Lake Piru Recreation Area — Hotel in Fillmore

Okay so heres a story you must read. My family and i went to camp for memorial weekend. We got there Saturday early morning. Well right next to us were a group of family. They were loud and drunk and had loud music. Well we try not to mind them being loud( they were yelling each other bad words) and go on with the day. Saturday night a fight occured in the women bathroom and gubshots happened. My family and i rushed to our cars and try to stay a safe . We have children from 1 -15 years old. And we were afraid for our lives. We were never told by the staff members what was going on . Or if were safe to be outside . Nothing!!! Later that morning we heard the same people who were loud and crazy that it was one of there family member that was trying to shoot his girlfriend ( the mother of his kids) and that a fight had happen in the girl restroom . Well we also over heard the guy with gun was a soldier and thats why he had access to a gun . And the rest of the story which is so long to type. But anyways , they did a poor job on informing us about anything. And on keeping us safe . And not making sure things were under control . This happened at 2-6 am . And still on the news it was a complete different story. And when i said over heard my family actually heard them saying "get the gun" and women yelling for their lives!! We were inside our tents when they were walking through our area that we rented and that night they stold our wood for the fire!! And the people who casued the incident were relatives and the morning since me and my family did not sleep we see two women fighting (physically) and we yelled out for police and no one came to seperate only a staff member who told us to be quiet!! And just know this WE DID NOT HAVE SIGNAL!!SO WE COULDNT CALL...

BE AWARE AND PREPARED FOR THE TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE! Prior to our trip I called and spoke to a woman named Mariyah who works at the store which handles the boat rentals. I asked for her to provide me with all of the relevant information regarding the boat rental and prices. It all seemed nice until we arrived. When we came to the lake, we were charged an additional fee of $13 to enter the site. We were willing to tolerate this fee, only because the woman at the entrance explained that the fee is listed on the website. However, Mariyah DID NOT mention this fee on the phone.

We parked the car and headed to the store: At the front desk we received lots of new information which was quite disturbing, and here is a taste of it. This information by the way, cannot be found on the website.

We were now told that we are only allowed 2 drivers on the boat. Our reservation was for 2:00pm, but we were now told that it is changed to 2:45. There is only a tiny zone on the lake that you are allowed to get off the boat and swim. A really small zone, which is mostly filled with seaweed. You cannot get off the boat and got to shore at all, anywhere on the lake, because it is all private property. This means that you basically have to circle this small lake over and over the whole time. I have never rented a boat and was not allowed to get off and rest on the shore.

Bottom line: If this Mariyah would have provided us with the correct and complete information on the phone, we would never have gone there. I guess their strategy is to hide this information as it scares away the customers, assuming that after a long drive out to the lake, no one will just turn around and go home.

DO...

Lake Piru is a solid place to boat and camp. People need to do their research on the safety of the lake, there are not currents or rip tides, totally safe lake. We camped Sunday to Friday, and boated 4 of those days all in Mid July.

The campground is pretty good, smaller sites and the fire rings are in funky spots, bathrooms are a little outdated. But the staff and convenience make it all worth it. The camp hosts can deliver ice to your site and charge your account. The campsites are close to the lake for boating. Deer walking around in the morning and no massive squirrel or raccoon problem. A few noisy campers but that’s everywhere.

The lake is smaller and only at about 16% water level capacity but you don’t have to dry your boat before, we were the only ones on the lake most days besides fishermen and a few jet skis, you can rent overnight slips for your boat and there’s a small area to play on the beach. Great Lake if you can get it uncrowded which we did everyday. Tons of boat, trailer, and car parking.

The cliff jumping spot is solid and deep water and the buoys are accurate as to where it’s shallow.

Campground 7/10 Lake for wakesports 8/10 Staff convenience and friendliness 10/10 Safety of water 10/10

I know there’s been an unusual number of deaths on the lake but we took 30 high schoolers many of whom have never boated and not once did we feel unsafe. Currents and riptides are ocean issues and only occur on much larger bodies of water. If you were to do some study I’d imagine many of the deaths were from peoples own negligence, not the water itself. The only safety concern is afternoon wind which any boat can handle if you know what...