Middle Lion Campground

Charles Forbin

This is a nice place. However you do have to bring your own water..(and toilet paper). Now for the not so good part. This camp site is now run under a contract with the Forest Service and the reservation system is not always accurate. We booked the entire campground for an event and then had to fight to keep our paid for space with a drunk Karen and her husband, because despite the posted signs they insisted it was first come first serve. We had to stand our ground and ultimately forced them out. There is NO CELL SERVICE and you have to go back to Wheeler Gorge to call the sheriff. So the site is great,well maintained,good trails, and a very nice place to camp... (If they had been sober and didn't have a half a dozen kids with them, we would have made a space for them as we have in the past...and did this time for a single camper who was polite when he asked) Just be warned about the "Claim jumping parasites"

R. Joshua Adams

It was a fun time, me and my nephew went and did a day hike and camped 1 night. It was 20 dollars to stay. The road was very bad though getting there. You need a high clearance car or SUV if you want to go there. When we were leaving we saw someone in a car had hit their oil pan and we're losing oil because of it. The whole road back to the top had a stream of oil that had come out of their car. So be very careful and go slow down the road. Very holy road and not in a good way. Other then that and pretty much each camp site was in the dead heat of the sun from about 10 a.m. until 7 p.m. wasn't so comfortable after a few hours of not finding shade. So bring a tarp or expect a good sun burn. One last thing there is no cell service, except by Ojai, and 1 tiny part at the top part of one of the mountains driving there. So make all your calls and download your movies ahead of time. Or just be like us and get out of the heat of the day and drive back to town to download a movie and cool off at the same time. Lol. I hope this helped others to plan a good camping trip. Enjoy camping.

Kimberly Haines

I love this campground. It sits on the bottom of an unpaved dirt and rocky road. Drive with caution down here. I stayed in November drove up the day after Thanksgiving and scored a walk up spot. It was during a fire ban and the temperature dipped below 20 degrees at night. The perks is the creek, its quite lovely and if you follow the river up it eventually opens up to bigger pools. I had to bushwhack my way back to camp because the trail has been covered up by brush and down trees. I hiked to the very top of the hill and walked around. There's some broken glass and bullet casings so keep an eye out on your little ones. The views were spectacular. I saw many hunters with bows and guns so beware. All in all I had a great stay here and will return in warmer months.

Amy KCkid

PROS: The creek that runs right by the site is beautiful and you can take a little dip in it. There's a vault toilet. Each site has a fire ring. Most sites have some tree cover for shade at some point of the day. There's a trailhead for a hike right by the site. The surroundings are gorgeous. CONS: There are 8 individual sites and they are really close together. No potable water available. The road down to the site is very rough.