I camped here many, many years ago. In fact, it was over two decades ago. We spent a night here as part of a road trip that took us up the Pacific Coast all the way to Seattle. I had just moved to California from the East Coast, and the sheer size of the country north of San Francisco (where I was living at the time) blew my mind. We had a hike-in site, but I can't seem find on the current maps which one it was exactly. Again, this was over 20 years ago. But we checked in at the Prairie Creek visitors center. I remember this clearly, as we were given a bear canister for our food, which was the first time I'd ever had to use one of these. When I'd go camping back east, I'd just hang my food in bags. But the ranger was adamant we'd want this canister for the site we'd be camping at. More on this later.
The hike in was about 2 miles and took us deep into ancient groves of Redwoods. At the time, I thought this was the most beautiful spot on Earth that I'd ever visited. It's still probably in the top 10, maybe top 5. The site itself was on a bluff overlooking the Pacific. It was your typical California state park primitive site with a picnic table and fire pit. We made dinner and listened to the waves crashing on the beach below. It was July, and we had daylight until almost 9PM. It was actually sunny that evening, which at the time didn't strike me as unusual, but that's because I was a newcomer to the state. Fog is very common along the northern California coast, so even in summer, it can be quite cool - indeed almost downright cold. I'd like to think that we came prepared with warm clothes and layers, but we probably didn't (again, I was a recent transplant from the East Coast and still associating summer with hot and humid weather.) We were were lucky it happened to be a warm and balmy day.
Now, about that bear canister. I loaded all our food and toothpaste into it and placed it about 50 yards away from the tent. I recall thinking that this was purely precautionary - there was very little chance a bear would actually come to our site. I was wrong. At about 2AM, we heard a large creature walking around the campsite. I admit that I panicked for a moment or two. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. But then I remembered that black bears do tend to be timid, and will often be scared off by loud noises. For reasons I've never been able to explain, I grabbed my flashlight, jumped out of the tent, and started making barking sounds, like a dog. As embarrassing as that is to admit, the bear ran off into the woods. I barely caught a glimpse of it. We obviously didn't sleep too well after that, but as the morning broke we began to convince ourselves that there was no way we were actually visited by a bear. It had to be an elk. When I returned the canister to the ranger, he disabused me of that notion. If we had heard something loud enough to wake us in that part of the park, it almost certainly was a bear, he said. Over the next 25 years, we'd camp in areas with lots of bears (Yosemite, King's Canyon), and we'd see bears often, but this remains the only time a bear would actually come to our site while we were sleeping.
Per my rating system, this is an easy 5-stars as the Redwood National Forest and the CA state parks within it are some of the most beautiful spots on this planet. You can easily spend a week or more exploring the area. I've not returned to this specific spot since that July night so many years ago, but I've visited several of the other state parks in the area. Having written this, perhaps it's time for me to see if I can find this particular site again. That would be a fun adventure.
