Best Cabin Camping near Clearlake, CA

Location • state park located north of Sonoma and an hour south of Mendocino • in the Virgina redwood forest • closest town: about 6 miles away

Facilities • Bathrooms & showers easily accesible for all sites - cleaned regularly • some bathrooms updated very recently • Spigots every few sites with good draining • campfire theatre • firewood sold on premises • about 70 campsites • some cabins • day use picnic area • wheelchair accesible trails

Ambiance • quiet hours 10pm - 8am • mostly families • dogs allowed on leash

Sites • Small to medium, close together • More open than private; good for groups who need multiple sites • Most hace at least part shade throughout the day • ring fire pits with grill • wooden food locker at each site • wooden picnic table at each site • enough space for 3-4 cars

Things to do • Variety of easy hikes/walks • drive to Mendocino • wine tasting in town

Beware • Poison oak

Spacious sites with fire pit, wooden food box and picnic table. Potable water available at spigots along the roads every 3-4 campgrounds. The campground has restrooms with sinks (bring your own soap), flush toilets, coin operated showers. Campground ha easy access to hiking, swimming in the river, and wine tasting just up the road. There a local produce stands just up the road where you can expect to buy tasty Gravenstien apples if you visit in August! Mosquitoes are present so bring bug spray! If you forget anything, there is a Mom and Pop store up the road that sells almost everything you need including batteries, tableclothes, butane, ice and firewood for about $6 a bundle. The campground host sells firewood for $8 a bundle. Campsites are for 8 people maximum. Even with 8 people, we didn't feel cramped. Sites come with 2 parking passes. If you have more than two cars in your party, you can pay for additional parking passes. Dog friendly! I was the only person in my group to have cell service here and I have Verizon.

A simple, rustic cabin.  As noted by others, it suffers from a little damage/neglect—many of the windows are boarded up—but it's an old fire lookout so we didn't expect a rental cabin atmosphere.  Views are exceptional, as is the peace and quiet.  Get up early and you'll catch the dawn chorus of an amazing number of birds: warblers, woodpeckers, quail, juncos, grosbeaks, cowbirds, even robins.  The cabin is roughly outfitted with cots, bunkbeds, a table and chairs.  There's a clean outhouse down by where you park and a firepit, which we didn't use because it was windy when we were there.  Keep your food up on the table at night--the mice are nocturnal visitors and will help themselves if you leave food on the counter.  Only caveat is the access to the cabin.  They're not kidding when they warn you to bring a chainsaw.  Two of the three roads in and out were blocked by downed trees (so big our small chainsaw wasn't helpful), and in places the road that was open had pretty deep potholes and gullies formed by last winter's heavy rains.  I was really glad we had 4WD.

We did drive-in at one of the dry camps and it had your typical fire pit (dryer wheel) and picnic table - the view was gorgeous! Right next to the dock with an awesome view of the boats and bay. We’ve been staying on the beaches and woods the last few days so this was a nice scenery change.

All amenities were adequate. Shower water pressure changes with toilet flushes so try to avoid the morning and evening rushes. Atmosphere was calm and chill, people went to sleep early and woke up late. It’s 9 AM as I’m writing this and still very quiet.

Camp host was very nice. Cost was $50/night and there is a $10 registration fee. We checked in on a Wednesday night in October and there was a lot of sites open - only stayed here one night. I thought it was a really nice stop, I would definitely stay again just for the views.