William Heise County Park

We went in October with our AHG group. It was great and super dog friendly but WOW so much dirt created so much dust in the air and it got on everyone and everything. With that being said… TONS to do! Such beautiful sights to see! The drive up was amazing. They had plenty of water to wash and drink with a lot of bathrooms as well.

You can walk trails, stargaze, take your bikes around and so much more!

Nice area, campsites we’re clean, rangers were nice. They have areas that are full hookup, partial hookup, no hookup, tent only areas, and group camping. They also have day use parking for $3. Didn’t go on the trails as the ranger informed us they have ticks as mule deer are in the area. Other common animals are wild turkey, gray fox, bobcats, raccoons, steller’s jay, hawks, golden eagles and the occasional mountain lion. Definitely was a nice stay and will be going back

The William Heise County Park is an excellent destination for anyone looking to escape the hustle and bustle of city life and enjoy nature. My family and I had a fantastic time camping there over the weekend.

The park was clean and well-maintained, and the staff was friendly and helpful. We were pleasantly surprised by the beautiful scenery, with tall trees and lush greenery surrounding us. The hiking trails were great for exploring and getting some exercise. 

We also enjoyed fishing in the creek, which was well-stocked with trout and bluegill. Make sure to bring your spinning rods and reels  with you. 

The campsites were spacious and well-equipped with fire pits, picnic tables, and access to clean restrooms and showers. The quiet and peaceful surroundings made for a relaxing and rejuvenating camping experience. 

Overall, I highly recommend the William Heise County Park for anyone looking for a peaceful retreat in nature. It's an ideal destination for families, couples, or anyone seeking a weekend getaway. We can't wait to visit again soon.

This campground is pretty nice given its location. It is off the main road quite a ways, so you do not have a lot of traffic noise. Some of the spots are shaded and summer direct sun, so please look at the pictures. We did enjoy the closeness of the trails and the town nearby. This is a place to stay.

We've been traveling as a group. Started in Austin TX now through Cali. Great campsite.

This is our second trip here. We have thoroughly enjoyed both trips. It is quiet and clean. The vast majority of people here are friendly and respectful. We have only stayed in the sites with hookups. There seems to be a bit more noise and hustle n bustle in the tent only areas.

There is good hiking close by. This site is decent size, we have a 10 pop-up, which was hard to back into this site. A more experienced human might not have struggled as much but It be hard to get a 20 ft plus trailer into this particular site.

Has fire pit and picnic table, as well as, a nice tent pad.

This campground has clean bathrooms and good spaces with great distance between sites. Nice facilities. Beautiful drive to get to it. Reservation is a must and it's well worth it. Pay shower though, but the water got very hot (on a cold night it was perfection)

This place is a hidden gem. Quiet and beautiful setting. Sometimes kids and families get loud but over a nice spot to be. They are very serious about their rules here. Quiet time strictly enforced at 10pm and no fires after 11pm.

We stayed in spot 34 close to bathrooms, has partial shade, picnic table and fire pit. Also has hooks ups for campers. It’s a Great spot with decent privacy. Good flat spot for a tents also.

Lots of good hiking trails close by and only a few mins from downtown Julian and 10 mins from Julian Station. Love this spot and will definitely visit again.

The camping sites are nice and spacious with plenty of area between sites. Lots of pretty views anywhere you camp and lots of shade and brush. Check out a trail while at the campground. Feels so secluded with the views of the surrounding hills.

Really has helped me especially when hotels cost too much lol

Camped for two nights at sites 67 and 68. Site 68 was our favorite, with lots of shade and LOTS of room to spread out. 

Originally, we'd booked the adjoining campsite 99, but the morning we were leaving, a ranger called to tell us it had been double booked and that people were already in our second site and could we take site 67 across the way, instead? That was fine, though not ideal. 67 is very exposed for camping. Very little shade in that one, but great if you want to do star gazing.

Our initial experience entering the park was not a good one. The entrance has a sign that says if you have a reservation, then proceed to your site. So we started to do that, but then got chewed out by a ranger who clearly did not enjoy her job that we were supposed to check in with her first. We were like, "But the sign said…" She snapped at us that the sign was for after hours. Yet, the sign did not SAY this. 

When we finally got to the point to check in, we said we were the site who'd been called this morning because the park had double-booked the site. The ranger snapped back, "WE didn't overbook your site. The BOOKING SYSTEM did." Um, is the booking system that makes park reservations ON the park website not part of the park?? Why does this matter to this ranger? Was SHE the one bumped from her reserved site?

