Crystal Lake Recreation Area - Campground

Campground

Crystal Lake Campground goes back to the 1920s as a privately leased concession until 1946 when it was permanently taken over by the U.S. Forest Service. It served as the largest campground in the Angeles National Forest, and at its height had 232 campsites. The campground is upslope from the lake about 1-mile (1.6 km) and a one-way paved road provides easy automobile access to and from the lake. There is also a foot trail that provides a gentle walk through the forest to the lake site.

The campground was always run by some sort of leased or contracted concession. The main facilities consisted of a general store which grew from a small tackle house in the 1950s, to a fast food snack stand by the 1970s, rental cabins from the olden days, a residence for the concessionaires, service sheds and garages, an ice cream stand which opened in the summer, and a ranger station, which by 1990 had become a visitors center managed by forestry volunteers.

Away from the main campground are located the ruins of an old dance hall. In later years as the building deteriorated, the floor was left in open air, and a small shed was put up to house a juke box. By the 1960s this was all but abandoned. Just past the old dance floor is the amphitheater where campfire programs were used to gather the campers in the evening for group sing-alongs and maybe a nature film.

Due to budget constraints, the remoteness of the area and other maintenance and logistics problems, the campground has faced closures of several camp sites reducing the number by nearly 100. In some cases the campground was completely closed. This forced the concessionaires to vacate, leaving campers and anglers no place to shop or eat if they didn’t pack it in themselves. Management contractors were brought in to help run the facility, but in 2002 the Curve Fire burned through the canyons and the basin which forms the Recreation Area, prompting the campgrounds to be closed altogether for health and safety reasons.

Due to extensive fire damage to the main highway (Highway 39) Caltrans has had the highway closed while repairs have been budgeted and scheduled and currently Caltrans has been completing the repairs needed on the last remaining bridge and will be installing new safety railing along a six-mile (10 km) section of the highway that was destroyed. Caltrans and the United States Forest Service are hoping to have the highway reopened late in 2009 and concessionaires are being solicited to bid on running and maintaining the campgrounds once the Recreation Area is reopened. In March 2011, it was reopened.