TR: Mendocino Coast Camping, May 2019

[profdant139]

We camped for a week in May in Van Damme State Park, near Mendocino (north of San Francisco). It wasn't boondocking, but the campground was fairly quiet at that time. (It's not quiet during the summer, though -- busy times!)

Anyway, here's our trip report:

Mendo blog post

[profdant139]

Thanks for the kind words, Phil. Our goal is to carefully push the limits of what an ordinary TT can do. The truck campers and the adventurous Class C units can get to some very remote places -- we can't quite get out that far, but almost.

The trade-off is that although we are not camped right on the mountain-top, we park our TT as a basecamp not far away and then use the 4x4 truck as our daily trailhead vehicle, unencumbered by a big TC in the cargo bed.

[pnichols]

Wow Dan .... that link to your 2011 trip to Mattole Beach and the Redwoods was superb. Way to go!

I'll bet you and yours may hold some kind of a record on exploring more of remote CA in a TT than any other living soul. Congrats.

Years ago I had to backpack to places that look like where you have towed a TT to and been able to camp way more comfortable than I did.

P.S. It sure is too bad about the pot growing. We have waited all our lives to retire and be fancy-free in our RV so we could go to beautiful places on the West Coast ... only to have them now taken over by @#$%&s.

[profdant139]

Yep -- several years ago, we took a long twisty drive to Mattole Beach Campground -- very remote, peaceful, breezy, chilly. A wonderful place to cool off and relax in the summertime.

Here is our post from that trip:

Mattole Beach and the Redwoods

This photo sort of captures the vibe -- empty beaches, steep hills tumbling into the water, old farms hanging onto the cliffs. Imagine the Santa Cruz coast with no one around, and no houses:


Click For Full-Size Image.

The only downer is that during the last several years, there has been a huge increase in illegal marijuana farming -- more traffic than before, and lots of stream pollution due to fertilizer runoff.

[pnichols]

Dan, your great photo-TR reminded me of another coastal area in Northern CA that I've wondered about for some drycamping opportunities ... the so-called "Lost Coast" of CA.

Have you ever got into that area with your TT?

[Calisdad]

Nice report Dan. We actually stayed at Trillium Camp Site a couple three times thanks to you. We are heading that way and beyond in 3 weeks. While it has an abundance of beauty it is quite short of 'open' land. I'm finding this summer is flush with people RV-ing. It's getting quite crowded. If you care to share any other spots you favor in that corner of the world and on the Oregon Coast shoot me a PM. enjoy- C

btw- we recently bought a 21' TT so we have a lot of adjustments to make.

[cewillis]

Nice, Dan. Great area -- been there many times, for many reasons.

[Lwiddis]

Somebody is into macro photography...wonder who?

[Tiger4x4RV]

Gorgeous photos! Thanks for sharing.