Camping at Elk Prairie Campground in the California Redwoods

Looking for more to explore during your stay at Elk Prairie Campground?
Hike along the lovely Prairie Creek or through the enchanting Fern Canyon. For more adventures, head north to Enderts Beach and Stout Grove.

AMENITIES

• Flush toilets
• Drinkable water
• No electricity or water hookups
• Coin-Op showers (when we were there, the accessible shower room didn’t require any coins!)
• Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park Visitor Center, with rangers on duty, park information, and a gift shop, is just down the road from the campground
• Firewood for sale seasonally from camp host (if not available during your visit, you can buy it elsewhere in the area)
• Camp host on duty
• Ranger-led evening programs in summer
• Bear lockers at every campsite – please store all food and scented items in lockers

ABOUT THE SITES

• Elk Prairie Campground offers 75 campsites, including four ADA accessible cabins.
• Campsites cost $35 per night.
• The campground is open year round.
• Sites vary in size, so check the site description when you book. Many are quite spacious, and most are fairly private, but some are too small to accommodate large tents or RVs.
• Most sites are shady and forested. The cabins and sites #69 and up are located along the meadow, with little or no shade.
• Our site, #33, was one of the smaller ones. The pull through driveway gave us plenty of space to park the trailer, but the rest of the site was pretty compact, and we barely had room to pitch our three-person tent. Don’t pick this site if you have a large tent! Also, the ground was extremely hard, making it difficult to drive in the tent pegs. We gave up on a few. I don’t know if this is the case at other sites, or more of a concern at our location. I noticed that some of the other sites appeared to have softer surfaces.
• Site #24 (see photo below) was my favorite. Large and surrounded by actual redwood trees, it’s an understandably popular site. Others nearby, including #22 and #21, are also beautiful and spacious.
• The grounds and restrooms were clean, and the camp host was friendly and helpful. I also appreciated that garbage and recycling bins are placed regularly throughout the campground. It’s important to keep your site “crumb clean” to avoid attracting bears, and this was a big help!

FUN STUFF

• Go on a hike. You can head out on the Redwood Access Trail directly from Elk Prairie Campground. Look for the signed trailhead between sites 26 and 28. From there, it’s easy to connect to the Prairie Creek Trail, the James Irvine Trail, and many others. We did a four-mile loop hike including Prairie Creek, Big Tree, and Cathedral Trees from our campsite.
• Play in the creek. Some campsites, including our site, #33, provide access to the creek. The creek near our site gave the kids a shallow and safe place to splash and play. You can also access the creek alongside the Redwood Access Trail. While still shallow and calm, the water was deeper here, so use appropriate caution with young children.
• View elk. The name Elk Prairie didn’t come from nowhere! During our stay, we saw only a few elk here (see photo below), which was probably just poor timing on our part. It’s not uncommon for large herds to come graze in the meadows. Check with a ranger to find out when they are most likely to be out. Remember: don’t approach any elk and observe them from a distance. Elk are extremely powerful animals, and bull elk and female cows with young can be very territorial.

NEARBY & NOTABLE

• Big Tree. It’s a really big tree! Probably the most visited stop along Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway, Big Tree is pretty impressive. It’s a short, accessible walk from the parking spots along the road, or you can see it while hiking through Prairie Creek.
• Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway is one of the premier scenic drives in Redwood National and State Parks, and unlike some of the others, it’s paved and suitable for all vehicles. You’ll drive a portion of the parkway to reach Elk Prairie Campground, but it’s well worth driving the entire route during your visit.
• Fern Canyon is one of the best-known and most beautiful hikes in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. While the hike is short and easy, you must drive a narrow and winding dirt road to get there, not to mention ford a few small streams that cross the road.
• Gold Bluffs Beach is located next to Fern Canyon. It’s a wild, windy beach with miles of sand and trails. There’s also a campground here, but for tent camping only. Trailers and RVs aren’t allowed on the road to Gold Bluffs Beach.
• Just about anywhere in Redwood National and State Parks! Elk Prairie Campground is the prefect central location from which to explore the parks. Redwood National Park lies to the south, while Del Norte Coast and Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Parks are to the north. We easily day-tripped up to Jedediah Smith to swim at Myrtle Beach and hike Stout Grove during our stay. Enderts Beach was another fun stop. There are so many trails and beaches to explore! For a good guidebook to hiking this region, I recommend Hike the Parks: Redwood National & State Parks by John Soares.

