Union Reservoir
Union reservoir is part of a group of reservoirs in the Stanislaus National Forest. I had previously been to Spicer Reservoir (the largest in the area) on a camping trip with my brother’s boy scout troop. I thought that this would be an out of the way area for some primitive camping away from the crowds.
Here is a preview.
On the way up we stopped at the Calaveras ranger station (right before Avery- that’s a town named the same as me!). The ranger mentioned to us that Union had recently been developed. We had thought that Union and Utica had only primitive camping. Since they were still not fully developed, we could still camp there for free!
When we arrived at Union, there was a gravel road which led us to the campsites. There were two levels of campsites. One at the water level (read: mosquitos) and one about 20 feet higher right off the road. All of the road campsites were taken when we arrived on Friday around lunch. We took campsite #1, which only had one neighbor, but was also by a swamp area. There was a fire pit, picnic table, and the previous campers had left us some pre-cut firewood!
Here is our campsite!
Steps away from the campsite (just through some trees) was the reservoir. Here is the camping crew!
As it got a little later, we realized very quickly that camping on the side of a reservoir= a ton of mosquitos. We were under siege, but did some fighting back…
Union reservoir is stocked with fish, so I brought some fishing poles and set them up. (I got a year long fishing license- I think it was about $40) I tried fishing at dusk and in the morning and was able to catch this little guy!
Andy knew how to clean the fish and asked if I wanted to kill it before he cut it open. I said ok and I was supposed to knock the fish’s head against a rock. I tried twice, but every time I got close to hitting the fish on the rock I would squeeze it, you know to brace for impact and it would squirt out of my hands 😮 . So Andy ended up killing the fish and gutting it. We cooked it up with butter and lemon on the fire. It was awesome.
There was plenty of firewood that we could gather. There were a ton of downed and dried trees and bark. Leah and I went crazy throwing wood on the fire.
Before going to bed we wrapped up potatoes and garlic and left them in the coals. Here they are in the morning with…. EGG PUCK DELUXE! (avocado and turkey not shown)
We packed a lunch and went for a hike around the reservoir. There is sort of a trail that goes along the water, but it isn’t really defined in places. We saw some really impressive primitive camping places and thought about relocating, but decided it was too much work.
Rusty had a good time being a wild dog and running around.
There were some fun things to do around the campsite.
Overall, this was a good camping location. More people than we expected, but not too bad. The surroundings are really beautiful and the stars are pretty bright at night. Not a whole lot to do in the area. If I were to go back I would bring a canoe/kayak and camp on one of the islands in the reservoir. Mosquitos killed.
Overall: 6
Location: 8
Solitude: 6
Campsite: 8
Activities: 4
Other Notes: MOSQUITOS 🙁 Bring tons of repellant. It got so bad at one point we hid in our tents until it got dark and they mostly went away)