This park is about half way between Watsonville and Gilroy on Hwy 152 (Heckler Pass Highway) It is about 15 minutes east of Watsonville in the mountains. This is also a county park and was a very beautiful place for RV, Tent and they have Yurts for rent too. Road is steep and would be difficult for a big rig, but a small RV 22' 30' would have no problem. Sites are back in, they have flush toilets and showers. Showers are brand new and spotlessly clean. You are in tall Redwood trees so minimal air card and TV available. Most all sites are in the trees. Each site has a table and fire pit. We camped here in a Motorhome.

Pinto Lake City Park campground was our destination for this trip. We had stayed here for one night last summer to escape the extreme heat inland, and decided that it was so nice that we would return for a longer stay. There are lovely large expanses of grass throughout the park and the campground itself is grass. We saw no mud anywhere in the park. The green grass, the large redwood trees and the beautiful lake all combine for a particularly attractive environment. Mid-week this time of year, there were many empty spaces. The staff is friendly and helpful in every way. There is no cable but the wifi is excellent. There are no fire pits or picnic tables at your site, however, tables are located throughout the park. A large children’s play area is near the lake. There is a County park just a mile or so up the road which has a large dog off-leash park and the town of Watsonville is very close by. The little league was playing every afternoon, but by 7:30 pm when the park closes for day use, it was very quiet. We camped here in a Motorhome.

This is a great little park in Watsonville. It is a city park that has a few RV sites. It sits right on Pinto Lake. There is fishing, boat rentals (in season), a great play area for the kids, and a Little League Baseball diamond within the park. The spaces were grass and fairly level. The views of the lake were great. The gal in charge was great (more later). The place was only about half full when we were there. It is a convenient place to use as a base for visiting Santa Cruz and Monterey. You are able to pick out which spot you want, so we looked around and picked one that was right next to the lake. We originally planned to stay for two nights, so paid the $70 dollars due, in cash, to the gal and proceeded to park our motorhome in that spot. Just after getting it backed in, my wife, who had gone up to the office to tell the lady which spot we had chosen, came running down from the office and said that the gal had forgotten to tell us that #15, buy edict of the the city, could only have small units in there. No problem, we just moved over to #14. A few minutes later she came down to us and handed us back $10 of the $70 because of the inconvenience to us. We said "No, that isn't necessary, it wasn't any big thing to move", but she insisted. We ended up staying three nights and loved the entire stay, and will be back. We camped here in a Motorhome.

We arrived on 10/27 around 4 p.m. unaware the park was having a HUGE Halloween celebration through-out the entire park. When we checked in, the office was without electricity. The office staff guessed at which site we would fit in and sent us on our way. We’ve stayed at many KOA campgrounds and traditionally, a KOA person will escort us to our site. We have a 41’ 5th wheel pulled by a Dodge Ram 3500, so we are by all means a “big-rig.” There were three KOA carts with KOA people at the bottom of the hill when we arrived and when we were pulling into the park. At no time did any KOA staff feel it necessary to alert us that the entire park was full with tons of excited children running around trick-or-treating, loose dogs, people, cars, Halloween decorations thick in every site as I have ever seen. We drove up the hill in our big rig to the chaos to a back-in spot that was far too small. It took us nearly 30 minutes to back into our spot all the while trying to dodge small rampant children, adults and again, loose dogs. While focusing on dodging the Halloween chaos and backing into our too small site, we missed the fact that there was a pine tree with one low branch; that ended up putting six tears down our brand new 5th wheel roof. We needed to be in this area for work or we would have pulled out the next morning at sunrise. Heck, hindsight is 20/20, if we would have not been in such shock from all the chaos, we would have pulled our unit right back out the gate and not stayed at all! We went down and talked to the office the next morning and they told us we should have read on the website events to find out about the Halloween events; forget the fact we received 3 emails from this office, encountered 5 KOA employees at check-in. Yes, 1,800 miles from home, of course, we should have checked the website events section! Other problems we had while at this spot were: 1) loose dogs! We were here from 10/27-11/4 and encountered loose dogs every day. We have 2 small dogs and put up panels to keep wandering loose dogs from getting very close to us or our dogs, and it’s a good thing with the loose Australian Shepherd, Rottweiler, French Bulldogs and one Jack Russell Terrier visiting our site without the owners even paying attention. We even saw a Rottweiler tied up to a tree during all the chaos. It was very large and not under control in the slightest, in fact, the owners were enjoying the Halloween festivities and not even at their campsite! I’m not opposed to dogs of any breed, but they should not be loose in a campground, period! 2) AT&T cellular signal in this park was nearly non-existent. 3) FLIES! I don’t know if it was because of all the outside cooking, food, candy during the Halloween festivities or what, but flies were abundant! It rained one day, which I would figure would help wash whatever it was attracting the flies away, but it didn’t. This park does have 6 or 7 pull through premium sites that are the only actual sites for big-rigs. We just arrived at exactly the wrong time without any warning and now get to replace the roof on our 2012 5th wheel, which is why I would not recommend this park to anyone ever. Outside of crazy busy weekends, this isn’t a bad park if either the KOA would enforce their loose dog rules or you go in understanding to watch for loose dogs. We camped here in a Fifth Wheel.

Absolutely the best KOA of all. We normally avoid KOAs, but we had friends to see here so we did. What a wonderful surprise. All campgrounds should be this nice. Friendly helpful staff. Great electric, water and cable connections. We would go back here again in a heartbeat. Lots of activities for children to do. Great store and just overall a great place. We camped here in a Motorhome.

Really well run park, staff was super nice and helpful. Hope you have kids because it's busy, busy. Overnight price was a little high. Overall nice location if you have a tow car. We camped here in a Motorhome.

We stayed in site #25, which the camp host called "The Crown Jewel" of the park It was big, clean, and a short trail to an ocean overlook, with a drop dead view. The beach was quite a hike downhill. There are no amenities, other than the concrete pad and a fire pit. We were surprised at this, and landed there without water, because the CA Parks website said "developed". Now we know this does not mean hookups. Sunsets are amazing here, as the name would imply. The drive in is awesome, through farmlands and beautiful valleys. It is off the beaten path. Generators are against the rules after 8pm, as a ranger was quick to enforce. Nice place! We camped here in a Motorhome.

This is a great state park quite and clean great views and just overall relaxing. Stayed in site 18 big and wide and long enough for our RV. Strawberry fields forever right beside our site. Cool and foggy in the morning. Clear and cool during the day. Would stay here again. We camped here in a Motorhome.

Secluded, quiet, beautiful campground. Can't see the ocean except for two sites, but just a 2 minute walk to an amazing view and sunsets. Ranger is very relaxed. No hookups, or dump. Both Sunset and Manresa Beach are nearby and beautiful. Aptos, Santa Cruz, Seascape and Monterey all within a 30-45 minute drive. We camped here in a Travel Trailer.