Category Archives: 155-Pollock Pines, CA

Our stay at Ghost Mountain Ranch

A few years ago Jeff and I purchased a membership in a group of campgrounds. It’s called Colorado River Adventures (CRA) and they have 9 campgrounds. Several are along the Colorado River and we stayed at several of them the past few years. One is in Julian, CA about 45 miles from Vista up in the mountains. We haven’t stayed at that campground yet.

One campground is in northern Ca. less than an hour from South Lake Tahoe. It’s called Ghost Mountain Ranch and we’re at the tail end of a two week stay here in the campground near the town of Pollock Pines.

It’s beautiful here, lots of pine trees as well as Ca. Oak and Madrone trees. Madrone are similar to manzanita which is very common down in San Diego County. Madrones have the red wood like a manzanita but they are large trees instead of large bushes and they have larger leaves.

The campground is quite rustic, which we don’t mind. Our site is amongst large pine trees so we are in the shade most of the day which is great cause it’s in the 90s here every day!!

One thing I don’t care for here at Ghost Mountain is the very fine dusty dirt. The campsites are somewhat gravel and mostly fine dirt which gets all over your feet and shoes and gets tracked into the house. Lots of vacuuming and washing of feet/shoes!

We head out on Monday going towards the coast where it’ll be cooler.

Here’s a picture of the campground – not showing our site however.

While staying in Pollock Pines, we took 2 drives up to lakes in the nearby mountains

There are many beautiful lakes up in the mountains to the east of Pollock Pines. While staying in Pollock Pines we took 2 drives up to different lakes in the nearby mountains.

Wright’s Lake is within the El Dorado Natl Forest. While Pollock Pines is at about 3,900 feet and was 96 degrees when we left for our drive, Wrights Lake is at 6,969 feet and was 79 degrees. What a difference!

The drive up to the lake was beautiful, lots of pines and other types of trees, some wildflowers were in bloom and the views at various points were great! When we got to the lake we discovered that there were several primitive campgrounds around the lake and we saw lots of people enjoying the cooler weather at the lake.

Here are some pictures we took during our drive up to the lake:

Our second drive was to IceHouse Reservoir and nearby Union Valley Reservoir. They are both beautiful as well, and at about the same elevation as Wright’s Lake. The drive up was very pretty, and the reservoirs are very popular with locals in the summertime. Here are some pictures we took at IceHouse Reservoir: