Eureka, I found it, the best boating spot in NCal.

[Ronnie]

New Bullard Bar Reservoir

New Bullards Bar Reservoir - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

What’s so great about it?
1. This is the clearest / bluest water I’ve ever boated on.
2. The water is warm.
3. The ramps are free.
4. There are two restrooms a the top of the Dark Day ramp and one floating nearby as well as throughout the lake.
5. It also has two boat in campgrounds and one group camp ground.

The not so great:
1. It’s far off the beaten trail, At least 30 miles from a city/hotel/hospital.
2. Camping reservations go quickly.
3. As far as I can tell, no fully developed/full hookup camping spots.
4. The current walk from the parking lot, up and down the ramp at dark Day is almost a quarter mile.

Now that I’ve found this hidden gem, I will be back at least once this Summer, I just need to figure out when. Maybe some weekday camping.

 

[RobbieO]

There can't be much pavement left on the ramp. Got pictures of your campsite?

 

[Ronnie]

There can't be much pavement left on the ramp. Got pictures of your campsite?

No pics of the camp site, it wasn’t much to see. Our camp ground , school house was not on the water. This is also true of the dark day campground sites as well, even though dark day has one of the two public boat ramps. I went back there this morning to check out the water side camp sites Before we left. They were not next to the water so much as on top of a steep hill/long hill next to the water, like the boat ramp. It would not work for my family camping trip but for a smaller group of people, it’s on.

Here are some pics of nearby camp sites and misc pics i took at the camp grounds. There are no public showers on the campgrounds I visited and every site has a food locker. Overall, I found the sites on the school house camp grounds to be to close together. For instance, the tent in the pic with our food locker is not our tent. One thing I did like about our camp site is thati could drive through it (this is true of most of the sites at school house), which is nice if you have a trailer in tow.

 

[Ronnie]

Misc. Info.:

I met a new by camper, Anthony, while I was there and was thankful that I did as he was a wealth of information. One of the places he pointed us to was Lake Francis about 7 miles or 15 minutes from our campsite. You can’t boat on Lake Francis but we went anyway for breakfast, as they have a restaurant at the main resort on that lake and I brought food to bbq but forgot to bring a bbq or coals to bbq.

Other nice lakes nearby lakes to boat and camp at according to Anthony are Englewood, pine crest and Rollins. We hit Rollins on the way back home, after eating at Mountain Eats restaurant at
Lake Francis Resort.

 

[2kwik4u]

Man, that all looks amazing. Such different landscapes, terrain, and vegetation than I'm used to seeing here in the southeast.

Thanks for sharing!

*edit* was having a hard time figuring out how "large" the lake was.....So I did this. Quick estimation is around 5.75mi^2.


Our local "smallish" lake is about 4.75mi^2 ......So while this looks small (and is compared to many other lakes) it's perfectly acceptably sized for day/weekend trips.

Very neat!

 

[Ronnie]

@2kwik4u , I think I read the coverage area in square miles on Wikipedia but do recall that we rode 10 miles up the first arm before turning around and did 2 or 3 miles on the second arm. They say it’s 16 miles across and has 60 miles of shoreline. I think that must include some sizable no wake zones.

 

[RobbieO]

No pics of the camp site, it wasn’t much to see. Our camp ground , school house was not on the water. This is also true of the dark day campground sites as well, even though dark day has one of the two public boat ramps. I went back there this morning to check out the water side camp sites Before we left. They were not next to the water so much as on top of a steep hill/long hill next to the water, like the boat ramp. It would not work for my family camping trip but for a smaller group of people, it’s on.

Here are some pics of nearby camp sites and misc pics i took at the camp grounds. There are no public showers on the campgrounds I visited and every site has a food locker. Overall, I found the sites on the school house camp grounds to be to close together. For instance, the tent in the pic with our food locker is not our tent. One thing I did like about our camp site is thati could drive through it (this is true of most of the sites at school house), which is nice if you have a trailer in tow.

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Thanks...I was actually talking to my step-brother yesterday, and he explained it just like you did. He even mentioned the steep hill you have to climb. He loves the turquoise water as well.

 

[RobbieO]

@2kwik4u , I think I read the coverage area in square miles on Wikipedia but do de all we rode 10 miles up the first arm before turning around and did 2 or 3 on the second arm. They say it’s 16 miles across and has 60 miles of shoreline. I think that must include some sizable no wake zones.

Have you tried Ruth Lake? That’s another one I want to try,

 

[Ronnie]

Never heard of Ruth Lake but I will be looking it up later now that you’ve mentioned it.

 

[Ronnie]

I don’t think Ruth Lake is feasible for me. It’s before Shasta and Trinity Lake (also on the map pictured with trinity being the Lake on the left near weaverville) but it is further west. It takes me 3 to 4 hours to get to Shasta lake and another hour or so to get to trinity. That stated, it could take me a lot longer to get to Ruth Lake, even if/especially if I take the 101 instead of the 5. The fact that I cannot get driving directions to Ruth Lake is also concerning.

 

[RobbieO]

I've never been there, but it come recommended. I would consider it if I was going for a week. It appears they have campgrounds on the water.

 

[dzeppos]

Great information. Already set for Shasta in late July - but this could be a great alternative to shaver lake - which is another good camping lake (but water is colder as it’s at 5000 feet elevation)