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Star Party
Directions and Map to Laguna Campground
Laguna camground at about 5500 feet elevation in the mountains of eastern San Diego County, features one of the darkest skies in Southern California. The exposures to the south are extremely impressive. The elevation at the campground is about 5500 feet.
The Star party at Mt. Laguna is special in many ways. There are many hiking and biking trails, a scenic meadow, cool trees, and clean mountain air.
Those familiar with our regular star parties, will experience the usual friendliness of the Riverside club members, and get to share their enthusiasm for the stars. However, there are a couple of differences from what you may be used to in Landers.
One minor difference--this star party begins on Thursday, instead of the usual Friday-Sunday time frame.
Another important point is that the Star-Be-Cue on Saturday afternoon is really a Pot-Luck, and not just a bar-be-cue provided by the club. That means you need to bring something to throw on the grill, and a little something to share with the others at the party. (There is a little store about two miles away, and Julian about half an hour.)
More importantly, we will be in public campsites. And that means there are some expenses, and you will have to do a little more planning than usual.
For this Star Party, the Club reserves all the dozen or so spaces in the Meadow Loop of the Laguna-Prado campground in Mt. Laguna. If you have already made reservations with the club, you know where you will be staying (or can contact the star party director to find out). (See below if you have a reserved Fri-Sat space, but plan to arrive Thursday). If you have not yet made reservations with the club you have several courses of action:
...Goto RESERVEUSA.COM and make a reservation for the Shady loop. There are too many trees in this loop to make it usable for a star party, but you can set up your scope with the rest of the club in the Meadow Loop, and then walk the short distance to your campsite. From RESERVEUSA.COM, click on the California map, click Laguna-Cleveland from the list of campgrounds, click Shady Loop on the campground map page, and go from there. You may need to register as a ReserveUSA user.
...Just show up and find a campsite in any of the other loops. Only about three dozen of the nearly 200 campsites in Mt. Laguna may be reserved. The rest are first-come-first served. If you are there on Thursday, you should have no trouble finding a site. However, a July weekend usually fills Mt. Laguna, so be there early. If you know you will be coming Friday, you may wish to ask one of the Thursday-arriving club members to find you a spot and park their car there (and pay for the spot) to hold the place for you.
...Just show up and share one of the sites the club has already reserved. Each site allows two vehicles, and can have more than one tent. To prevent freeloading, it would be expected that you would get permission of whomever has officially reserved the site. And you would be expected to share some of the expenses either by paying the person who reserved the site, or by donating the cost of the site to the club. This option is probably not advisable for a Trailer/RV camper, but should work for a small tent.
WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO MAKE ROOM FOR TENT CAMPERS. You may be asked to park someplace else, but a few tents here and there should not be hard to accommodate.
SOME SPECIAL NOTES:
When the club reserved spaces, it reserved many for Friday-Saturday, and some for Thursday-Saturday. If your space is a Friday-Saturday, and you plan to be there Thursday, you could either rely on the fact that your space would not be taken on a weeknight, or go to RESERVEUSA.COM and reserve Thursday night--and pay for the extra reservation fee (see the paragraph above about how to use RESERVEUSA). (Or, you could arrive Thursday, and if your Friday site is already occupied, move to another unoccupied site for that night.)
Sometimes the mountains have summer thundershowers. Be prepared for afternoon rain, and clear evenings. Likewise, depending on the weather during the year, we have had dew problems at this site.
Mountain Bike riding is very popular at Mt. Laguna. Bring your bike!!!
Some people drive to Mt. Laguna for the Saturday afternoon/evening events only. You are certainly welcome to do so, and would not need to pay for a site for this. However, you would not be able to park near the "telescope meadow."
Julian has lots of pie shops. However, the pot-luck can not operate efficiently if EVERYBODY brings a pie. Let's randomize those contributions, folks.
For additional information or questions, contact Star Party Director.
Star Party Schedule
