Elk Prairie Campground

This is a perfect central location to explore the redwoods. The sites are sized well with plenty of space between you and your neighbors for most sites. It's a bit tight and the small roads look intimidating at first, but it was no problem in a 25' trailer. In typical Cali fashion it is expensive, especially for no hookups and no dump. But they have hot showers that cost a buck. This is very much in the forest, so you only get sunlight for a couple hours a day if you're lucky, so between that, the breeze, and humidty it was was very cold most of the time, weird bone chilling cold even though it's 55 degrees. It's very quiet here even though it's busy, a very peaceful bunch staying here. There is zero cell on Verizon or ATT, in fact you have to drive 15 minutes or so to get any service.

We spent two nights, dry camped in an open site along elk prairie. and yes, there was a herd of elk right there, night and day. It was a little intimidating to have them about 12 feet from the trailer, grazing away. Definitely keep the dogs leashed at all times.
weather was clear and high of 60 in early february. what I really liked were the numerous easy hikes thru the redwoods. the visitor center is top notch, with a great book store. we walked the Cal Barrel road with our three little dogs and the dog stroller. The road was closed to vehicles for the winter I guess. It was easily accessible on foot or with a stroller you could take off road. Power scooters should do well there. Dogs are not allowed on trails. The splendor of the Redwoods is not to be missed.
Potable water, trash, coin showers and flush toilets. This park is a combo of California State Park and federal National Park, they honored the national parks access pass, so our nightly rate was 50% off.

Elk Prairie Campground is a stunning location to camp, hike, bike and admire the LARGE elk grazing in the fields and more. The visitor center has a super helpful staff and very cute gifts and memorabilia. A must, must stop! We loved site #24, but it’s hard to find a bad one The smaller the RV the better in this gem of a campground surrounded by huge redwoods and more

Having been to Sequoia and Kings Canyon several times, I wanted to see the coastal redwoods. I booked early, as the campground sold out fairly quickly for the summer dates. My campsite cost $35/night, plus a one time booking fee of $7.99. It was by far my most expensive night of my two week camping trip.

Elk Prairie Campground is conveniently located just off the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway, which is a nice drive through the redwood forest. To begin, there was no check in before 2 pm, even if your site was vacant. Upon arriving at my site, which was fairly spacious for a tent, I noticed that the picnic table looked like a biological lab experiment gone wrong. It was covered in green algae, burnt sections and parts were rotted. The bathrooms were in similar poor shape. On the positive side, there was running water, flush toilets and a shower. A spigot with potable water was located outside the building.

The park itself is great, with many trails winding through stands of enormous redwood trees. If you're up to it, the hike from the campground to Fern Valley and the adjacent beach is magical. Large elk roamed through the campground and nearby meadow. A 20 minute drive south will bring you to misty California beaches.

If I were to visit this area again, I would aim to stay in the national forest rather than the state park. In my opinion, Elk Prairie was overpriced and underwhelming.

The park is nice with lots of trees and brush to provide privacy and shade (aka we got nothing on our solar panels). There is a path that goes to the visitors center and to a lot of hiking trails so no need to move and park a car.

The sites are all different shapes and sizes and angles and we probably should have looked at the pictures better. But we booked last minute and were happy to get one within the length of our vehicle. They way our spot was angled we had to pull in forward, which was fine for us but would not work for someone with a trailer.

We had zero service with both verizon and at&t even with using the booster. There is wifi outside the visitor center and we found it actually worked best near the amphitheater/campfire area.

Showers are coin operated 25 cents per minute, they werent cold but I couldn't get them hot enough to not feel like I was freezing the whole time I was showering.

Site #62 only one in south loop we could fit into with our 24 foot trailer. Fortunately, we were the only ones in the loop. Driveway is very narrow. $35 for dry camping is very high. Unfortunately, weather closed the Drury Pkwy and we couldn't explore much of the park. When CA state parks says 24 foot limit on trailers you better believe it. Doubt many over 18 could fit here.

We paid $17.50 per night with our National Park Pass. This is a combined State and National Park. There is also a $8 booking fee.

Campendium's amenities for the campground are wrong. There is NO DUMP STATION.

The sites are small. We had to go the wrong way up a one way lane to back in our 23' travel trailer which barely fit into our site.

It was very wet here in May 2019.

The area is beautiful with the trees and elk around but this campsite was underwhelming. Agree with a previous post that I would boondock on Nation Forest land or camp somewhere else.

Stayed here while exploring the redwoods in the winter so we stayed in one of the sites out of the trees by the meadow. There is a creek running thru the campground and some sites are right up against creek. There are plenty of trails to explore and it’s a beautiful area.

You can walk out of your camper and experience some of the largest living things on earth. It’s an awesome location. The amenities aren’t great though. No water or dump when we came for a camper, so we had to purchase in crescent city on our way down to the campground. I recommend going online and getting a permit for tall tress grove as well. One of the best hikes in the entire NP system. Bathrooms and showers were subpar from what we have experienced at other NP campgrounds.

So this is a little campground off the 101 that has some fantastic trails through the redwoods. Seriously there are so many interconnecting trails including some that go out to the beach. However - beach access is not easy. It's either a 4ish mile hike or drive south and then out a dirt road for a while. The campground is well named, there are huge meadows that have lots of elk and deer. I saw one on a trail run one morning, they are everywhere.

The campground itself has spots that are very different. Some are full sun and out near the meadow, some are in smallish scrubby kind of trees and some are in larger pines/young redwoods as you might expect. So just pick your site carefully especially if you need solar. There's a creek running along the campground so you can get a site that's right on that as well. Bear boxes are raised up which is nice but on the older side. Campground itself isn't very picturesque but the trails in that area are really amazing.

Cell coverage is good in the parking lot across the street form the visitor center and out on the beach close to Orick. Otherwise not great.