sonoma was still open, but I don't know because we didn't bother visiting it. Kayaking from there to our reserved campsite would've been much too far. We were extremely disappointed at driving 120 miles just to waste a weekend. We wish someone had told us that Yorty Creek was closed, so we could've made other arrangements.