We first visited Meek's Bay in 2009. We camped on a small site within close proximity of the bathrooms. When we arrived, our site was not clean. It was littered with trash from previous visitors. The bathrooms were not clean and were run down. The showers ran cold. At night, bears walked around the tents, rattled the dumpsters, and caused people to scream throughout the site all night long. They pulled the door off one RV, knocked over the trash cans in the bathroom, and tried to enter one tent where children were eating snacks. They banged on the bear boxes, and made it difficult to sleep at night. There were no pellet guns to deter the bears from visiting the guests. The guests were not monitored from leaving food out on their tables and in boxes that bears could easily rip apart. On the contrary, the beach was exquisite with white sand, sand bars in the water, and a beautiful enclave for swimming. We vowed it was a holy place - just as the indians believed. We stayed for a week, but had mixed feeling about returning. However, the beach brought us back for a second try. This time, the site was littered, the bathrooms were not clean, the showers were littered with razors and hair, and parties kept us up until 1am. Bathrooms were cleaned once during our stay, at 8am just when people were rising. Surprisingly, they were constructing a new bathroom which disturbed our quiet vacation. We wondered why this was not put off until after the high season - but we were glad to see the upgrade being made. The beach was as spectacular as we remembered it. The bears walked around but were not as disturbing as the year previous. We heard several coyotes barking within yards of our camp. We were not sure if they would invade our site, or attack the people in tents. Once again, we found it difficult to sleep. We hope that the Washoe tribe will take better care to clean between guests, to schedule bathroom cleanings when people are not using the bathroom, to monitor noise after 10pm and groceries left out at night, and to think of ways to deter the bears from coming to the campsites. This might mean having someone sit with a pellet gun to scare them off as they do in Yosemite. As everyone knows, if bears eat human food, they are not programmed to hunt the food they were meant to consume. This will ruin the species.
With a few improvements, this could be a very special place.
- Meeks Bay Hotel