Just returned from a trip to Big Basin from the Sacramento area. It is a lovely forest; and very quiet. The cabins are nice for what they are, and make camping a little easier and cleaner without sacrificing the feeling of being in the out-of-doors. The sites are spacious, and give you plenty of elbow room.
On the down side, we had to put up with what seemed to us to be an extraordinary number of racoons and mosquitoes. We are not camping novices, and have never experienced racoons and chipmunks so aggressive and so clearly used to people. They were irritating. To deal with the mosquitoes, we went through probably $100 worth of bug spray, and still ended up with loads of bites.
Another down side is that the campground isn't great for little kids. I'd say maybe six years old and up would be okay. We had three 3-year-olds, a 4-year-old, a 7-year-old and an 8-year old. The older kids did great. The younger kids had a tough time not falling (our site was very sloped), tumbling off logs, slipping on the leaf carpet, etc. Pretty normal stuff for kids, but since there really isn't much else to do except stay in the campground or hike, we were fairly limited in terms of distractions and thus upped our chances for injuries. There is one very nice, level hike that the little ones handled well. There is no water...Just returned from a trip to Big Basin from the Sacramento area. It is a lovely forest; and very quiet. The cabins are nice for what they are, and make camping a little easier and cleaner without sacrificing the feeling of being in the out-of-doors. The sites are spacious, and give you plenty of elbow room.
On the down side, we had to put up with what seemed to us to be an extraordinary number of racoons and mosquitoes. We are not camping novices, and have never experienced racoons and chipmunks so aggressive and so clearly used to people. They were irritating. To deal with the mosquitoes, we went through probably $100 worth of bug spray, and still ended up with loads of bites.
Another down side is that the campground isn't great for little kids. I'd say maybe six years old and up would be okay. We had three 3-year-olds, a 4-year-old, a 7-year-old and an 8-year old. The older kids did great. The younger kids had a tough time not falling (our site was very sloped), tumbling off logs, slipping on the leaf carpet, etc. Pretty normal stuff for kids, but since there really isn't much else to do except stay in the campground or hike, we were fairly limited in terms of distractions and thus upped our chances for injuries. There is one very nice, level hike that the little ones handled well. There is no water feature of any kind. And unfortunately, we went to the park on nights when they were not holding any campfires or other activities. We did find out the day before we left that there is good bike riding, and thank goodness we brought the bikes because that provided something for the kids to do.
From a management perspective, there were a couple of flaws. One is that we specifically asked for two sites right next to each other that would be good for our group. They gave us two sites that, while next to each other, were divided by two huge felled trees. This made getting from one camp to the other a major chore. We had to either crawl under (literally, crawl), climb over, or walk all the way around. It also blocked our view of each other's sites, and thus we had to keep the kids contained on one side or the other to keep them supervised.
Also, please note that although you are allowed to have two cars parked at each site, you must pay an additional $6 per night. They don't make this very clear on the web site, although it is there. And we specifically asked them if there would be an additional charge when we booked the sites and they said no, so it was a surprise to have to come up with an additional $18 per site the day we checked in.
So, all in all, a nice place. Great for adults looking for time away. Not great for kids given the lack of "stuff" to do, but manageable for older kids. Definitely not a good place for the 5 and under crowd. And probably better for those from the Bay Area than from Sacramento, given the suite of other equally lovely choices in northern California.More
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