About this permit
Castle Rock Trail Camp sits on one of the highest ridges in the Santa Cruz Mountains and is the largest of the four backcountry trail camps still operating in the Santa Cruz Mountains state parks. It has trash receptacles, bathrooms, and 20 campsites with picnic tables and fire rings.
Reservations do not run through ReserveCalifornia. The Santa Cruz Mountains backcountry trail camps use their own system: you submit a Backcountry Trail Camp Request Form online up to 60 days in advance, staff process requests Monday through Friday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., and an approved request is held only until 5 p.m. the following business day pending payment. You pay by phone on (831) 338-8867 and the permit is emailed to you. Sending a request is not a reservation. It becomes one when it is paid.
Castle Rock is also the only one of the four camps with a first-come pool. Five of its sites stay available first-come, registered and paid for in person at the Robert C. Kirkwood Parking Lot on Highway 35. State Parks is explicit that you should not hike to the camp and look for a site before registering there.
Fees are $15 per site per night, including overnight parking for one vehicle, with each additional vehicle at $10 per night, plus an $8 non-refundable reservation fee. Each campsite takes a maximum of six people and you may reserve up to two campsites per reservation.
The route
Castle Rock Trail Camp has trash receptacles, bathrooms, and 20 campsites with picnic tables and fire rings. Fifteen of those sites are reservable through the Santa Cruz Mountains backcountry trail camp system, and five stay available first-come. For the first-come sites you register and pay with staff at the Robert C. Kirkwood Parking Lot on Highway 35. Do not hike to camp and try to find a site before registering. From here the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail runs west, open from Castle Rock State Park to the Big Basin Redwoods day-use area, with Waterman Gap the next trail camp along it.
Why it matters
Castle Rock is the head of the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail and the last trail camp system left intact after the CZU Lightning Complex fires. Every trail camp inside Big Basin Redwoods State Park is closed due to extensive fire damage, which pushed the whole Bay Area backpacking demand onto four remaining camps: Castle Rock, Waterman Gap, Butano and Slate Creek. Castle Rock is the biggest of the four and the only one with a first-come pool.
The feeling
Sandstone that looks eaten from the inside, lush forest, and views west across ridge after ridge toward the ocean. It is close enough to San Jose that you can be at camp within an hour of leaving work, and far enough into the woods that mobile coverage stops being a thing. State Parks says outright that it is unlikely your mobile phone will have coverage in the backcountry.
