My friend Jade had long wanted to try camping and she managed to snag a spot at Van Damme State Park many months ago. If you don't know, booking camping sites near the Bay Area is a mad scramble and hard to get if you don't book early enough. It was a total of 7 of us on this trip. 2 people had no camping experience and everyone, except me and Jon, was not accustomed to sleeping outside and not showering. However, everyone seemed to be very open to it and no one was a diva.
Friday
The drive up to Mendocino is about 3.5 hrs with no traffic. Jon, a friend, and I left the Bay Area around noon on Friday with Jon's car filled to the brim. We faced very little traffic but we took our time driving. We stopped in Healdsburg for lunch and a little break before the windy roads. If you haven't had a chance to drive to Mendocino, it is a very beautiful drive through long stretches of redwood forests which is actually surrounds the Navarro River. My poor phone could not capture it but there were parts where you wind through with tall trees tower on both sides.
Then after the stretches of redwood forests, you pop out and finally clearly see the Navarro River's blue waters. The road then takes you up the cliff with the view of the river opening up to the ocean and continues to take you along the coast.
We arrived at Van Damme State Park around 5 pm and saw the sign at the entrance that there has been bear activity and to keep food in the bear box. I was a bit surprised as the website did not mention anything and I wasn't aware there were bears in the area. Nonetheless, we took the warning from the ranger and dutifully put all of our scented items in the very non-bearproof 'pantry'. The pantry was just a wooden box raised high up and I have no doubt that if a bear really wanted to get to the food, it can just knock over the box.
After we set up our tents, those of us that arrived headed into the small town of Mendocino for dinner. The light at that time was golden yellow and we opted first to take a stroll to check out the coast. Jon and I had been to Mendocino before so we've been on trail down to the beach but not walking along the cliff. The lighting was so magnificent that I whipped out my new Sony mirrorless camera that Jon got me for my birthday to test out its capabilities. Today was probably also the only evening with good light as tomorrow would be cloudy. It probably was a tad too bright and the camera exaggerated some of the bright parts but it's not too bad.
I spotted a lone surfer in the ocean though it didn't seem very obvious if there were large enough waves for them.
There were also a bunch of these lilies that looks really fake because they were just tall sticks growing straight out of the ground with very perfect looking flowers usually in large bunches. Honestly it looked like someone stuck a bunch of fake flower stocks into the ground.
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| Amaryllis Belladonna |
Saturday
After getting ready for the day, at around 9:30 am we suddenly heard pitter pattering making it's way through the forest towards us, signaling for us to head out from camp. We made the wise decision to eat in town for breakfast instead of making breakfast as it started raining much earlier than we expected.
Cave Kayak
The light rain continued through breakfast but did seem to break as we got to Van Damme Beach for our kayak cave tour with Kayak Mendocino. We clearly missed the memo that we needed to be there earlier than the start time as the leads were clearly annoyed at our tardiness and hustled us to start getting other participants into the kayaks.
It was a large group lead by 2 guides, one whom unbelievably used a long wood plank to paddle the whole time. I wish I had gotten a photo! The guides took us through many small caves that have an entrance and exit to allow us to funnel through one by one. There was one point where the water was very blue and so clear instead of the typical murky waters you see on other parts of the coast. Unfortunately because the weather was dreary, I don't think we got to see the true clarity of the waters. As we winded through various caves, we were lead through choppy waters and made a long and tough crossing over the bay. This was definitely not something I thought I had signed up for but it wasn't too bad and everyone ended up making it in one piece in the end. However, someone said that the guide using a wood plank also towed another person who wasn't able to make the long crossing. Amazing!
Everyone felt the highlight of the trip was the kayak trip though I feel the group was too big and the trip felt very rushed with the guides quickly herding us along. Since we were constantly moving even while we waited, the 90 minutes of the trip went by fast. The other downside is that the guides were also answering their phones from prospective customers the whole time which detracted a bit from my experience as it seemed like would pay more attention to their phones instead of interacting with the participants.
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| Photo credit: Mounica |
Shower and into town
All of us were soaking wet from our waist down after the kayak and thank goodness there were hot showers at the campground. The showers were coin operated and you get 5 minutes for $1. The facility was relatively clean, obviously not sparkling clean but there was not crud on the ground and things that would make you feel dirty after the shower. We all thought 5 minutes would come and go in a blink but it was long enough that Jon and I huddled under the hot water for what seemed like more than 5 minutes before we said ok let's not waste anymore water. I have very rarely used showers at campsites because I'm don't really care about being clean on camping trips. However, this shower was great and made me feel so refreshed afterwards and less dirty at the end of the trip.
