Camp Shelly

Never been to Camp Shelly.
Driving late at night we decided to stop at a campsite to bunker down for the night so Camp Shelly was the closest site & to be honest didn’t expect much from it.
When we woke the next morning it was so beautiful & peaceful. We ended up staying 2 nights, Sunday & Monday with only about 2 – 3 other sites taken.
The toilets & showers were extremely clean. Nice HOT showers!!!
The bathrooms were all painted with scenery of the woods & lakes.
Such a great campsite & so close to many beautiful lakes.
I would definitely recommend this place to everyone & would stay here again :)

Thoroughly enjoyed my stay here!
Small campground and right across from the beautiful Baldwin Beach. Hot showers, soap and paper towels in the restrooms; what more could you ask for?!?

This campsite is so clean.
Each site is spacious.
The restroom has light all night long. Even hot water was available. I didn’t feel I was in the wilderness. It’s like a city life.
The shower is free, although I didn’t use it.
The campgound was quiet at night, so I was able to have a good sleep.

i love Camp Shelly, use to go their every summer for week when i was a kid & me & my brother would make friends with kids their & found out they have lived 2 — 3 blocks away that we never knew, but havent been their for 20 yrs, but will be going very soon

My husband and I reattempted camping in August after giving it up in the 90’s. Wanted a dog friendly campground and came across Camp Shelly. So thankful we did !. Also spread out, not crammed together like other campgrounds. Hot showers and flush toilets too ! Thanks to Camp Shelly we had such a great experience that we bought a popup trailer and were able to squeeze in two more trips before it closed for the season.

We’ve actually never camped here (locals) but we send our friends to Camp Shelly — amazingly clean showers and bathrooms, as well as volleyball and horseshoe courts — and use it as a starting point for a lot of our adventures to the surrounding area.
The Rangers here are highly decent too: Polite, friendly, willing to point out little used trail heads, and also have posters on hand that are great for piquing the interest of kids in nature.

This place has it all — ping pong, volleyball, horseshoes, large camp sites, dog friendly, walking distance to the lake and clean bathrooms. Ranger Amy was super helpful too and even gave us free posters showing the wildlife in the area.

Camp Shelly is a special gift to those in Livermore. What a genius idea to own a campground in Tahoe. We’ve gone for the past two summers and have started, what I assume, will be our family tradition.
It’s a small campground, with only 20 – 25 sites and most of the sites are really nice. Our favorites are #9 and #10 and the end of the loop. Most of the sites back up to nice forest land, with nobody behind you. They are not crowded together like those at down-​the-​road Camp Richardson.
The entrance to Baldwin Beach is directly across from the entrance to Camp Shelly.
We also like to head to the Taylor Creek Nature Center which has a few great trails that are very good for families, walks that don’t take more than an hour and take you through the meadows, marshes, and creek that lead into the Lake.
The cost at $ 35 a night is standard for CA camping. And, in fact, this is quite a deal since you are in Lake Tahoe.
The Tallac trailhead is right there, if you don’t have little kids. It’s a long trail.
I’m almost afraid I’ve shared too much about this great secret!

I like! They have ice cream social/​some type of social events on some nights for all the campers to hang out and get to know each other. But I like Camp Shelly mostly for its bathroom. Seat covers, hot showers (no coins needed!), and well-​stocked toilet paper.
There isn’t much to do around the camp ground. We tried walking further out to see if there was a lake or trails we can hike on, but there were none. They have volleyball nets, horsehoe, basketball court and other games on the camp ground though.

I really enjoyed staying at this camp. The campsites are pretty large which gives you a good amount of privacy. There are a lot of families with children at this campsite and you might get woken up by them as soon as 7 am. It didn’t really bother me though. The campground also sells ice for $ 2 a bag and fire wood for $ 5 per wheelbarrow. They have running water and showers. Overall, I would definitely stay here again.

I love Camp Shelly! I’ve been going for about 6 years and have such an amazing time every time I go! The campsites are great, the restroom and showers and always sparkling clean, there’s ice to purchase, ice cream socials, and a competitive volleyball camp with another campground (Camp Concord).
Baldwin Beach is very close and just up the ways near Camp Richardson is a fantastic ice cream shop!
Camp Shelly is in a great location. (lots of other hiking and places to go to…)
I have to say Bob’s review kind of makes me laugh that he rounded down his star rating for Camp Shelly because of it’s lack of Oregon-​ness!!! Ummm Bob, Camp Shelly is in CA!

