Lake Mary Campground

We camped at the end of the season just a few days before seasonal closing.
The campground hosts Tom and his wife were marvelous - they're gems.
Sites were very, very clean and neat. The bathrooms were spotless - pretty much always.
Indian summer weather and a sparsely occupied campground made for wonderful late season memories.
We've camped here before and plan to revisit frequently in the future.

Great location and make sure to listen to camp host on their local bear. It will come to your site.
We had set up for dinner and luckily saw it walking to us - we managed to get our food (that we were eating at the table) in the bear bin in time - others not so lucky. The bear ignores whistles and bear horns.
Once it has perused your site it moves on - pretty cool to see but a little sad seeing how habituated it had become....
We'll be back for sure!

Very clean site with flush toilets and running water in the bathrooms and outdoor fill stations. Was at site furthest away from Lake Mary, but was a easy, short walk away. Can rent paddleboards, kayaks at the little market nearby. Nice paved bike trail that runs through campground which goes all the way into town. Not too far from Mammoth pass trail heads. Had a curious bear visitor almost every night through all the campgrounds, so staying vigilant with food storage a must.

2022. Bears, bears, bears.
First of all the 2022 camp hosts were the nicest, hardest working ever. We’ve enjoyed camping at Lake Mary Campground late Aug early Sept for many years now. We’ve always seen a bear or two but this year’s trip included bear activity like never before. Multiple times a day and night air horns would be blasting and people would gather together shouting “go bear” lead by one of our fearless camp hosts to coax the bear to leave. Inevitably the process would be delayed as the bear would find an open bear box, a bag of cookies or another delicious treat to delay its departure. Eventually the bear would leave and we could go back to sleep or return to camping activities.
One very large bear wasn’t afraid of any of this and seemed encouraged if anything by the crowds and the noise. It was both scary and exciting at the same time. Almost too much for me as one time the large bear was 10 feet behind me before I knew it.
We’ve always appreciated the camp hosts here but this year, 2022, the camp hosts were the best. The bears kept them very very busy and despite this the bathrooms were so clean all the time!

Campground itself was nice. The problem was the idiot guests who bring their whole house camping then the resident bear shows up to snack. Stupid people turn on their car alarm panic button at 3am, 4am etc.. to scare the bear off. This totally ruined the peace and quiet most are looking for when camping. People are the worst! Campground was nice otherwise and in the desired scenic lakes area.

People are STUPID!!

Camping culture has changed. Lots of music morning, noon and night. Campsites next to us had speakers. Wish there was a noise/music ordinance in an environment where people look for solitude and to hear nature. Music via speakers (along with a lot of pot smoking and the intrusive smell that comes with it mornings and evenings) was at the campsites, on bike trails and hiking trails. Camp hosts didn’t seem to make any difference or ask people to stop. We lucked out on great weather.

The campground hosts are a super nice couple, not that the old hosts weren’t.
The hosts keep the sites and bathrooms extra clean. They were friendly and spent a lot of extra time informing people about the bears and to please use the bear boxes.

Camp host helpful and friendly.

We had a great time at Lake Mary. We stayed in spot 20 in August 2022.

-Pros: view of the water, close proximity to the bathrooms (which were flush toilets and always kept clean), close proximity to the lake (a very very short walk from spot 20), close proximity to water spicket and dumpsters, extremely kind campsite hosts, shaded with trees surrounding, and bike/walking paths all around.

Cons: The spots in the loop we stayed in tended to be a little close to each other, or at least the fire rings were. Wished the fire rings/picnic tables were spaced out/staggered a bit more for privacy. The bear situation can be a little scary so definitely recommended bringing bear spray. Cell service was extremely patchy with T-Mobile and not much better with AT&T.

We will definitely be back! The lake has two marinas, one on each side, that rents out kayaks, pontoon/motor boats, and paddle boards. & it’s only a short 10 min drive into town for day activities/shopping.

Biggest problem (other than rain -- can't help that) was finding camp from Lake Mary Rd. sign on road says "Lake Mary Campground 200 yards" with arrow pointing left. We assumed that meant go another 200 years up LM Road and then turn left. After trying that a few time (in the dark), we asked someone we saw on the road and turns out the left turn is right there at the sign, THEN you go the 200 yards. A bit confusing. Otherwise, everything fine.