Weekend Escape: Bass Lake : Lake Lark : Priced Right for the Whole Brood, Skylake Yosemite Camp Has All the Trimmings

As victims of the recession--my wife had lost a big client and we lost much of our discretionary income--our chances for a family vacation last summer were looking pretty grim.

We wanted the outdoors, but as aging boomers, are no longer enamored of sleeping on the ground. Besides, our 11-going-on-16-year-old daughter winced at the thought of dirt, bugs, sweat or other unpleasantries. After researching family vacation spots via the local bookstore’s travel section, we gambled and booked a four-day, three-night outing at Skylake Yosemite Camp. Fees for the rustic family camp at Bass Lake in Madera County--on the way to Yosemite National Park--seemed so reasonable we decided we could take our 10-year-old niece along.

About 45 minutes outside of Fresno in the Sierra National Forest, Skylake is a youth camp for most of the summer. The family camps are held the last two weeks before Labor Day each summer and can be booked for four, six or seven days. Shorter two- and three-night mini-camps are available the first three weekends of June and the last two weekends of September.

It proved to be a fairly easy 270-mile drive from our home in Orange County. After a routine and boring six-hour trek to Fresno, the scenery perked up as we left the freeway and began traveling east across country that once swarmed with prospectors and now is dotted with working farms and getaway ranches sporting names such as “Happy Valley Acres” and “For Sale by Owner.”

The oak-spotted hills, knee-deep in dry golden grasses, were gorgeous; the winding road was a good, quick one; the Sunday traffic was light--a driving enthusiast’s dream come true. In almost no time we passed under an old flume that still carries water to the valley from a creek far up in the hills and then topped a rise for our first glimpse of the lake.

It’s not so big as to be overpowering, but Bass Lake is a nice one--four miles long and up to half a mile wide, with almost royal blue water that flows in from Willow Creek, a tributary of the San Joaquin River.

I felt my heart rate slow by about 20 beats a minute as soon as we turned onto the lakefront road. My wife said the place approached her idea of heaven--which is to sit on the shore, listen to the water lapping at her feet and watch the clouds and the birds soar overhead.

In the past, Bass Lake was a summer stomping ground for the notorious Hell’s Angels motorcycle club. Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson immortalized one such summer gathering in his 1965 book, “Hell’s Angels.” But today the lake’s shores are populated largely with campsites, stands of pine and clusters of homes and resorts--some fancy, some plain. The surface of the warm blue water is churned all summer by water skiers and the depths are plumbed by fishermen after trout, salmon, catfish, bass and perch. At an elevation of 3,500 feet, daytime temperatures in August run into the 80s and nighttime lows seldom drop below 50.

Skylake Yosemite Camp is located on the uphill side of the lakefront road, a short hike from the camp’s private cove. The girls routinely ran down the secluded path in two minutes and panted back up in five or six. Mom and Dad’s times shall remain unrecorded.

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Daily life at the camp centers around the long, low, log-sided lodge, where meals are served and where guests are expected to bus and wipe down their own tables after each meal (we also swept out our own cabin each day, but hey, it’s camp, not a resort). The lodge--actually a long, open room filled with folding tables and chairs, sports a brick fireplace at one end--laid with wood that isn’t lit during the hot summer but probably comes in handy in the winter when the camp is rented out to private groups for retreats and business meetings.

Other camp facilities include a trio of restroom-shower units and 34 screened houses--one for each family. Except for the day a guest drove into a forbidden area and broke a pipe, there was always plenty of hot water and never a line in the shower rooms. I, of course, didn’t know about the lack of hot water until I turned on the shower full blast after a dusty horseback ride.

Camp owner John Howe greeted us as we drove into the camp on our first afternoon and gave us a tour of the lodge, which also serves as recreation room and gathering point for the 8 a.m. daily sign-ups for riding and water-skiing (a few early birds get there at 6 a.m. for first place in line, but we arrived at 7:45 and got what we wanted).

The houses are pretty Spartan: tin-covered roofs and walls that are wood on the lower half and window screen on top. Each is 16 feet square and outfitted with four sets of bunks and eight wall-mounted shelves. Period. No lights, no running water, no rugs, no electrical outlets. But they serve their purpose.

Home for our Sunday-through-Wednesday stay was Cedar Cabin and our last name was emblazoned on a sheet of yellow paper stapled next to the front door. Howe posts the family name on each cabin to make it easier for campers to become acquainted. A list of guests--with the ages of children included to facilitate friend-making--also is posted all week in the lodge.

Skylake doesn’t call itself a lodge or resort, and if you keep that in mind the thin mattresses with their clean-but-stained canvas covers and the sometimes saggy bed springs shouldn’t be a problem. You bring your own sleeping bags to camp and simply plop them atop the mattresses. Saggy springs aside, the place was what we’d hoped for. Plenty to do, lots of time to relax, good eats, friendly fellow guests and a staff of 15 people who seemed genuinely to care that we enjoyed ourselves.

We spent much of our time at the camp’s beach, swimming in the 75-degree water and paddling canoes. The girls also fooled with a windsurfing board, but the camp doesn’t provide instruction so they ended up using it as a paddleboard--and had a ball zooming around the cove.

Skylake has two 16-foot catamarans, but we don’t sail and no one else seemed interested, either. Except for a handful of skiers, most people seemed to enjoy swimming and lounging on the docks.

The camp also provides two power boats with drivers: Family groups can charter one for hourlong skiing or sightseeing jaunts at $25, and individuals can rent ski time in the other at $5.75 for each 15-minute increment. We took a boat trip one afternoon and got a great tour of the lake that included a natural water slide where Willow Creek empties into the lake. Our daughter tried it, the rest of us watched and afterward wished we’d clambered up the rocks and tried too. Although we don’t ski, the girls giggled wildly when the driver cranked up the 100-horsepower outboard and the spray crashed over the bow, soaking them at least as well as any stint on water skis would have.

When we weren’t relaxing on the water, my wife and I walked in the forest, savoring the clean air and the cinnamon-incense tang of the woods. The girls explored, played tennis with two boys one afternoon and played Ping-Pong with each other most evenings. And we all rode horses under the tutelage of a wrangler who took the time to make sure everyone was comfortable and informed about the quirks of his or her mount.

The fact that many campers are repeat guests was driven home during introductions at the opening night campfire when we discovered we were one of only six first-time families. One family announced that this was their 18th trip, but that was topped by the woman who said her family had been coming to Skylake’s family camps for 28 consecutive years. Reservations can be made by phone or mail, but be forewarned: Family camps fill up fast. We got one of the last four-day slots last summer with a phone call made in May. (At press time, there were still cabins available for this summer’s second session, beginning Aug. 28.)

Budget for Four

Gas from Santa Barbara: $ 53.25

Skylake Yosemite Camp: 559.00

Mono Indian Museum tickets: 6.00

Camp horseback riding: 66.00

Powerboat excursion: 25.00

Two camp T-shirts: 24.00

FINAL TAB: $733.25

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Skylake Yosemite Camp, 37976 Road 222, Wishon, Calif. 93669-9714; tel. (209) 642-3720 .