We spent three nights over the long weekend camping at Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park in Humboldt County with our two kids, ages nine and five, plus neighbor friends and our dog River. It was our first time at this park. It will not be our last. If you are planning a redwoods camping trip with kids and you want old growth trees without the crowds, this is the post I wish I had found before we booked.

Why Grizzly Creek Instead of the Big Name Redwood Parks

Most families driving north on Highway 101 end up at the parks everyone has heard of: Humboldt Redwoods, Prairie Creek, Jedediah Smith. Those parks are spectacular. They are also busy, especially on a holiday weekend.

Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park sits about 17 miles east of 101 on Highway 36, a curvy two lane road most travelers never turn onto. The whole park has only 28 campsites. The Van Duzen River runs right past the campground. And tucked inside the park is a grove of old growth redwoods called Cheatham Grove, which is where the speeder bike chase in Return of the Jedi was filmed.

That last detail is what sold our kids. Every walk through the grove became a scene from the movie. If you are traveling with children roughly ages five to ten, I cannot oversell what a gift Cheatham Grove is. Real old growth redwoods and a Star Wars filming location, both free.

Getting There and Booking a Campsite

Grizzly Creek is at 16949 Highway 36 in Carlotta, about 30 minutes east of Fortuna. From Redding it was roughly three and a half hours west for us. From the Bay Area, plan on five or more.

Reservations open six months out on ReserveCalifornia, and holiday weekends fill the moment the window opens. Sites run about 35 dollars a night. A few things I would tell a friend before they book:

• If you are camping with another family, request adjacent sites when you reserve, not sites across the loop from each other. Having our camps side by side made the whole weekend easier.
• Pay attention to which sites sit closest to Highway 36. More on that below, because it matters with young kids.
• The park enforces a two vehicle maximum and an eight person maximum per site, and overflow parking is very limited. If your group has three cars, someone needs a second site.

The Campground Itself

The campground is small, shaded, and quiet in a way the big parks rarely are. Sites are tucked into the trees along the Van Duzen River. We loved waking up to look over the gently moving water from our tent. You get the things that make camping with kids genuinely easier: flush toilets, coin operated showers, and bear lockers at every site. Use the lockers. This is bear country, and the rangers are not being dramatic about it.

Our mornings were cool and gray under the marine layer, the coffee brewed slow, and the kids stayed in hoodies. The canopy stays damp until about ten in the morning, which is honestly one of the best parts. Walking through wet old growth redwoods before the day warms up is the whole reason to come. Afternoons climbed into the seventies (a perfect reprieve from the hot valley temperatures). Be sure to pack layers, not outfits. One fleece per person covers the evenings.

The Swimming: Van Duzen County Park

Here is the piece of local knowledge that made our trip. About ten minutes back down Highway 36 is Van Duzen County Park, and inside it is a day use area called Swimmers Delight. Yes, really. The Van Duzen River carves out actual swimming holes there, calm and shallow enough at the edges for younger kids while the bigger kids paddle out.

Day use is five dollars, cash. Get there by mid morning on weekends. This became the anchor of the weekend for us. The kids were in and out of the water for hours, and watching a nine year old realize she can swim in a real river is one of those memories that justifies every minute of packing the car.

One note for dog families: dogs are not allowed on most trails or in the river inside the state park, but they are welcome in the river at the county park. River, our dog, discovered she is a swimmer this weekend and has not been the same since.

Cheatham Grove at Golden Hour

The Star Wars grove is a short, flat loop, maybe twenty minutes of actual walking, which makes it perfect for little legs. Go when the sun is low. Late afternoon light cutting through 300 foot trees is one of the great free experiences in California, and the flat trail means nobody melts down before you get to the good part.

Our kids narrated the entire speeder chase both times we walked it. Both times it was the best twenty minutes of the day.

What to Know Before You Go

There is no cell service. None. Zero bars inside the campground for Verizon and AT&T, and only patchy signal along the highway. On paper this sounds romantic. In practice, we had a house sitter at home and another family to coordinate with, and checking in meant driving about eight miles west until a signal appeared. If you have a sitter, a dog at home, or work that cannot fully go dark, brief everyone before you leave and set the expectation that replies will be slow. And bring a paper map. The good swimming hole does not have a pin when everyone is hangry and Google Maps is gone.

The highway is close. This is the one thing I want every parent to read twice. The campground sits right along Highway 36, and while most sites are set back into the trees, the campground road feeds toward the highway with very little buffer. On our first full day, one of the kids in our group took a wrong turn on his bike and rolled toward the highway before an adult got there. Nothing happened, and I am aware that nothing happened mostly because of luck. If your kids ride bikes or scooters at camp, walk the loop with them on day one and physically show them where the wheels stop. Draw a line in the dirt if you have to. The trees make it easy to forget the road is there. It is there.

Keep camp food simple. Foil packets are the great equalizer of camp cooking. We prepped everything at home in gallon bags and pulled from our usual camp rotation: foil packet lemon herb chicken, smash burgers on the griddle, a bagna cauda spaghetti I have been perfecting for years, and salmon packets on the last night. Nothing complicated. All of it tasted better under the trees, which is the oldest camping truth there is.

Pack for two climates. Mornings in the fifties under the marine layer, afternoons in the seventies. Sandals and swimsuits for the river, fleece and warm socks for the fire.

Would We Go Back?

Immediately.

What stays with me is how small the weekend felt, and I mean that as the highest compliment. Three nights that felt like a week. Kids who stopped asking about screens by the first evening. Friends around a fire. A dog asleep by the tent like she had done it her whole life.

Grizzly Creek asks a little more of you than the famous parks. The drive is longer, the service is gone, and the highway deserves your respect. But if you want your kids to stand inside real old growth redwoods without competing for the experience, this is one of the great sleeper camping trips in California. Book the six month window, pack the foil packets, and go.

Planning a Humboldt County trip with kids? You might also like our guide to camping at Jedediah Smith Redwoods, and if you have questions about Grizzly Creek, send me a note. I read everything.