Her unprofessional attitude soured our first exposure to this park. (Seriously, if you don't want to work there, don't. But don't take it out on the campers.)

The ranger continued to give us a lecture on how we may not have more than 2 tents per site and went into a mathematical breakdown of this. "You may have two tents in 67 and one tent in 68 or two tents in 68 and one tent in 67, but you cannot have three tents in 67 or three tents in 68," as though we were complete morons.

After all of this, our observation is the sites have plenty of room for three tents. We had four solo people. I don't quite understand this two-tent-per site rule. Makes zero sense when there is room and you are well below the 6-person maximum per site.

Also, there are no swimming pools at the sites. She also told us this, in case you are planning on somehow bringing a pool camping.

Once we got to the sites, it was great. Lots of flat areas for pitching tents well away from the fire pit. Trees and bushes between sites for privacy. 68 had the area water spigots (one on each side of a fat post), so we did get to say hello to visitors getting water now and then. Parking is a few steps away from the sites.

67 and 68 are a bit of a slightly uphill trek to the bathrooms, where there are clean toilets and clean showers. It was $1.25 in quarters for 10 minutes of shower time. Only complaint from our group was you could not control the heat of the shower. I heard some people complaining about moths in the bathrooms at night, but to me, this is totally normal for a campground bathroom. There was no mirror at the sink though. (There was a power outlet by the bathroom sink, should you need to use a hair dryer after you shower. There was also a park bench right outside the showers.

Watch for snakes. We didn't see any, but fire officials came one night to remove an injured rattlesnake, so they are around. (Walk with heavy feet and most of the time, they'll just move out of your way if you do spot one and watch if you step into the bushes to let someone by on the hiking trails. Also watch for poison oak on trails.)

Thursday night was nice and quiet. Friday night, not so much, but MOST people piped down by around 11pm or 11:30pm.

A couple of trail loops start at the campground. The one toward the end of the campground has a few options, including a shorter and flatter nature trail. We took the steeper, longer loop from that same spot up to Glens Lookout, where on a clear day, you can see from the Salton Sea over to Escondido along the coast. The trail was a bit rocky, but fine if you are used to hiking. Another trail series started from closer to the checkin kiosk. We did find a mountain lion print on our hike, which was kind of cool.

There are horseshoe pits in the campground, if you want to bring horseshoes. Julian is an easy 10 minutes or less away, if you have a hankering for shops or pie. All of us, with different cell phone carriers, had decent reception at the campground.

I'd read a review that said to steer clear from camping near the trash bins. I'd second this because people do tend to slam the lids on those, which could be jarring if you are camped right by them.

Overall, this is a great campground, minus a star for some of the staff. (Other staff members were lovely and gave a completely different experience.)

Lovely place. Feels much further away than it actually was, which is great when you’re traveling with young kids! Awesome playground only a short walk from our trailer camp spot (#16 which had a huge tree that made parking a little tricky) that had a great little secluded table/fire ring spot! Good hikes as well!

William Heise has several beautiful trails, each very different from the other, offering great views and tons of wildlife and plant life.

I was in spot 36, which was right by the dumpster [convenient but loud ... no need to slam the lid]. The trees were a bit sparse so the road was visible and folks out for a wander and I could see each other. The camping spot around the bend was actually above mine with no shielded view and while their generator was quiet their conversations and presence were heard and felt. 

I would camp there again but would reserve earlier for a better selection of camping spots.

Fantastic park. Well kept, beautiful surroundings with hiking trails, big and private spots and clean bathrooms. Camping cabins available. The second interior RV loop is way nicer and more private spots than the first. We were site 37 and it was great. Both electric and water hookups in all RV spots and campground dump station on site. Julian and Winona are fun day trips. Calico Cider in Wynona is an A+.

In February we had the place to ourselves. Temperature dropped to 43'. Best hook up site #24. Best tent site #65. A few pretty good trails to get the heart pumping. We took the Cedar Trail on the left side of the fork. The water at the spigots spewed dark brown water. Bring your own water source. Definitely cougar country so kept pups close to us. Clean bathrooms and wild stormy skies.

Julian is a great destination, and having a nice campground so close is really nice. We had a few spots between our group, and they were all good for our tents. Some were shadier than others (one spot was pretty exposed), and the facilities were nice.

We also happened to be camping when an astronomy group was there so it was cool to look through their telescopes and enjoy the starry skies!

