Northern Cali Camping

Heading up to Fort Bragg, Eureka and Cresent City to hit up the Redwoods.
I don't think theres any BLM other than Lost Coast/Usal RD.

Can anyone recommend some dope spots to camp. can be dispersed or pay. doesnt matter.

Thanks for any leads!

 

S to N:

I believe Usal is closed and gated for the season just north of the beach (6 miles north of Hwy 1).

There's good camping at Usal Beach (state park). I think there's camping on the north side of the road closure (27 miles north of Hwy 1, access off Old Briceland Rd)) at Sinkyone (state park).

There's BLM campgrounds along Chemise Mountain Rd south of Shelter Cove... should be 3 or 4 camp grounds there. I can't recall their names.

There's a few more areas you can disperse camp off Lightening Peak area, some mountain bike trailheads up in there you can camp at.

There's BLM campground near Honeydew on Wilder Ridge Rd and also BLM campground at the mouth of the Mattole River right near the beach. If you go up the hill from the mouth of the Mattole there's a BLM road called "Windy Point 4wd Road" that drops to a beautiful pasture above the old Punta Gorda lighthouse. If that road is open (I think it's closed for the season also) you can camp in that pasture. It's pretty windy though, as the name implies. Or you can hike down onto the beach from that pasture and camp at the lighthouse (about 3/4 mile in) which is fucking awesome. Most people don't know about the Windy Point Rd and they park at Mattole Beach and then hike like 8 miles in to the lighthouse, and they have to time high tide to make it through. Fuck that!

There's a county park on Mattole Rd between Honeydew and Petrolia (AW Way Park), has good sites right on the river.

There's also a few pulloffs right on the ocean on Mattole Rd between Capetown and Petrolia that you can camp in if you keep your shit contained. You can also park in one and go camp on the beach. Related: my favorite stretch of road on this planet is Mattole Rd for the 6 miles it runs right on the ocean.

There's a few state park campgrounds on Panther Gap Rd running between Hwy 101 - Dyerville and Honeydew (it has some other names on some maps).

The river access at the old NWP RR bridge at Dyerville overlook / Hwy 254 should be open 24/7. I've never seen the gate closed. It's *technically* illegal to camp on the riverbar there but it's a huge expanse of land and you could tuck out of sight pretty easy for some pretty and free camping. There's also a few other cool riverbar spots on the Eel nearby you can access and camp on (Shively comes to mind).

There's several campgrounds on Hwy 254 (state parks).

There's camping at the Ferndale Fairgrounds. Probably free. Also near Ferndale is some other Eel river access... take Grizzly Bluff Rd out of Ferndale to East Ferry Rd, go straight on E Ferry and it dead ends into the Eel River riverbar. Go onto the bar and turn left and drive until you decide to stop, camp wherever. No one to bother you.

If you run out 36 from Fortuna there's a county campground at the Van Duzen (Swimmer's Delight) and a state campground (Grizzly Creek). I think both are closed for the season though.

There's a huge expanse of BLM land right on the ocean south of Eureka. It's locally known as the "south jetty". If you go out there, the BLM ranger closes the gates overnight, but if you get there before they do you can tuck back in a sand road that runs 3 miles along the coast from the paved road at the base of Table Bluff all the way to the mouth of the Eel River. That's a cool area to renegade camp.

There's also some BLM camping sites on the "north jetty", the Samoa Peninsula across the bay from Eureka. Might be some shitheels there, though, because it's so close to Eureka. I personally would not camp within 15 miles of Eureka, it's a seedy shithole.

If you run east on 299 there's a bunch (15 ? ) of NF campgrounds between Arcata and Redding. More on 96 north of Willow Creek. Riverbar access on both roads.

Going north up 101 from 299 there, there's Patrick Pt state park and then a few other state park camp areas in the redwoods in Del Norte County. If you are reasonably self contained there's a few overlooks you could camp in but CHP will run you off if you look like a yard sale.

In the unlikely event you have a kayak with you you can park at Freshwater Lagoon and kayak towards the ocean, there's a legit first-come camp spot at the base of the bluff on the north side of the lagoon.

There's a big overlook just north of Elk Valley Schoolhouse at the next lagoon. You could likely camp there again if you don't look like you are homeless with shit everywhere.

I feel like there's some camping areas on Bald Hills Rd between 101 - Orick and 96 - Weitchipec but it's been a minute since I been up there.

More camping on the Drury Scenic Parkway (old Hwy 101). However it may also be seasonally closed now.

You can probably renegade camp at the old military radar installation near Klamath or one of the overlooks on Klamath Beach Rd.

There's more riverbar access off Hwy 199 and Hwy 197 north / northeast of Crescent City that you can camp on if you tuck away. Also quite a few campgrounds along 199 both state and federal, though I think the federal sites are seasonally closed.

I used to live in Eureka so I'm not just some asshole in Ohio pulling sites off Google maps LOL...

 

@MeefZah oh man thanks for all this info! I saw your thread on t4r.org last night and was writing down notes. Was going to hit you up if you wanted to link up but I saw your last post

you were a great resource for the lost coast. Not too much info about the areas up there.

Dang I need to go back during the warmer months so some of these spots are open.