For lunch, we headed into town again for back to the same restaurant we had for Friday dinner because we didn't know where else to go eat. This time though, all of us ordered ice cream as we were eying it as we came in. We walked around town after lunch, popping into stores and checked out a bookstore with a resident cat named Catsby who remained curled up sleeping on a seat next to the window while a father and son was reading beside him.
Dinner and campfire
Originally the plan was to use the stove to cook chili but no one was in the mood to do anything complicated so the group settled on roasting corn and sausages over the fire. Back at camp, we went to work building our fire while another group was buttering the hot dog buns and wrapping the corn. The fire proved harder than usual with the rains dampening the sticks and pine needles for kindle and every time we tried to light the kindle, it quickly fizzled out without out lighting anything else. We started throwing paper towels and even ripping from a stack of small notepad paper but eventually after much paper and fire breathing, the logs lit and dinner can be cooked.
The corn was roasted first above the open flame and tended to by my corn lover friend. The corn turned out quite good though the quality of the corn was not great so it wasn't as juicy.
Next up were the buns and sausages. We placed the buns on a piece of foil but they charred quite quickly for the unbuttered side. Unfortunately, only one side was buttered so some buns were soaked with butter on one side but dry on the other. For the vegetarian hot dogs, some people attempted to stick them on roasting sticks and roast directly over the fire but they started to fall apart as they heated up so like the buns, they were grilled on a piece of tin foil.
The meat sausages however did better on roasting sticks and one person did successfully roast a sausage with a little bit of time on the aluminum foil to make sure it was cooked all the way through.
Jon opted to wrap the sausage directly in the aluminum foil to save some hassle but it ended up boiling the sausage so he still had to spend some time making the outside more grilled. At least it was probably cooked through!
As night fell, the rain sprinkled heavier but not enough to make us wet. Some people in the group started sharing ghost stories. Sometimes ghost stories from books fall flat, are not scary but the ones told by the group were scary! I personally am not a fan of horror in general and would have rather been sitting in the tent listening to the rain but it was interesting to see how they were able to tell the story completely from memory and how a simple story can still be creepy.
We turned in as the campground became quiet and the rain kept reminding us that it was time to sleep. Jon and I snuggled into our tent listening to the rain lightly pelting the the tent.
Sunday
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| Slug on the ground tarp |
As I got out of the tent, I heard some exclamations from someone that there were two giant slugs on their tent. Walking over I saw literally one slug right on the walls of the tent and unclear what it was trying to do since there's nothing to eat there. That's the first time I've ever seen slugs on a tent and these two slugs were huge!
One person wanted to start a fire again to use up the rest of the wood. This would everyone's first time lighting a fire but after Jon and my struggles last night, they worked hard to apply the learnings and after a couple minutes, we saw some satisfied campers standing by an open fire.
While the fire was getting started, I worked on pancakes for breakfast. One person had bought these nice pancake mixes that you just need to add water and shake up directly in the bottle. This was super convenient and seemed less messy than using a mixing bowl. |
| Pancake time |
Recently, I learned from a friend how simple it was to make crepe mix and thought watered down pancake batter should be pretty similar. With the leftover pancake batter that is stuck on the sides, I added water to wash the bottle and attempted to make crepes.
Fern Canyon Trail
We finished packing up late morning and headed to the Fern Canyon trailhead in the park. Not to be confused with the Fern Canyon trail further up north near Redwood NP. As we waiting to start the hike, we saw a big group that had a large dog walk up enthusiastically up to the trailhead only to see the 'No dogs allowed' sign. The owner made the right choice in staying at camp but sadly as they were walking away, the poor dog kept turning back to the group wondering why everyone was staying but he had to leave.
The trail right from the start was an amazing sight with the creek running beside you and the canyon walls sloping away from you filled with ferns and towering trees. My lack of composition in photos is evident as I could not capture the grandness appropriately. The hike was flat for the distance we went (maybe 1.5 miles in) but I think it does have a climb towards the second half. I remember when Jon and I visited last, we had come from the other side of the trail where the Pygmy forest was and hiked a portion of the Fern Canyon trail that required us to go down some steep descents.
Home
We finished the trip with pretty expensive and borderline bad lunch at a cafe and everyone split their ways for home. This was my first camping trip in almost a year and despite the differences in how they camped, it was still an enjoyable experience and am glad that nothing bad had happened to turn the new campers away from camping in the future. I look forward to the next camping trip with group and hopefully have better weather and a chance to cook more at camp.