I would second the excellent synopsis Andrea gave for Camp Shelly and add my own $.02.
Camp Shelly is meaningful to our family not just because of the clean, comfortable and beautiful setting, and not just because they have wood cut for you, ice available, AND hot showers (!!), but because my kids are creating those memories that will last forever.
If you’re going to the same place year after year, it’s got to have a little sumpin’ sumpin’ that makes each trip exciting and different and something to look forward to yet enough consistency that you know what to expect. And you should expect a great vacation at Camp Shelly.
How can you beat camping in a cavernous forest while getting your beach gear together on your bike all in the same day? You want to rough it in a tent and bring your freeze dried food? Fine, but the second night when you realize you accidentally ate it all you can drive 15 minutes for a pizza and ice cream.
The Rangers are passionate about their campground and it shows. The road is a perfect sized closed loop for scooters, bikes, and morning coffee hellos. Spacing between sites is good and quiet time late night is enforced. I’ve car camped, backpacked, stayed in walk in sites, you name it, and I love Camp Shelly for what it is: a wonderful family camp experience for Livermore families and their friends.

I don’t understand why Bob gave two stars to Camp Shelly for the second point «lack of Oregon-​ness». :(That’s like going to a great Italian restaurant and docking a star because it’s not in Rome. I’m not sure what camping fees are in Oregon so I can’t compare, but this is California and I think it’s pretty fair compared to most other campgrounds. Though I’m fairly certain everything is more expensive in California than other states, so that could induce a breathtaking moment… and not just because you’re around 6,000′ elevation. ;O)
Unless a place is truly awful, say if the bathrooms stunk to the high heaven’s which he cited they did not or service is inexcusably horrible, then I would give as low as two stars. I know the Rangers at Camp Shelly are outstanding and though the restrooms are rustic for most, it’s clean. I respectfully ask that Bob reconsider that missing third star since it’s a great campground and I’m going to tell you why. :)
This is a wonderful little campground in beautiful S. Lake Tahoe which is operated by the Livemore Parks Department. It’s a clean campground and cozy. It’s likely not for hard core campers, but it’s also not geared toward RV camping either and I think it’s for everyone! It is an institution for many families of Livermore. This is a place many pine for the whole year long (no pun intended as there are Jeffrey Pines all about), I am one of those people.
The bathrooms are clean and if you’re lucky enough to have indoor plumbing (ladies) the outside of the stalls are painted in a lovely mural which is in the photos section. The Rangers are awesome and each Saturday night there is an old fashioned ice cream making/​social and most importantly EATING! Campground kids are encouraged to come over and give the ice cream machine a crank. It’s a great time to meet other campers and let the kids burn off energy and get a taste of ice cream made the old fashioned way. On the weekends LARPD Rangers offer interactive programs such as Astronomy walks/​talks and Wildflower walks/​exploration.
One thing I especially love is the lack of poison oak that one might find in lower elevations. There are mosquitoes so do bring protection or, if you’re like me, DEET it up and wear three layers of clothes. I try to encase my body in the Fortress of Solitude.
There is a horseshoe pit, basketball, ping pong table (that was being refurbed last summer, but I hear it’s making a comeback for 2012!) and yes… oh yes, volleyball. If you’re lucky and stay during the time when Camp Shelly competes with neighboring Camp Concord in a volleyball tourney for the Golden Toilet Seat… well, good times are had by all.
The campground is very chill and small enough to where you can feel comfortable letting your kids wander around, dig in the dirt and build forts on the hillside by your camp. It feels like a mini community and is very family friendly. Oh, when I say «family» I’m also including your four-​legged canine family. Camp Shelly is dog-​friendly and our dog loves it up there.
We go up 2 – 3 times in the season and sometimes see friends we know from school/​community. Other times we find familiar faces we see regularly at the Farmer’s Market, but may not know personally. It’s a cool thing to go back each year and see some of the same faces and it’s fun to see the kids grow from year to year. It’s always great meeting folks from outside of our community those that come from other cities or other states.
There are some great hikes and wonderful places to visit nearby. One of our family favorites is the hike up to Eagle Lake. Our dog LOVES the climb and the jump into a snow-​fed Alpine lake. If you’re lucky and go early in the season (and winter has been good) sometimes you can have a snowball fight with what little snow is left. Baldwin Beach is right down the main drive from Camp Shelly and Camp Richardson is a 5 minute drive. There is dog-​friendly Kiva Beach just down the road in case your pup is a water hound like ours. Another of our favorites is the Camp Richardson Ice cream shop, but remember to ask for a KIDS scoop because the regular scoop is bigger than a toddler’s head. The trip up to Angora Lakes is wonderful and our daughter enjoys kayaking or doing the paddle board.
Camp Shelly is a place worth checking out. It’s become a place of lasting lifetime memories for many people I know, including our own family. As soon as Labor Day passes and Camp Shelly closes we do a countdown to opening day. Even as I write this I can smell the faint vanilla-​bark of the Jeffrey pines, hear the ocean like cadence of the breeze making it’s way through millions of pine needles, the crackling of our hyptnotic campfire, the sound of crickets lulling me to sleep, kids playing and campers having real exchanges in a simple world. Camp Shelly is a fantastic place to enjoy «just being».
I hope you come take a look for yourself and make some lasting memories of your own. :)