Oh yeah I’ll be camping near fort Bragg, the surf side campground and then gold bluffs the following day.
Sucks they closed Usal rd. I wanted to check it out. Wasn’t going to camp there since I’ve heard that spot is burnt.
I’ll be researching all your recommendations. Looks like I need more time up north. So much to explore.

5 nights 6days doesn’t seem enough. Especially since I lose 2 days just get up there and go back to LA

oh yeah. Eureka was a bit sketch back in 2007 when I was there for a social d concert. I remember Somoa, It was an uneasy feeling there back then too.
Luckily our little car didn’t get broken into. My friend and I did a LA to Seattle trip for 2 weeks. All camping.

 

Have fun. I can't believe I forgot Gold Bluff. It's pretty cool. Usal isn't closed forever, Mendo Co just gates it shut in the wet season. It's worth going up the road from Hwy 1 to at least check out the beach. The road in is pretty.

 

Great info and recommendations. Thanks Meefzah! I attended Humboldt State 10+ years ago, and lived in Arcata for a few years. Fun times and memories I wouldn't trade for the world. I'm familiar with some of the places you mentioned, the rest is Gold! I hope to sell my Tacoma soon, replace it with a 4runner and hit the road for Spring time road trips and camping.

 

@MeefZah Has it nailed and that's a legit post, much respect. I'm also a former Arcata resident for 10+ years in the late 90s-early 2000s I can vouch for that list and post, +1 Like on that from me.
To add to the list I always liked 199 which is a ways up north, but there are tons of trails and dispersed camping up there in the Smith River National Rec Area.
Also off Alderpoint Rd near the Lassic Wilderness. Been lots of logging back there so the roads are pretty easy to nav, but also lots of dispersed camping.
These are definately off the main path and a ways off the 101, but just wanted to throw out ideas as I'm tracking spots as we go back multiple times each year to visit the in laws in Arcata and McKinleyville.

 

@cloval set it up lets go! but probably not this spring lol. I got a few camping trips in/near the eastern sierras coming up and Northern AZ trip in July and a couple backpacking trips early fall.
@2112 R lets add to the list if you have any other recommendations!

I'm still combing thru my pictures and watching youtube videos because i'm missing the north so much lol. My trip felt too incomplete since I knew there was much more to explore.

Ill need to post my photos up.
I've been a t4r.org user and trying to transition to this site now.

 

Same. T4R traffic and posts has lowered a lot lately it seems. Maybe folks just out and about and not posting, or I'm checking the wrong sub forums there.

 

That site is almost unusable for me. I'm not sure what happened to the formatting, but the ads on right side of the page (that used to take up a small sliver) now take up 1/2 of the page.

 

Yeah that and it's slow af constantly like it's full of bugs

 

And then there's the time they got hacked, and failed to notify anyone of what data was exposed, and even denied that any attack had occurred. "Routine maintenance," lol, as strange pages in Russian started appearing on their site. So God knows what's happening now, if it is running slow.

 

@MeefZah yo! its been awhile. figured I'd reach out to you first before posting another but... planning on heading back up north but going all the way to portland but staying in Arch Cape OR.
any recommendations along the oregon coast? Depending on time, maybe head back down on the eastern side for Bend and crater lake.

Trying to convince my wife that we should drive from LA to Portland (she's not thrilled nor are our kids) so that we can hit up trails along the way. so maybe we might fly into SF/OAK and rent an SUV and do the drive from there. I want to show them all the spots I've hit up from your recommendations.

 

Oh man. It's been a minute. I'm not super good with off road stuff on the Oregon coast, I never really explored enough off 101 to be proficient without a map.

A few cool routes I did do and enjoyed were Bear Camp Rd out of Gold Beach, but it's paved. Some dirt roads off of it which are fun and you can run them over to Galice / Grants Pass. Only link I have to some pics none of which are great: https://www.advrider.com/f/threads/southern-humboldt-rides.1126607/page-89#post-35712012

There was another series of routes out of Crescent City up into Oregon that I did on the bike at least once. I had heard this NF 4402 was awesome and it was good. It'd be fun in the 4R. Here is a link to one post I did with pics: https://www.advrider.com/f/threads/southern-humboldt-rides.1126607/page-205#post-40723095

If you have your kids and wife the Newport Aquarium is awesome.

Several cool lighthouses on 101 in Oregon.

New National Park on the coast, Lewis and Clark NP. It's pretty sweet.

I did some stuff once going east out of Coos Bay. The photos in this folder have captions (if you open them individually) that show some of the roads: https://meefzah.smugmug.com/June-2020-Timtrek/

Man other than that I pretty much got nothing...

Edit, you could also look into the new Oregon BDR I have heard most of that is SUV friendly and the northern bit isn't crazy far from the coast...ish... : https://ridebdr.com/orbdr/

 

Awesome! this is a great start. I'll build on top of this.
for sure I wanted to take the family to the aquarium instead of boring them with nature lol.

I appreciate all your help! hope all is well

edit: damn! you think that corolla is still there? i want to pull it out and restore it hahah. damn it now i want a bike lol

 

If it's still there it's been shot to shit by now. Keys hanging in the trunk lock waiting on you....