Stillwater Cove Regional Park

I spent one Saturday night in November at this small campground. It had all of the basics amenities except for clean water. There is a boil notice for the whole campground to not consume unboiled water due to testing positive for E. Coli. My campsite was adequate and has plenty of parking, although you have to pay extra if you bring more than 1 vehicle. There were other campsites with very small parking areas and small site as well. The camp host was friendly and ranger was on site as well. A short walk to the woods and the beach are convenient. No cell service for me in this area.

Mellow campground. Well maintained.

The trailhead to the beach or a forest hike is right next to the overflow parking lot.

The beach is rocky and not suitable for swimming but there were lots of people fishing.

The hikes are simply gorgeous and no one was on the trail despite a full campground.

A good mix of small travel trailers and tent camping.

Firewood is available. The water is not suitable for drinking due to e.Coli.

There are no first come first serve sites, or ability to take unreserved sites and everything must be reserved using the site. This was frustrating because empty sites went unused and the camp host was unwilling to let anyone use them lest someone made a last second online reservation.

We camped at site 15. It was nice and fit a 18ft travel trailer perfectly. It was not a back in site so our trailer was a great privacy wall against the road and there were nice trees on the other side. A small berm blocked the other site on either side.

We found a HUGE tick in my daughters hair so check yourselves.

The dump station started to back up about halfway through dumping our gray water, so beware. I notified the ranger and he was pretty nonchalant about it.

Others reviews say they didn’t have cell but we have AT&T’s and had good coverage

We decided on this park based on the reviews and pictures. It was out first attempt at boondocking, and we noticed water and dump was available on the premises, so we figured we were set. Unfortunately, when we arrived all of the water faucets were placarded with E. Coli warnings! I only brought up about 1/3 of a tank of water along with 6 gallons of drinking water. Given this, we immediately went into conservation mode! We ended up picking up 4gal of drinking water and pouring it into the fresh water tank for dishes and flushes.

We chose Site #7, which was one of the few "shared" pads. Even so, it was a left site so our door faced out towards trees. You can definitely hear the waves crashing from the site, which was awesome. Just loud enough to hear, but not overwhelming. Highway 1 is about 200m from the campground, so you will hear the occasional car drive by. Walking around I'd say Site #10 is the best...very isolated and a great view of trees all around.

I can confirm there is no cell service nor wifi at the campground. We had to drive about a mile north to pick up a signal. There are a couple restaurants close that do have wifi.

I recommend taking the canyon loop trail, and also take the short trail down to the actual Stillwater cove. The trailhead is in the day use area. I'd also recommend visiting Fort Ross and Shell Beach, which has great tidepooling at low tide (the camp host posts the tides at the campsite).

We saw the camp host was on site, but we didn't actually see them at all. We just placed our receipt on the dash in case they came by when we were out.