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Austin Creek State Recreation Area
Rating Details »
17000 Armstrong Woods Road
Guerneville, CA 95446
Guerneville, CA 95446
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
5 reviews for Austin Creek State Recreation Area
Hey everyone...
Just an update. Camping at Bullfrog Pond Campground and in any of the three backcountry campsites is now closed until June 2010 due to budget issues. In addition, all of the bathroom facilites in the campground are closed until June. (FYI, the BF Pond bathrooms are the only bathrooms if you hike in from the bottom of Armstrong) You are still able to hike in and day use, but you won't be able to stay overnight until summer next year.
Take your disappointment and vote for the 2010 access pass. Read about it through Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods website! All California State Parks STILL need your help!! They need a reliable funding source NOT tied into the general fund and you can be a part of making that happen.
If you want State Parks to be safe, clean, open and accessible throughout the year...do your research and your part in 2010.
People thought this was:
- Useful (1)
1 Previous Review: Show all »
-
11/2/2008
A little info about Austin Creeks camping areas...
After 3.5" of rain, there are no longer fire… Read more »
Camp sites are first-come, first-serve. You might have been able to make reservations in the past, but looks like state budget cuts have eaten into the reservation system in California, and only 23 parks take reservations for camping.
Sites are now $25.00 per site, plus $8.00 per additional car.
Now, I'm 33 and haven't been camping since 1986, so I'm no expert, but me and my group had a grand time at Austin Creek this weekend.
The number one plus for me was that the toilet was CLEAN. There was also ample toilet paper for the amount of people camping.
Ranger came by our group of 10 (we shared two sites) at 10:00 p.m. and politely asked us to keep quiet and not to gather firewood.
Beautiful and quiet surroundings, and a huge clearing for star-gazing and sunset-admiring.
Not really within weekend striking distance, but nevertheless...
A memorable camping area. I felt like I'd slipped back in time to 1960. Some day, at the end of my road, I might join the brown hippies I saw here and ride around Cali in a crummy RV with a scruffy dog. Cool my beer in the nearby river and swim during the day, sleep for free at night (no pesky rangers here! it's all an honor system) and sell firewood to the non-hippies who stop here.
Unfortunately, I did not take any of the trails at this park so can't comment on that. The camping site was lovely, on the bank of cool, deep green river.
Perhaps I camped at a different spot than the 1st reviewer... we stayed at the Bullfrog Pond Campground. It is not free, but at only $15 per night, it is not bad. Especially considering many of the private campgrounds want twice this much. It is a trek to get to however, despite that it is only 3 miles from River Road, it is a narrow one lane road that winds tightly up a 12% grade and takes about 15 minutes. I drive a Saturn sedan and she handled it pretty damn well. Although, this drive is not one you want to do a couple of times a day so we found ourselves planning what we wanted to do out of camp instead of coming back often.
The campsites get crowded for the weekend by Friday morning and I dont think there were any left by Friday afternoon. We came up Thursday night and had our pick of a few sites. "Bullfrog Pond" was more of a muddy swamp, but the bugs were surprisingly not too bad. Bathrooms are the true highlight of this camp, clean as a whistle. Bullfrog Pond campground gets only 3 stars since because it is so high up in a really dry area, they do not allow campfires!! So save your sm'ores for another weekend. The drive down the windy road anytime you want to leave your campsite is also another reason I gave it only 3 stars, since the Russian River is the seeming draw to this area.
However, the Redwoods are AMAZING!!
This campsite also allows dogs, which is a plus!
4 of us camped here at one of 24 sites by bullfrog pond for one night during barrel tasting weekend and loved it! this being the off-season, it wasn't super-crowded and we easily found a spot even though we arrived around 3pm on a saturday. $15 and a crazy drive on a curvy, one-lane road later, we were setting up our tents under redwoods, a little ways above the pond. due to said curvy road though, you won't have to worry about setting up camps next to loud and stinky RVs.
maybe the rules have changed since audrey k's review because we were able to start a fire for grilling up dinner in the fire pits (one at each site). bathrooms are immaculate with flush toilets so even the not-so-rugged amongst us (i.e. me) was pleased. even though the pond looked quite stagnant, there were surprisingly not very many bugs...perhaps the bullfrogs eat them all? and yes, there really are frogs, so you'll get to fall asleep to their chorus.