THE VERDICT

Looking for one campground in Redwood National and State Parks that allows you to easily branch out and enjoy all these amazing parks have to offer? Elk Prairie Campground is that place. From here, all the main sights within the parks are about an hour’s drive or less, and there’s plenty to do in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park if you prefer to stay close by.

Like many national park campgrounds, advance reservations are practically mandatory from late spring through early fall, and the best sites book up fast. Winter campers may find sites available even at the last minute. Pay attention to the site description when booking to ensure it will accommodate your camping equipment and style; campsite size can really vary.

Elk Prairie Campground is well-maintained, quiet (people don’t tend to come to the Redwoods to party), cool, and damp. Yes, it’s frequently foggy and rainy in the Redwoods, but that’s what enables these giants of the forest to thrive. I recommend bringing rain pants and jackets. Even if it doesn’t rain during your visit, it’s better to be prepared. If you are tent camping and have a canopy, I recommend that as well. A canopy over the picnic table provides much appreciated shelter when the weather gets soggy.

It’s great to have the Prairie Creek Redwoods Visitor Center nearby and to be able to hike directly from the campground (I love that!). If you have kids, pick up Junior Ranger supplies right there at the visitor center, for both Redwood National Park and California State Parks. Kids can earn both badges by visiting any of the four parks that make up Redwood National and State Parks. All in all, Elk Prairie Campground is a great place to spend a few nights or more and take in the grandeur of the Redwoods. And in summer, you may find the cool, misty climate is just the respite you need from the heat!

It was a relief to reach the Northern California Coast after a long drive west from Lassen Volcanic National Park. Throughout the drive, forest fire smoke clung thickly to our surroundings, creating an eerie, apocalyptic world. Finally, about thirty miles from the coast, the smoke lifted and blue skies appeared as if by magic. We hungrily breathed in the pure air over dinner in Trinidad, then made our way north to Elk Prairie Campground.

It was nearing dark when we arrived, so setting up camp was a top priority. Michael was happy I’d booked a pull-through site — no need to back in the trailer (trust me, backing a trailer can really test the strength of your relationship)! In fact, this was part of the reason I chose this very site. That, and the fact that it had direct access to Prairie Creek, something the kids would appreciate. I knew the site itself was small, but that seemed like a fair trade-off. We didn’t need much space, right? Or did we?

“This site is really small,” Michael noted astutely.

“Yeah, but we have a small tent. It’s fine,” I nonchalantly prepared to pitch the tent. “Man,” I thought. “There really isn’t much room for the tent!“

I corralled J to help me, and we tried to position the tent as far from the fire pit as possible, which wasn’t very far. J set to work hammering in the tent pegs.

“I can’t hammer them in!” he cried, frustrated. “It’s too hard!”

Sure enough, I couldn’t hammer them in, either. The ground was like a rock (maybe it was rock?). I shifted the tent, just a little, but no matter what I did, some of the tent pegs stubbornly refused to budge. We finally managed to pound most of them in — partway in, at least.

Now, for the canopy! Should we set it up? I was uncertain (where would it fit?), but we decided that with the possibility of rain over the next few days, it was better to use it. Of course, we didn’t want it over the fire pit, which meant we couldn’t use it to cover the picnic table, either. There simply wasn’t room. Instead, we kept it to the side, partially over the bear box, and set up our chairs underneath.

It was a cozy site, but it worked. As I’d hoped, the boys enjoyed splashing in the creek below our site, which kept them nicely occupied while I prepared dinner in the evenings. The trailhead for the Revelation Trail, which connects to a myriad of other trails within Prairie Creek, was only a few sites down. The camp host kindly allowed Michael to charge his c-pap machine in the accessible restroom.

Best of all, we got free hot showers after discovering that the accessible shower (which was open to all) ran without needing any coins! It was quite luxurious, as we had the entire shower room to ourselves. No cramped shower stalls at Elk Prairie! (If you’re curious for who else was lucky enough to shower for free earlier in our trip, see my Manzanita Lake Campground review.)

Still, I was a little jealous of some of the other sites where campers had plenty of room to spread out. Site 24 stood out in particular, especially since it was vacant for the first night of our stay. But honestly, I couldn’t complain. Here we were, surrounded by lush greenery, with mighty redwoods towering above. The air always had a faint whiff of the forest after a recent rain shower, one of my favorite smells. I breathed in deep, and let the forest fill my senses.