Headquarters

The campground attendant was helpful and friendly, and the river was great, but the vault toilets we’re not good compared to others and the potable water was brown and had a smell

The hosts are so nice and it is the perfect spot on the river!

Great camping spot! 2 minute walk to the river, enough shade to set up a tent and a big storage for food and everything.

Toilets were the most disgusting, foul pit toilets I have ever experienced. Clearly not maintained.

The campgrounds were very clean and bathrooms were kept clean.

This campground is beautiful! I stayed in Loop A, which is right along the Kern River. There were multiple spots to swim. Not many rocks in the water here. I did a quick drive through Loop B and it was still along the river but higher up so I’m not sure if there’s direct access to the water. The campground itself is not too far from town, but far enough to experience and feel the wilderness. The campground sits between the river and a beautiful hill. It’s an hour away from the Trail of Giants, and the scenery on route is gorgeous making the trek worth it. I would say this is a beginner camper friendly campground, with spacious sites, clean amenities, and drinking water.

A lot to complain about but will narrow it down to a few points. There was a lot of feces (I apologize for the details but it looked too large and familiar to be from an animal) and trash strewn about and around our site (bottle caps/tabs especially). The smell from the bathroom hit our campsite hard during intermittent breezes. There was very little shade at our site (my fault for not considering that when selecting). Most importantly we didn’t receive any notification or communication there was a fire restriction (we called a little less than a week before to verify) until we got there and had already purchased firewood and food that required it to be prepared. The ranger told us when we arrived (perhaps seeing all of our charcoal etc) that it had been put in place on Wednesday (we arrived on Friday). Despite the disappointment we obeyed and respected this but were really angry to find that several of the campers around us blatantly defied it…with huge charcoal fires…and absolutely no enforcement or oversight (the only time we ever saw management was to tell us about the fire restriction during the day and giving us a hard time about parking slightly off the asphalt. No one was doing rounds or monitoring after sunset). After the trip, I received an email with this information from res.gov, days after it had occurred and our trip was over. All around frustrating and disappointing trip. We’ve camped here numerous times over the last few years and have always enjoyed our time at the river. But this will be our last in terms of camping.

Great campsite, can't wait to come back again!

Camp hosts were awesome. Beautiful campground next to a small quite river off shoot from the main kern. Quiet at night and fell asleep to sounds of the river.