China Camp

Started: 2025-08-31 17:32:44

Submitted: 2025-08-31 23:54:17

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Camping at China Camp State Park

For the Fourth of July, we went camping at China Camp State Park in Marin County, nestled on the bay east of San Rafael.

To get camping reservations in California for popular holidays like the Fourth of July, one must reserve a site as soon as the reservations go live. For state parks, this is six months in advance; and it turns out that, six months ago, we were visiting Hawaii. State park reservations go live at 08:00 Pacific time; which was 06:00 local time in Hawaii. I did not get up quite that early so my choices for Bay Area-adjacent camp sites was somewhat more limited. It looked like China Camp was available because all of the sites were walk-in tent sites, so they weren't already snatched up by the RV crowd.

(The other strategy for getting holiday weekend camping reservations is to reserve one or more days in advance. This summer this didn't work for us, because Kiesa carefully hoarded her vacation time for other trips; and it turned out that I had work-involved reasons to stick around until the actual holiday.)

One new feature of our car-involved camping this summer was a new propane tank. Years ago we got a dual-burner propane stove for car-camping, which we used with one-pound single-use propane canisters. But the California state legislature decided to ban single-use canisters by 2028, so I decided this was my cue to upgrade. The day before we left I bought a 20-pound refillable canister at my local hardware store and a hose to connect the canister to the stove's regulator at REI. My first chance to hook up the tank and hose to the stove was the morning we left; and it worked great.

Camp stove with large propane canister

To get to China Camp, we drove up 880 through the East Bay, crossed the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, and drove past the Marin County Civic Center (used as a filming location for Gattaca), past residential subdivisions. The road narrowed and turned to hug the shoreline of San Pablo Bay, between the tidal mud flats and the tree-covered hillside. I turned off the road into the campground and parked, then set out to find our campsite.

Our campsite was set in a shallow valley maybe a hundred meters' walk from the parking lot, down a dusty gravel road and across a foot bridge over a dry creek bed. The creek bed, and a split-rail fence, separated us from the road and the other campsites in our part of the campground, but we could still see multiple other sites. Other campsites were spread out on the hillside behind us, out of view through the trees.

Our next task was to set up our campsite. We had packed as if we were going car camping, expecting to carry everything only a short distance from our car; but getting anything from the car was a several-minute round-trip so we had to plan carefully. Other groups came prepared with wagons to help transport their gear from their cars. The campground had a number of rolling bins that one would normally use as trash bins; we claimed one and used it to carry our loose bedding and other equipment that we didn't have a good way to carry.

Shoreline Trail at China Camp State Park

After setting up the camp I wanted to take a short hike accessible from the campground, around a geographical feature named Turtle Back Hill rising above the salt marshes a the edge of San Pablo Bay. We took the Shoreline Trail straight from our campsite (the dusty gravel road in front of our site turned into the trail leading straight to the shoreline), and as we turned a corner in the trail we found a hawk sitting on the split-rail fence right in front of us, clearly visible from the trail, almost close enough to touch. We stopped and watched the hawk, who seemed unconcerned by our presence, until it took off and flew into the marsh below the trail.

Hawk perched on a split-rail fence

It was the middle of summer, which is the dry season in coastal California, so the grass lining the trail had turned a golden brown below the large oak trees dotting the hillside. We circled the hill in a clockwise direction, stopping to read the interpretive signs as we went, pointing out the various features of the plant and animal life inhabiting the grassy hillside and the salt marshes at the edge of the bay.

Trail leading around Turtle Back Hill

Below the trail, salt marshes stretched out to the water at the edge of the bay, and beyond that I could just make out the golden hills of the East Bay across several miles of open water, reduced to only a thin strip of blue-gray below the horizon under a bright cloudless sky.

Salt marsh at the edge of San Pablo Bay