At Site 19 in Sardine Lake Campground the setting initially felt blissful until a neighboring site's gassy Honda generator ruined the quiet. Attempts to reframe the situation—such as noting the absence of an oversized RV TV—did not solve the constant noise. Public campgrounds contain varied behaviors and noisy neighbors, making site assignment a gamble between generators, ragers, loud music, or quiet campers. Bright string lights from nearby sites further disrupted the ambience. With rising visitation and strained park management, campers should lower expectations and treat inexpensive campsites more like motel rooms than guaranteed escapes into nature.
As dusk settled in at Site 19 at Sardine Lake Campground, life was pretty blissful. Here we were tucked away in the stunning and slightly remote Lost Sierra. The tent was up, and I had a beer, a comfy camping chair and a pine tree to stare at. It was almost car camping heaven, except Site 18's gassy Honda generator would not shut up.
Then again, I thought, as the generator continued to chug, maybe the real problem was my own mistaken expectation. This is, after all, a public campground. I'm not on some Sierra Club trip where everyone agrees that tranquility and birdsong are good and blasting AC/DC at 10 p.m. is bad. There are all kinds of folks here, and they're entitled to make whatever noise they want.
Actually, first there was a stream of light bulbs, coming from Site 17, and suddenly we were lit up like a night game at Levi's Stadium. But as we adjusted our chairs to not be blinded, I realized this: As more people go camping and management of parks gets defunded and campground chaos gets more uncontrolled, you should not think of your campsite as a way to get back to nature.
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