Granite Flat Campground

This campground is basically the size of a rest area, squished between a busy highway and the Little Truckee River which obviously wasn’t even a puddle this time of year.
$ 22 a night is down right offensive for basically camping next to the road. The traffic is too much to get past. Maybe it’s worth $ 7 a night. Maybe.

My husband and I just stayed there over the weekend. Space 40. Everything was fine. Yes we have a RV and dogs and yes you will hear the traffic however if you did your homework you would see it is next to highway 89. It was a great campground, the camp host were excellent. Came by and asked if I wanted to move because of bear sightings. I stayed and the camp host/​Rangers were friendly and very informative. Yes some of the other campgrounds were equally as nice. However it was a last minute and our neighbors were friendly and definitely played some great music.
So we worked around the table issues and we had a terrific time. We are going back this weekend. Definitely do your homework and understand there is traffic that goes by.

We were searching for a campground that was near the river and not too far of a drive from Reno. This looked promising and we reserved site #30 on
. On that website, this sounded (and looked) like a great campground — access to fishing and swimming, close to the water, and the individual sites looked nicely separated.
I was sorely disappointed when we arrived, and here’s why:
1) The campground is RIGHT off of 89, like you can see it even from the farthest camp site. The traffic dies down at night, but that’s pretty much all you can hear all day long. When the traffic does calm down, you can actually hear the river, but it doesn’t last very long because, oh what do you know, here comes some more cars. Some of the sites are a few feet away from 89. You’d better hope that a car doesn’t veer off the road, because they will be taking out your tent. Some of the drivers like to lay on the horn while driving past the campground.
2) The sites are not spread out at all. I could throw a stone from my table and hit the table in the next site over, no problem. You can hear the conversations of the other people in the sites next to you.
3) They say you can fit 4 tents in these sites. Yes, I see 4 decent enough spots (at least in our site). But two of them are right on the campground road and the other two are right next to each other. You’ll be crammed in. Luckily we only had 2 tents, so this wasn’t an issue, but it could potentially be for other, larger groups.
4) Some of the sites are all gravel. Sounds comfy to sleep on… These may be RV sites (there are definitely more RV sites than tent sites). But still, it’s nice to have dirt and pine needles rather than rocks.
5) In our site, the table was extremely close to the fire pit. This meant we were cooking and eating in smoke. The tables are attached to cement blocks so they can’t be moved. We were able to shimmy it a little father away, but not much. Some of the other sites’ tables were at a better distance from the fire pits.
6) No cupboards or bear boxes. I assumed that because they did not have these, bears and raccoon were not an issue. We were wrong. A bear got into our ice chest (luckily only eating some lunch meat and butter). Usually, the advice is not to put your ice chest in the car, but this was really the only choice we had after this. Luckily the bear did not attempt to get into the car.
Some of the better points:
1) The camp hosts were friendly and stopped by often to check up on you (make sure you had firewood, etc.)
2) Bathrooms (vaults) were clean enough and always plenty of toilet paper.
3) Plenty of bathrooms and water spigots within walking distance.
4) The river can be seen from most of the camp sites and it’s a quick walk down. It’s really low this year so there were no spots to swim (but you could wade out) and we didn’t see any fish. This isn’t the campground’s fault so I won’t count it against them.
5) You’re really close to Truckee. So when we needed to run to the grocery store to get more lunch meat, it wasn’t a big deal.
Although we were disappointed in the campground itself, we made the best of it and had a great time. I’d really only recommend this campground if you have an RV.

Stay away from site #24. Unless you have an RV.
Pros: Lake Tahoe. 5 min drive to Truckee.
Cons: No shade. Too many large rocks for tent camping. No shade.
I’ll only go back if sites #60, 63, 64, or 65 are open. Otherwise I’ll never return.

Worst campground ever! The roar of cars and trucks on the highway, which was at most 75 feet away, was unbearable. You had to shout to be heard by the people you were camping with. We were on the river side of the campground access road. Had we been in one of the sites that was between the access road and the highway, it would have been even worse. We were in site #69 and it was right on top of site number 70 with no more than 25 feet between the picnic tables and no trees or rocks to provide a visual barrier. So you better make friends with whoever is staying next door, otherwise you will be eating breakfast and dinner with strangers.
If you don’t heed my advice and stay here, you better bring earplugs or be staying in a well insulated RV.
The only positive thing I can think of is that if you are camping with kids, you don’t ever have to tell them to be quite, because no matter how much noise they make, no one can hear it.
We left after one night and went to Tahoe-​Donner private campground for Saturday night.

Husband and I stayed here from Fri-​Sun in July.
The site has vault toilets and potable water, but signs prohibit using the spigot area for washing of any kind. Most of the sites are park in, but we had a walk-​in site (#75).
Site 75 was great, as we were far enough away from others to have some privacy. The downside is that there is a trail to the river just off #75, so a lot of campers will go through or just around your site to access it. The upside is that there is a lovely view of the water from the site.
The highway noise at this site is pretty loud, and honestly, it did detract from the experience.
The site is pretty close to town, so if you forget something, it’s only a five minute drive away. If you choose a walk-​in site, there is a pull out on the highway that is actually closer for loading/​unloading than the official parking space for #73−75. Sites 71 – 74 are *very* close together and would be great for a group.
All in all, we would camp here again, but liked Goose Meadows better.