The main idea for creating this blog was to chronicle our travels as well as the transformation of our camper. This post will carry on with that plan but with an emphasis on reviewing the latest campsite we visited. Castaic Lake is the largest state water project reservoir in Southern California and it also has a campsite. We wanted to camp near water, and at $20 per night, decided to give this one a try. At just over an hour's drive north of L.A., we were able to arrive at our destination with enough daylight left to set-up and enjoy the sunset.
Not knowing the layout of the campsite we chose a spot with a great view of the lake and near the washrooms. This turned out to be the high point of our experience and went downhill after this point. Don't let that serene lake fool you......once the sun had set is when the wind started up. By the time 3am rolled around the wind was blowing enough that our side canopy started to bounce around and we had to take it down. Which brings me to my first criticism that our section of the campsite was essentially a paved parking lot and we had no ability to secure the legs of our canopy.
With an optimistic approach to the next day we decided to explore the entire campground to see if there might be a better spot and found one with some shade under a tree including another nice view of the lake and appropriate places to secure our side awning.
Then it was off to explore Castaic park which was located on the other side of the "lake". I say "lake" because it turned out the campsite and park are actually situated on the lagoon which is simply water that is released from the much larger actual lake situated above the dam.
This again was the highpoint of the day. You might notice that the beach area is empty and this is because swimming was not allowed during the time we were there. We also discovered that the restrooms, in not only our campground but the entire park, did not have doors on any of the toilet stalls. Now I don't particularly enjoy public washrooms but having people walk in on you almost every time you try to "do your business" was more than annoying. Once we got back to our campsite the temperatures were approaching 100 degrees and the wind was picking up which continually blew a fine dust from the dry dirt we were parked on.
All things aside we did manage to enjoy an excellent Rib-Eye steak that I had been marinating for 2 days. I don't know if it's just me but I always find food cooked on a grill and eaten outdoors always tastes better.
Even though the wind was picking up as the night continued I wasn't too worried about our side canopy as we had both legs staked tight as well as tie-downs on each corner. We made it through our second day of 100 degree heat thanks to the shade from what seemed to be the only real tree in the entire campsite but it was still hot and the fridge fan was working overtime to keep our food cool.
I didn't take pictures of our neighbours but as the evening progressed, more and more sites were filled. Normally this wouldn't be a problem but the extremely close proximity of the individual sites left it quite difficult to ignore the noise. This was also the start of our least enjoyable camping night we have experienced so far. Although the campsite gates were supposed to be locked at 10pm, more and more guests were arriving until midnight and to two sites in particular that were directly across from us. "Quiet time" is supposed to begin at 10pm but it was quite a loud party until 3am which had to be loud so they could hear each other yell over what I estimate at 50mph wind gusts. We finally had to take down our side canopy after the stakes came out and were lifting off the ground from the insane wind despite our extra fastening. That pretty much sums up an unnecessarily tiring and uncomfortable camping experience at a campsite we will not be visiting again