Great place to go for your first time camping. Not so private if it’s not though. The sites for tents were relatively close to each other. Bathrooms were easily available and staff was very nice.

great for hiking, camping

Came here while visiting family from out of state. Beats anything I've seen in Texas!

Great for hiking

 My family and I camped at William Heise Park for two nights in mid-June 2020. The campground is pretty and has a nice secluded, mountain feel about it (even though it’s close to Julian). We were surprised by how dispersed the campsite loops were and how deep the campground went into forest. There is also surprisingly good cell phone coverage throughout the grounds. We stayed at site 90, which was at the very back of the tent-only section at the end. Due to all of the oak trees, most sites have good shade. We didn’t see wild turkeys or mule deer during our stay, but there were plenty of birds and a few squirrels. There were also a LOT of flies- especially crane flies. The bathrooms and showers were usually full of them, but they also made a significant presence at the campsite. Even at about 50% capacity the tent-only section felt felt busy with lots of families and small children. The loops closer to the entrance seemed quieter. However, it was nice to be near the trailhead for several trails and there’s also a water bottle refilling station right there. The terrain is beautiful all around. We definitely want to stay again.

I have stayed here a few different times, each time I’ve stayed in different campsites. The campsites in the first loop nearest the ranger station definitely have the nicest, cleanest bathrooms. The bathrooms over in the tent loop towards the back sites 60-100ish have a much smaller bathroom however during the summer they were filled with all sorts of bugs, both flying and crawling. Even saw a huge rat crawl up the wall into the shower. But you’re out in the woods so you can’t be too mad at that. The trails are very accessible and distributed all throughout the campground. There is a creek but I’ve never seen it with water, maybe in the early spring after the rains it flows? Lots of wildlife also! I’ve seen mule deer, turkeys and so many different birds like western blue birds, woodpeckers and the occasional hawk! This place is off to the side and secluded so it really does feel like you’re out in the woods and not at a developed campground five miles away from the town of Julian. If you’ve never been to Julian you have to try some of their apple pie! It’s what they are known for! Overall, this campsite is family friendly, clean and easy to get to!

My boyfriend and I took a random camping trip and didn't pick a place until we decided to stop. This was a nearby campground and we loved it. The bathrooms were maintained well and they had showers and water. There was beautiful trails around the campground. I would stay again.

William Heise is one of the hidden camping Gems in San Diego. It's located about 5 miles from the rustic town of Julian. There's over 100 camping spots ranging from RV to tent. There are a number of trails that leave from the campground. Try the Desert View trail that gives you a great view of the surrounding area; its only 2.25miles.  There's also a Wolf Sanctuary outside of Julian that's worth a visit. Enjoy!

Cell Service: Roaming

The campground is definitely clean and well maintained, but honestly there s not much to do. There s a few hiking trails, but the markings could be better. We went with a group. Some of the campsites that are supposedly for up to 2 tents are a bit tight, such was ours, but luckily our site mates canceled so we had just the one tent, which pretty much took up all the space. It is dog friendly, which is great. Cell service is decent, but if you are counting on use of the supposed WiFi, you’ll be out of luck;). The rangers do regular rounds to remind you of curfew and make sure the fire is completely out by 11. All in all it was a nice site, but probably won’t be visiting it again.

Sweet campground with pines trees and a mountain feel. Table and fire pit at each site. 

Hiking available walking distance from camp, trails leading out of camp. Family friendly environment. Can get busy in the summer, so be sure to leave it just as beautiful or better than before you arrived.

The rangers and camp host were awesome, very friendly and informative. Leashed dogs are allowed on all the trails which is always a plus. We did the desert view to Glens peak, nature trail, and the oak trail. Glens peak has an amazing view from the Salton Sea to the Pacific Ocean on a clear day.They have water bottle fill ups at the trail head too! All were beautiful. June/July are definitely bug season so be ready with your essential oils haha. Bathrooms and showers were clean and actually pretty nice for camp. Don’t bring your own firewood- they have it for sale at $5 a bundle and even have free kindling already split for you. Overall this place is one of my favorites. A quiet and beautiful place to be in nature.

This campground is a great place to take the family. Many of the spots have trees and there is a huge field in the middle of all the camping loops. One downside is that a few of the sites are on a slope and it can be difficult to set up a tent on these sites.

Very clean and enjoyable campground. We have stayed here several times. Nice moderate hiking trails and a fun playground for the kids. Firewood sold on site during time that campfires are allowed. Site 56 can accommodate a small RV but there are no hookups at this site. Also has two very nice tent pads.