Los Padres/Wheeler Gorge

Shawn Thomas

Great location close to Wheeler Gorge, Mosler Rock and serval other deep Rock pools to swim and Boulder jump in, it close to many easy access park and swim spots. Great summer destination that is with 5-10 minutes away from rock pools galore. We feature many of these best SoCal swim holes on YouTube on our channel hikebytes. Check out our Playlist called best park and swim destinations. Showers and bathrooms and camp sites for reasonable fees.

Courtney Viveiros

10/10 would recommend. There are so many great sites to choose from. Try and get a spot by the creek, some sites look bigger than others! Campground offered a lot of shade too. The vault toilet was clean and the campground was quiet and the stars were OUT! There is no cell service (att) and bring your own water too. Our site was spacious, private, and we also had our own little private beach in the creek, it was magical.

Tracy Silagi

Depending on your site this place can be really cool. Sites along the river are better- some are right along the highway which seemed terrible. No running water and poison oak along the sides of most sites. Cool creek with some bigger areas to wade in. Close to town if you forget anything but highway noise wasn’t a problem with the creek side sites. Might just be the weekend we were there but tons of loud kids made it not super peaceful.

Bryce Harmon

This was a pretty good camp trip, as some spots opened up at the last minute and I snagged whatever was available. There are many good sites for tent camp, with a couple of exceptions (there always are), and what I'd consider some decent small trailer sights (no way you get me to camp in a tent on that slope. One half of the camp is closer to the highway, which didn't see heavy traffic, although we did get a couple of motorcyclists who played down the hammer on the straight aways during the day. This didn't bother me too much but I'd like to try a site on the other side of camp to see if it's less noticeable next trip. It's a dry camp so it's pit toilets and bring your own water, which was not a problem for us. The bathrooms were cleaned regularly so I didn't encounter any problems there. Camp host was a nice younger couple who we saw and spoke with several times, and they were selling wood bundles from their site. Overall a gorgeous area, with a beautiful creek running through the middle, which I'm sure dries up later in the summer, but added a nice babbling brook background noise to camp. People were the water in camp and up and down the highway that parallels the creek/river bed. My last thoughts here are that I could definitely see this place being way too hot in the summer. If Ojai is too hot in the upper 80's and into the 90's then it's probably going to be HOT up in the gorge, and also probably no camp fires. At that point what's the use of camping? Our trip wasn't very "buggy", but come prepared with some spray or protection as I could see there might be times of the year it could be. Plus bring some protection since you could easily lose track of time hanging about camp or walking around, or at the creek, and get burned. Also stay vigilant of poison oak, it's not everywhere but there were places it was patchy and could be a problem with pets or kids if they wandered "off trail" and didn't know what to look for.

Clark Volmar

We were at Wheeler Gorge from 5-18-25 thru 5-20-25. The location is amaxing. We loved the oaks, the creek and the whole feel of the location. Despite being close to hwy 33, the place had a quiet and tranquil vibe. One word of caution, though. We made plans to meet some friends there with our trailer. We had never been there before so we checked out their site, which said they can accept up to 45'. This is not true. Our trailer is 34' and our friends trailer is 24'. We reserved spot 47 (beautiful spot), but we could not exit the campground without sustaining damage. The angle from the 47 loop and the exit pits you against a high oak overhang on the left and a tall forward rock on the right. I wouldnt recommend a trailer longer than 24' for comfirtable ingress or exit. Despite the issues with our trailer, our trip was hivhlighted by the camp host Andrew. Andrew was exceedingly helpful and attentive. Great guy!