Ghost Mountain Ranch Resort – Pollock Pines, CA

ghost mountainGhost Mountain Ranch Resort in Pollock Pines, CA

We received a “free” weekend and gifts to camp at Ghost Mountain when we bought our 5th wheel Ghost Mountainthis spring.  Basically it was the “free” weekend to try to sell you a membership.

We have been looking for a semi-local place as our “go to” place and decided to give it a try.  Well, I have to say it was not what we are looking for.  We arrived and they wanted to put us in a spot that needed 4 wheel drive to back your rig into.  That wasn’t the biggest issue, the fact that the across the street neighbors had their trucks right next to the road made it so we could not get our rig into that spot.  Too bad, as it was nicer than where we ended up.  A lot of the sites are very close together.

Ghost MountainThe only other available space for our 35′ trailer was basically a spot in a big parking spur that was nothing but fine, dusty dirt.  And we were so close to people on one side of us that we could hear their every word.  This is a 325-acre park!  There are also cabins to rent at the resort.  The sales manager did tell us that they are putting in another area with more sites.  Hopefully, those will be a little further apart from each other.

This park promotes the “ghost town” with the saloon, ice cream parlor, and general store.  Well, in the Ghost Mountainghost town, the hours are quite limited in the places and there is no general store anymore.  I realize that the pandemic has cut into a lot of things, but other than just checking it out, not much to it.  The ice cream parlor has a few choices, and the saloon serves up a good breakfast we heard.  So it really was a ghost town with hardly anyone there.

The pool and snack bar at Ghost Mountain was where everyone was at – it was a warm weekend.  It was a nice lawn area with chairs, and the snack bar had reasonable prices.  The pool area was very nice, and it also had a little kids pool which is great for the little ones.    They have special events in the evening on some weekends, but we didn’t wander up there for it.   The weekend we were there was 50’s music/DJ.

There is also a kids club and appears to be lots of activities for the kids, but we didn’t have the grandchildren with us, so didn’t check that out.  There is also a fishing pond, but we didn’t see anyone fishing when we went down there.  It is of course catch and release.

This park does not have full hookups, no sewer at the sites, only water and 30amp.  No antenna TV service.  Our Verizon phones did work.  And the only wifi is at the clubhouse.  I know, really roughing it LOL!  There is a laundry room there also.

The draw to Ghost Mountain seems to be the proximity to Forest Service land and being able to ATV the backroads.  There were quite a few people with their off-road vehicles heading that way on Saturday.  The ranch used to be known for horseback riding, but that has been discontinued.

Now as far as the “sales pitch” at Ghost Mountain, they were very nice, no pressure, and when we explained that this type of camping was not really what we were looking for, and the fact that we can’t really utilize the other campgrounds in the system when I still work full time, they were totally understanding and there was no pressure to try to get us to buy.

Will we return?  Not sure.  We will have access through Coast to Coast to Ghost Mountain, but as you can’t reserve specific sites, if we do go back, it will be earlier in the week so we can pick a better site.  Then let the big kids go play with their toys off-roading.   It’s not that it was really bad, I just like knowing what site I will be in, and not being on top of the neighbors.  The people there were all nice and very friendly.