Campgrounds

At THE ENTRANCE TO CALIFORNIA'S BUSIEST STATE campground, I confront a sign: Street Vehicles Not Advised. Soft Sand. Treacherous Stream Xing. Then I roll forward to the lady who takes my $10 for an overnight stay and eyes my two-wheel-drive Toyota skeptically. "You may get stuck in the sand," she says. Also, the temperature may fall below freezing. I will haul my own trash. There will be no picnic tables, no fire rings, no drinking water, no bathrooms.

We'd been coming to Belknap, a gem of a spot high on the Tule River in the Sierra Nevada, for the last few summers. Our gang was getting a little bigger each time as we told friends about the plentiful trout and giant sequoias. Racing up on a sultry Friday night, Joe and I debated which campsite we should nab. The small one by the river, nestled in trees just right for hanging creels and lanterns?

Dogwood Campground near Lake Arrowhead, home to 100-foot-tall Jeffrey pines and squawking woodpeckers, was so adored by campers that federal foresters recently refurbished the area, installing new bathrooms, picnic tables, pavement and barbecue grills. Just months after the work was completed, however, every mature pine tree on the premises was attacked and killed by bark beetles.

As Southern Californians braced for another punishing rainstorm that could unleash fresh floods as soon as today, state officials on Monday said they had urged operators of a Devore campsite to move trailers off the property six weeks before flash floods there killed two people. The California Geological Survey had identified the Kampgrounds of America trailer camp as posing the highest risk for loss of life and property after surveying hundreds of sites in the fire-ravaged San Bernardino Mountains.

Rescue teams combed through mud, rocks and tree limbs in search of missing children and adults Thursday evening after Christmas Day rains triggered mudslides that engulfed and trapped about 24 campers in San Bernardino County's Waterman Canyon. By late Thursday, search and rescue teams had plucked 14 campers from the muck, but 10 others were believed missing. One man reportedly watched in horror as his wife and daughter were swept away.

In planning a trip to dine at arguably the most celebrated restaurant on the West Coast -- the French Laundry, in the middle of the Napa wine country -- I never thought I would end up staying at a campground. And not just any campground -- one that was "clothing optional." It's not that I'm ashamed of my middle-aged body. Well, yes I am.

As he sat sipping iced tea at a Denny's in Palm Springs, Les Gapay was the image of an aging newspaperman: distinguished gray-speckled hair, rumpled but still nicely dressed and a weathered face with steely eyes. Thirty years ago, he wrote front-page stories for the Wall Street Journal, had a family and owned a four-bedroom house on a lake. Today, Gapay lives out of his Toyota pickup. He eats canned stew for dinner and spends nights looking for a safe, clean place to sleep.

The basics Three miles east of Interstate 15 at Lake Elsinore, Canyon Lake was created by a dam in 1927 and is owned by the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District. The Canyon Lake Property Owners Assn. leases surface rights to the lake for recreation. The first houses were built in Canyon Lake in 1968, primarily as retirement and weekend homes. The city incorporated in 1990 and now has 10,500 residents.

The Morro Bay State Park campground proposal, rejected by the City Council because plans called for elimination of up to 100 trees, has been resurrected. The council voted in March to deny the forested campground renovation project, primarily because it called for nearly 100 trees to be cut down to allow more light into the campground. The state Parks Department has now reduced that number to 74.