China Camp State Park

China Camp State Park

During the Labor Day weekend, we stayed at China Camp State park. This park has a natural watershed and featured an extensive salt marsh, meadow and oak habitats that are home to a variety of wildlife, including deer, raccoons, squirrels and numerous birds. All campsites are walk-in campsites for tent-camping only. We had to handcarry all the equipment from the parking lot to our campsite. Our Campsite was located 300 yards from the parking lot.

The camp sites were very spacious and there is lot of room for the tents. Most of the campsites are covered with shades from the tree. The challenge starts as soon as you arrive at the parking lot. You have to carry all your belongings to your campsite in a trash can provided by the campground host. This campground was very windy, so the tents need to be pegged properly. The second challenge was the yellow jacket bee which was flying very close to our food always. Carrying a yellow jacket bee trap may be help to certain extent. The third challenge was the visit by family of raccoon’s very night exactly around 9:00PM. They came in bunches to scavenge the trash. So we had to keep our food locked in the car every night. Unexpectedly there was a fourth challenge also, the pumps for the shower stopped working, which means no shower for anyone during the whole camping time period.
We have been going to the camp grounds for about 8 years now.

Every year we like to explore to different camp grounds to get different experience. China camp was a unique experience with the parking lot down the hill and carrying all the belonging uphill to the campsite. This campground had excellent hiking trails. We tried both turtle back trail and shoreline trail.

We will think very hard next time to visit this park again.