Pine Mountain Lake Campground

We really wanted to love this campground. It's clean, picnic tables and grills are nice, and it's relatively close to Yosemite National Park. But in the end this campground operates by remote control as an afterthought to the nearby Pine Mountain Lake facility and it seems like they didn't really put much thought into designing it. A camp host would resolve a lot of their issues, but there wasn't one as of July 2017.

If you have made a reservation, you don't need to stop at the main gate and can go directly to your site at the campground. If you want to extend your stay or if you are driving in without a reservation, you need to go to the main gate of the resort to pay (which is inconvenient since it's 2.4 miles away). There is an iron ranger at the entrance but it was taped over at the time of our visit with instructions to either call or go to the main gate. We tried calling but were told they were too busy to take the information so we'd have to drive up to the resort.

Campsites are cut into a steep hill which gives you some privacy from the neighbors but can make backing into your site challenge. In addition, most of them are pretty unlevel which I find a little strange. If you're going to cut campsites into a hill using a bulldozer, why not take 5 more minutes and make them level? Most of the sites are also narrow, and only a few RV sites are long enough for big rigs. We used the website photos to select our campsite, only to arrive and find that it didn't look anything like the picture on the website, so beware there. RV sites have water and both 50 & 30 amp service, but there are no sewer hookups. The dump station is at the end of the loop and is normally locked. You need to dial *81 and the security guard will come and unlock it for you. This can take 5+ minutes. In addition, the entrance and exit are steep and the line-of-sight on departure from the dump station is pretty terrible for seeing if another vehicle is coming. Oh - and the main road through the campground has a steep hill: the towbar on our 29' Class A drug at the bottom and there are deep gouges in the asphalt from other rigs dragging.

There is a huge loop for tent camping but we didn't explore it. The bathhouse in the tent loop has the only showers in the campground (although there is another bathroom near the group sites at the dump station). My niece used the shower and described it as "menh." There are garbage and recycle bins at regular intervals and the campground is kept very clean.

The site has "passable" Verizon coverage but not AT&T service. Although our Verizon showed 3 bars of 4G it was difficult to make voice calls (had to go outside & stand on the picnic table bench). Data was better but wasn't fast until we turned on our booster. NOTE: We were in site 1 at the top of the hill. Service deteriorates as you get toward the bottom of the hill.

There is a pretty good grocery store about 3 miles away, a YART bus stop about 3.5 miles away, and Groveland is a cute little town.

We would theoretically stay here again if we needed to be close to Yosemite, but other than that I'd skip it.

Nice quiet campground. Takes over an hour to drive the Yosemite National park. Hookups