Tillie Creek Campground — Hotel in Bakersfield

My wife and two young daughters camped with our friend and her young son for three nights in late June and early July at Tillie Creek Campground. This was our first time visiting and camping at Lake Isabella and wanted to get away from the LA area lakes. Lake Isabella is about an hour east of Bakersfield. The tempature was in the low nineties, but the air was dry and the water was warm. The elevation is about 2,600 feet so it did cool off slightly at night. You are situated essentially at the lower Southern end of the Sierras. The campground is part of the National Forest Service, but managed by a California Land Management subcontractor. We reserved our site months in advance, of course, and this campground featured regular toilets and hot showers along with a nice, but old, playground for the kids. Many of the closer campsites to the Lake were closed for some reason, perhaps, for refurbishment. We stayed in the 40's campsite area which was shaded with good facilities including a picnic table and fire ring and plenty of space to pitch two tents. Make sure you get at least a 40 ft driveway site if you have two cars. Unfortunately, we were woke up by a group of campers arriving at 4:30am in the morning with apparently little regard for those sleeping. We told the camp host in the morning about our loud neighbors and apparently so did about half a dozen others. The Lake itself was great, though, and we enjoyed walking the short 5 minutes to the Lake, especially at dusk. The Lake appears to be at a good water level, too, and is great for small children to wade and swim without it being too deep. The Lake is completely smooth in the morning and gets a bit blown out in the afternoon. We also rented a great pontoon boat at North Fork Marina and did so early, i.e. 9am. The Chase family runs this marina very well and is very family-friendly. If you are a first-timer like us then 2 hours should be fine, but there is a lot to explore so maybe 4 hours may have been a bit better. It was also extremely nice to have the little town of Wofford Heights minutes away. You can get everything you need. I think the National Forest Service needs to consider taking over this campground, though, because its a great location and has good facilities, but needs more direct and hands-on management of the campground. Also, there should be at least one trash container along with a portable toilet down by the local beach area to ensure more sanitary conditions. All in all, this was probably the best campsite with amenties...

I stayed at this campground very early in the season, so I can't say what it's like when it's full. I can say that it is really big, 160 spaces, plus several group campsites in a separate area just down the road||||Although I was the only camper there for most of my stay, I did walk and bike around the entire campground, and I can say the camp spots are quite close together. Don't look for privacy or seclusion here. ||||Sites 1-73 are quite close to the highway. While it's not a super busy highway, I could hear all of the highway noise from space 70. If you don't want to hear highway noise, I suggest you stay in the back of the campground, if possible. Try spaces 74-159. However, even there, you might still be able to hear highway noise. Well, your ears will probably be too busy hearing all the noise from your neighbors to notice the highway noise.||||This campground has am "amphitheater" and a playground. The playground has old-school equipment such as I have not seen in years, including metal monkey bars, and one of those playground merry-go-rounds. There are also a couple of swings.||||The campground also has flush toilets and running water for hand washing. I'm not sure if I arrived too early for the showers to be turned on or if the showers are defunct. If showers are important to you, ask about them before you turn over your money.||||Oh, speaking of money, when I was there, the nightly camping fee was $24.||||This is not a good campground if you want a secluded spot in the wilderness. This is a good campground for you if you want to be close to small town amenities. The town of Lake Isabella is less than ten miles away. (The lake itself is closer.) The campground is basically in the community of Wofford Heights. Food and gas are available right down the road. Kernville is less than ten miles away too, so this campground is a good central location to see and do much...

So for our Summer camping trip my husband, daughter and I went to Lake Isabella, Tillie Creek Campground. We wanted to have a relaxing camping trip to get away from the stress of everyday life, but we also didn't want to drive too far. I have been told by many people that the area is nice and that we would have a great time..... it was horrible! It was very hot, I expected that since I did check the weather before we left. It got extremely windy at about 3pm and the sand pelted us so bad that we had to leave the lake and go back to the hot and mosquito ridden campground. We couldn't even use the bathroom there because there were so many mosquitos inside, my daughter was scared. We took a walk around the campground and everytime we moved, we could feel about 5 or 6 mosquitos hitting our face, amrs, and legs. We went bacl to the campsite and had a fire, not ot enjoy it, only to smoke out the mosquitos so we could eat. We finally decided to go to bed. It stayied hot all night, it was miserable! My 4 year old daughter was sad that she couldnt sleep inside her sleeping bag! We woke up after an uncomfortable night, packed up and headed...