Re: Round valley camping

[briansnat]

As others said, it's a great place to camp. Unlike most public campgrounds, the sites are nicely spread out so your neighbors are not on top of you. The sites are fairly primitive. Fire ring and that's all, though several have picnic tables they are in the vast minority. If you go by boat you must take a water site, they don't allow boaters to talk off water sites, and the water sites go pretty fast.

The sites are all on the opposite side of the reservoir. The group sites (1-7, I think) are closest distance wise to the launch and are an option if you are going with a large party of campers.

A few years ago my ex-wife and I visited almost every water site that wasn't occupied. It was mid week when most weren't . Such as distance from water (closer was better), view from the site. If there was a beach type area, flattness, size, exposure to sun (my ex felt that was important as she like to soak up the rays), dampness, bugginess and a sizeable "beach area". We made a list of 5 prime spots, about a dozen very good sites, about 10 no-go and the rest were OK. The no-go were soggy, dark and buggy with little flat ground.

I'll look around for the list. I ain't giving out the primo or very good list because it seems others have also flagged them as desirable and they are hard to come by. Don't need more competition. I will be happy to share my no-go sites tho.

One consideration is how to handle your boat on the rocky shore while you are in camp. It can get rough quickly. One time I had it pulled partly up on the beach and the waves were breaking over the transom and filling the boat. And it can get pounded on the rocks too. I've taken to double anchoring, bow out just away from shore. About 50 feet from shore I drop the front anchor and back in until the stern is in about thigh deep water and drop the stern anchor straight down. That way the boat rides the waves nicely even if it gets really windy and you can still access the boat easily. If you have a boat that is small enough to pull all the way up on the beach, that can work, but beware, if the wind is right and a storm hits, that beach can disappear under waves in an instant. We almost lost a canoe that way. Had to go out in the storm to pull the canoe up into the campsite or it would have washed away.

One problem since they switched to Reserve America is that you have to book for two nights on a weekend and must check in before 5:00. For us working folk it's hard to get here by 5 on Friday to check in so we wind up booking for 2 nights and only using one. I'm sure a lot of people do that.