Lake Cahuilla Recreation Area

First the good:

great location, mountain views, hiking from the park, and cheap. Oh, and a darling wifi cabana for relaxing and surfing the web. My fav thing about this place.

Now the bad:

Cahuilla lake, which sounds lovely, is actually a concrete basin with water in it. No swimming or boating allowed. No natural features. It looks like a man-made tragedy. It's stocked with trout so you can fish, but no one seems to catch any that we've seen. Perhaps the trout are starving themselves in opposition to living in such a dire concrete fish bowl.

When you only pay $15 for the primitive area (large gravel parking lot), you are at the mercy of loud, obnoxious, country music playing, generator running all night, campfire obsessed neighbors. You may not sleep well. You may trip over all their crap they have strewn about. You may trip over their 20 raggamuffin kids running around. Call it bad luck, or recognize it's the cheapest parking in the Coachella valley.

Showers cost $$-and not worth your coveted quarters. Save them for laundry.

We stopped here due to the late hour on our way to a BLM site at Joshua Tree. (These two places are actually not that far from each other!) The access was terrific, the hookups worked great, the neighbors were friendly and quite, bathrooms were clean, they have a book sharing box!, the 'lake' is man made, there is fishing, and the surrounding area is beautiful. If you enjoy comfortable camping this is a nice spot to relax. We are the type of people that like to post up in the middle of no where, but we didn't find this camping ground to be obnoxious. Would probably be fun for the family to stay. Free wifi, worked well.

You get what you pay for. Close to amenities, water, dump station, showers. Lake Cahuilla is a concrete basin at the very end of the American canal which is unsuitable for swimming, boating or any water contact, yet fishing from shore is acceptable??? Go figure. Never saw anyone catch anything ... thank God.

Did I mention the Sherriff's gun range at the other end of the lake, which is tucked up against a rock bluff that redirects the automatic gun fire noise directly back at the campers. A gun range that is used sunrise to sunset by EVERY law enforcement wackados from the Mexican border on up. Nothing like being awoken to the sound of World War 3 at your doorstep!
Oh the price of freedom!

We stopped at Lake Cahuilla for only one night on our journey out west from Arizona. It's a bit out of the way from the freeway (about 25 minutes) but easy to get to. We arrived after dark and the ranger who greeted us was kind and super helpful. This was our first time parking at night and it ended up being a breeze because of the size of the camping sites.

There seem to be a lot of people complaining about the lake itself, but I don't know what else you'd expect for a man-made lake in the middle of the desert. It adds something somewhat interesting to look at (albeit a bit bland), in addition to the beautiful mountains you're right up against. The nearest grocery is a 10 minute drive, so come prepared!

We almost didn’t stay here based on earlier comments. I’m glad we did. This is a nice little campground on the edge of La Quinta. The campsites are basic packed gravel and immaculately groomed. The bathrooms are basic as well and clean but not super clean. The only grassy spot is unfortunately, but understandably off limits to dogs. The lake makes a nice backdrop to camping in the desert and if you want to dry camp, there are sites with nothing between you and the lake. The lake is evidently stocked with trout per a published schedule so that could be a plus for some. Our site with full hookups (28) had big electrical boxes near our door which was unfortunate but since we had spent a 1-1/2 weeks dry camping in the desert we wanted loooong showers so we were happy. They do lock the gate as stated elsewhere but they provide you with the combination so don’t let that stop you.

Based on rates for other parks in the area, this is a nice, quiet park with a great location.

We arrived in mid March. The pool was closed. They put us into a pull thru site that was converted so someone was very close in front. Others parked along the lake blocked our view. We had poor AT&T reception because it was crowded under trees. Partial hookups only. Only one dumpster inside the campground. Lots of noisy neighbors close by running engines. Heard a couple hours of gun fire at the range. Trees were nice. They charged extra 2 bucks a day for Dog and not provided any dog area. Lots of dogs anyway. Dusty. Windy. Fake lake of concrete. Only one dump site for all. Feel cheated at 29 per night. Hard to back into cramped space.

We came here after staying in a commercial campground at 75$ a night, 10 minutes from here. So 22$ (20$ + 2$ for the doggie) was a nice break. Add 15$ if you want full hookups. Anyway, a lot cheaper and a lot more interesting than the packed campground we were at before.

Busy during the weekend. Users are not super careful and a lot of paper and other garbage end up flying around. This being said, staff is super efficient since the next day, every piece of terrain is super clean.

My neighbor was a generator fan and did not really care about the quiet hours. This rule could be reinforced a little more.

We spent the first night with full hookups but decided to park directly on the beach for the rest of the stay. Great view on the man-made lake. Don't be too fussy, everything is man made here. It's a fancy city built in the desert. The area is very windy, do not think to open up your awning.

Free wifi but you have to be close to the router (the little shelter area at the entry of the campground). Reception was good from where we were on the beach.

We have stayed here before and plan to stay again every year. Just called to check availability & there was lots of room.
Dry camping $20
Water hook-ups $25
Water & Electric $35
Full water-electric-sewer $40
Hiking, Fishing, geo-Caching
Beautiful views
Shade, Showers & flush toilets

Very nice campground. Well maintained. Very friendly staff. Nice hiking trails. Clean restrooms with showers. Dump site.

This is a great park. Sites are pretty close together, but they still seem big for some reason. We were in site 5 which was the perfect fit for our 40 foot RV. We didn't have our car with us this time, but there would have been plenty of room for that. Around the back side toward the no-hook-up area, some of those sites seemed to get kinda tight. It was just a sea of pickup trucks and wedged in all over the place. Our site had 50 amp power and water. The water is not listed as an amenity on the website, but site 5 sure had it, as did most around us. The scenery at this park is absolutely amazing. Just stunning. We were there for the Desert Triathlon so we didn't venture out of the park, but it seems like there are plenty of things to do locally. Dump station is nice and big. It's weird though, they have 2 lanes, but only one....uh...hole. We have a 40 foot class-A and the roads weren't too bad to get around on, but getting in and out of the park...man, I don't know if I'd want to be any longer than that especially towing something. Tight turns, low hanging trees, narrow roads especially near the ranger/campground check-in.

Quick note. There is no swimming or boating allowed on the lake. You can fish from the shore it seems, but that's it.