Vail Lake, CA

[forjar]

Went by Vail Lake today looking at possible membership for private lake. Can anyone give me an opinion on the lake, if it is worth it or not?

[TonyTheTige]

Test drove a boat there once. To me, it would not be worth the price of membership. The lake was small and I could see it being very crowded during the summer. Our test drive was in February. I will say the seller talked it up like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, so I had lofty expectations. I was pretty disappointed.

Looks like you're from SD, so hopefully you're familiar with the few fresh water options we have here to compare. By comparison, it's smaller than El Capitan. The launch ramp was a little suspect, but got the job done. Based on the topography, I'm guessing it would get less windy than El Cap.....but then again, anything would be less windy/choppy than El Cap. Back in the day, we'd hit San Vicente pretty regularly. It might be a case of romanticizing it (because it's been closed and will be for the next half decade), but I never remember San V being that blown out and choppy.

I hope this helped. I also bet they’d let you launch at Vail for a day to check it out if you were seriously considering a membership. It would be well worth it. Then you can decide if the lake fits your needs and if you’d end up using the campsites, other amenities, etc.

[TeamAllen]

I remember the problems we had with that place was you couldn't bring any friends there due to insurance reasons. Only your immediate family could ride on the lake and you couldn't pass your deed to include your children. You would have to buy one for each of them when they get older or something? That was a long time ago, so I'm not sure anymore? Just something to check on.

[Stokes]

I miss san v too was a great lake. i would allways kick my self in the *** when i would lag getting ready in the morning find out it was full and have to go to el cap. web site says 2014 0r 2017 when ever water his the new boat launch. lets hope for some wet winters when the new dam gets finished

[Stokes]

san diego has some pretty good size lakes hodges, lower otay, sutherland are all decent size. big enough lets say for 40 boats 20$ launch 20$ water contact thats close to 5k. fishing mon-sun and water contact thurs-sun like they did on san v. Probably missing out on $1,000,000.

[Stokes]

dam it ha. but barrett and henshaw are pritty big too. any one know why we cant ski these lakes.