Thread: Trip Report: McKinney Falls SP

We spent Mother's Day weekend at McKinney Falls SP. It was me and the dh and our two girls, 12 & 6. We arrived at the park at 4pm and had no idea which site we wanted. The guy that checked us in said "I'll give you a site I think you will like" so I am thinking we are gonna get a pretty good site. We drove to site 81 and were completely disappointed. The site was teeny tiny and we have a large tent. We drove around and attempted to find a different one that was actually available and large and shady enough. Eventually we settled on #28 which really seemed like a great site at the time. It was big and shady and not on top of anyone else.

So we set everything up, changed into swimsuits and drove to the lower falls. There was only one other family there. The water was low (which we knew and expected) and smelled really bad. There was trash everywhere including beer cans and half eaten food. We talked with this other family a while and played just a little in the water. My husband and dd12 actually braved the smelly water and swam to the tiny falls. While we were swimming a pygmy rattlesnake swam by. We figured out what kind it was the next day after talking to a ranger and looking at pictures. After about an hour we went back to camp to clean up and eat dinner. We enjoyed the cool breeze sitting by the campfire. The evening was really nice.

Okay I am about to complain so bear with me...................what is up with quiet hours ending at 6am??? I understand people wanting to get up early and get a start on the day but there are some folks that want to sleep a little bit later. What happened to common sense and decency? At 6:30 AM sharp we were all awakend by 5 kids screaming at the top of their lungs in front of our campsite. These kids were not just playing - they were screaming and yelling and I saw them chasing each other and one ran about 2feet from our tent while screaming as loud as he could. Where were the parents? I have no clue! Please tell me if I am being unreasonable by complaining about this. I do not feel it is right to let your loud and obnoxious kids go running off as loud as possible to play in front of someone else's site at that time of the morning. I was so mad!

Okay so after that problem we went on a morning hike with the president of the volunteer association to see Old Baldy and the indian rock shelter which was really cool. Only problem was that he said he normally has a group of 7 - 10 people and in our group there were 62 people! Holy cow! Needless to say it was difficult for everyone to hear what he had to say.

So then we were eating lunch when (and this is where site 28 started to go from good to bad) three guys came walking directly thru our site from the trail behind. I just stared at them because I couldn't believe it! They asked my husband "hey bro' man where the swimmin place be?". We told them nicely and they left thank the Lord.

After lunch we went swimming at upper falls which was totally different from the lower falls the day before. There was no trash, just a bunch of people having a good time. We spent all day there and my dd12 had so much fun jumping off the cliffs. We did see lots of people drinking alcohol which makes me wonder about the rules. We did drink at our campsite but kept it to ourselves. One guy who was drinking actually fell off one of the rocks and we think he cracked a rib. He was totally bruised! His whole party left to the ER. We did talk with some really nice people though and had a great time.

So we go back to our site to eat dinner and who should walk right thru our site again but those same three guys only now they are really drunk and actually carrying beer with them. They asked us how to get out of the park. I guess we were the info people for the day. We asked them where they parked and to go the same way the came in. They were cussing and loud and kind of scared me actually. They told us they parked outside the park and snuck in!!! Said $5 pp was too much to pay! We told them how to get out and hoped they didn't come back. I gotta say in all my time camping I have never had an uncomfortable or uneasy feeling but I did at McKinney Falls. I walked to the camp host on duty to report them but there was nobody there. Also the rangers hardly ever came by! I didn't see them the rest of the night.

That night we put the kiddos to bed and sat by the campfire when out of nowhere Tejano music starts blarring. It had just turned 10pm (quiet hours) so I walked around a bit to see what idiot I was going to have to talk to. Problem was in wasnt coming from a site. We found out it was coming from the road. And here is when I really began to hate site 28. Apparently it was really close to the main road, so all night we heard the thump thump of Tejano music and car tires screaching. I actually wanted to cry.

The scenery was really nice and I absolutely loved swimming at the falls but I will NEVER go back to McKinney Falls again. I have never been frightened before or felt scared at all while camping but after those guys came thru twice and we knew they snuck in and they were drunk and then finding out just how close we were to the road I didn't sleep well at all and just wanted to come home. I never once let on to the kids I was scared though I kept picturing those guys coming back to rob us or something.

I did get nice photos which I have put on webshots as a slideshow but it wont' let me put the photos in order. I keep getting an error message so I will keep trying and post them here when it works right.

This was my worst camping experience ever and it makes me sad.