CAMPING OUT : If you want to get away from people, don’t try to do it on Memorial Day weekend, when everyone else has the same idea.

Memorial Day weekend may not be the best time to strike out in search of campsites off the beaten path. But surely, in a county as geographically diverse as Ventura, there must be relatively unpopulated places to sleep serenely under the stars.

That seemed to be the idea early Friday morning as cars, vans and an occasional RV began heading steadily up California 33, looking for a quiet place to spend the night.

“We read in a camping book that there were some nice spots up here, something kind of away from the madding crowd,” said Robert Puff, a clinical psychologist from Fullerton who planned to hook up with relatives from Fresno later in the afternoon. “Maybe it isn’t the greatest choice of weekends, but we were hoping for something a bit out of the way.”

Hoping to find the same thing, this reporter set out--with tent, sleeping bags and two small children in tow--to discover the “hundreds of hidden, rarely used campgrounds” promised in the recently published “Camping California.” And to see if what the book says is true: “95% of the vacationers use only 5% of the available recreation areas.”

10 a.m. at Wheeler Gorge on California 33:

From the look of things, 95% of vacationers were here. In the campground right off the road beyond Wheeler Hot Springs, cars and tents were packed side by side, radios blasting in what sounded like a battle for best amplification. In the morning fog, a few campers sat on the hoods of pickup trucks, sipping beer and calling loudly to friends.

The scene, according to Forest Service personnel, is typical for summer weekends. By most Friday evenings--Saturday morning at the latest--the campground resembles ants on a sugar cube.

“Wheeler Gorge is the only campground in the Ojai district that takes reservations, so it’s generally pretty busy,” said Don Turner, a law enforcement officer with the Forest Service.

And, not infrequently, he added, things there get out of hand. “You get problems there that are associated with any small city--drunken parties, fights, people shooting off their guns, vehicle accidents, drunk drivers. . . .”

This was not exactly what we had in mind when we decided to get back to nature. Discouraged, the kids became impatient. “You said we were going to the mountains,” they said. “You said we were going camping somewhere beautiful.”

Was there any place nearby that Turner thought might qualify as peaceful, rustic or a bit out of the way?

He paused. “Well,” he answered slowly, “every campsite in the Ojai district is easily accessible and reasonably well known, so they fill up fast. But if you keep going toward Lockwood Valley, they fill up a lot slower. There are some nice ones up there.”

We were back on the Maricopa Highway, winding through a canyon bordered by a barely visible Sespe Creek. A few cars pulled off to the side of the road, drivers scanning the shallow valley to the west.

Anyone considering setting up camp at an undesignated site beside the river must have realized the problem. With only a few private roads in the vicinity, all blocked by chains, there was no place to conceal a car. To any roving ranger, an illegally parked vehicle would stick out like a surf bum at a Boy Scout jamboree.

Pushing onward, we felt certain that our intended spot lay somewhere up ahead. A lone motorcyclist, parked at the side of the road staring at a map, pulled onto the highway as soon as we drove past.

As we veered onto Rose Valley Road, the turnoff for several campgrounds, the motorcycle followed close behind.

Late morning, at Rose Valley Recreation Area:

Four miles east of 33 we came to a fork in the road. A mile beyond to the right, a sign proclaimed, was a campground; two miles to the left was another. Down the hill, directly west of us, was the small lake we had been told about while stopping for groceries in Ojai.

Walden Pond it wasn’t. Except for a few trees nearby, it stood in a dry, barren landscape, surrounded mainly by scrub. A few cars were parked nearby, and several people cast fishing poles halfheartedly from lakeside.

“Nope, nothing up there, I’m afraid,” replied one angler when asked what the campground situation was like up the road. “It was filled up by this morning. But it sure is pretty up there.”

Taking him at his word, we headed back toward the highway. Our plan was to get about 20 miles farther north to Lockwood Valley Road and then drive east, where several campgrounds were that had been described to us by Forest Service personnel.

“The Reyes Creek campground has water, there are fish and there’s a hiking trail that leads to another campground about three miles further,” said Valerie Shaw, information assistant with the Chuchupate ranger station in the Los Padres National Forest. Although the station is just a few miles from the campground, Shaw said she had never visited the site. She was reading the information out of a book.

“It sounds nice, though,” she said.

With only a few miles to the turnoff, the motorcyclist from down the road reappeared in our rearview mirror.

Noon, Reyes Creek campground:

To get to this campground, at the end of an old Forest Service road at an elevation of 4,000, one passes a string of cabins and an old tavern, all in various stages of disrepair. Although at first glance they appear abandoned, the cabins shelter a small community that seems to place little value on modern conveniences.

Up the road was the campground--30 tent and six motor home sites only a few feet apart in a loop encircled by the creek. With dueling stereos alternatingly blasting rock ‘n’ roll and Mexican ballads, the area immediately seemed familiar. This was what we tried to get away from 35 miles back at Wheeler Gorge.

With the list of potential havens shrinking quickly, we pulled off to the side of the road and examined our map. A bearded man in torn jeans and T-shirt approached the car.

“If you’re looking for a place to camp, there are a couple of good places just a few miles down the road,” he said. “Just go straight and you can’t miss them.”

Coming out of the campground, we once again turned east on Lockwood Valley Road, driving slowly to examine the dry, barren landscape. The stranger had seemed helpful enough, but there was no indication of life, much less of anyone actually pitching a tent. Besides, there was no water.

Suddenly, in our rearview mirror, the motorcycle appeared once again. We made a quick U-turn and accelerated. “Getting away from it all” seemed less appealing--and less realistic--all the time. Perhaps it was time to go home.

A mile past the Reyes Creek campground was a sign we had missed on our way in. The Ozena campground had 12 sites for tents or motor homes, each well-spaced from the one next to it. They looked out on a strangely beautiful landscape, with cottonwoods shading the road and the mountains--patches of snow still visible--in the distance. Fireplaces and picnic tables were provided, as was a vault toilet. Best of all, there was only one other family in sight.

By the end of the day, more people had arrived. But for a few golden hours, we had achieved our goal.

We had escaped the madding crowd.