I live in the Sierra mountains in California and I have a three year old son (as of 2025). He loves camping, but it’s toddler camping… I have to accommodate an entirely different set of constraints from when I was camping (mostly backpacking) as an adult.

Finding a campsite

I’ve been around the Sierras enough to have a lot of confidence in myself being able to find a good spot to camp… after all the whole place is covered with NFS land. Sometimes it takes a minute though, So, given the opportunity on this weekend (ie not having other people relying on me). I decided to explore more.

This was not my most successful trip. We still had a lot of fun, but here are some notes.

Our course of exploration was CA 49 from the Sierra valley to Nevada city. Overall, we found the terrain too rugged and the river moving too fast for it to be a good place to camp with a toddler.

• The road was too close to the campsites on the river
• The river was moving too fast
• These two factors made for fear of child death in either direction, plus it packed the campsites on top of each other
• Absolutely, positively gorgeous terrain though. Better for kayaking (later in the year) and backpacking.
• Once you get below 3000’, the vegetation gets extremely thick. Only pre-established campsites are going to be viable (which is not to say all campsites are on the map, but you can’t just set up anywhere)

🛶 Union flats

I stopped here because the toddler was yelling that he wanted to camp and I saw a spot. Honestly it was a really nice place, but the sites are all right on top of each other and we decided to move on. We probaby should have camped here. It wasn’t that dangerous and there were big berms to run around on.

🚧 Goodyears bar

I thought we could go up onto a drainage and get some stream vibes without the violence of the Yuba. Goodyears bar wasn’t a good option, there was a Sierra county maintance facility up there and houses past that.

❌ Ramshorn campground

I thought this would be a good option on the non-river side of the road, but it’s closed and overgrown. Heading up the hill yields a trash dump.

🌇 Fiddle creek / Indian valley / Carlton

There are a bunch of campgrounds all in a row along canyon creek. I breezed by these as they were crowded and close to the water. If I were to do this again I’d do a lot more work to see if I could find a site here, they seem quite nice.

I think there could be some good shuttle biking from here as well with a bigger group.

🏕️ Oak valley

My pre-planned destination was Oak valley. From looking at the topo map, it looked like this was a forest-road accessible overlook of the Yuba with enough roads to explore on the bike and let the dog run.

It was actually an overgrown, barely passable, trash-riddled, gated path. Very unpleasant.

🚫 NF 34

After striking out in Oak Valley, I figured I’d be able to find something along forest road 34. This was depressing. It was extremely thick undergrowth, but the road was in good shape so I kept going figuring somebody would have hacked out a site somewhere. I believe there are sites down the road, but I got discouraged after 5ish miles of nothing but dense underbrush and very steep terrain. Not campable with a toddler.

⛺️ Tents only camp (Dark day campground)

At this point I had convinced myself the forest was too thick to randomly find a spot, so I needed to head back up hill or head towards Bollards bar. I went towards Bollards bar. The first site was tents only and had big rocks to keep my truck (which just has a tent on it, fwiw) out.

🦟 Camp mosquito (Schoolhouse campground)

We finally set up at Schoolhouse campground off of bollard’s bar. It was fine. A little crowded and noisy, but we had no trouble finding a spot and they’re pretty big.

• Single track paths around the reservoir are pretty decent if somewhat sketchy in spots.
• Lots of mosquitoes
• The toddler loved it. Safe enough to buzz around on his little bike, easy walking with the dog, lots of other campers to check out
• Fresh water
• Real bathrooms
• Trash on site
• No real reservoir access from this site that I could find. Once you get down close to the water, it’s still too steep to easily get to. You’ll want to head to Dark Day campground to get to the water.

Toddler campsites

• The site itself needs to be pretty safe, especially if I’m going to be taking him on my own (as I was on this trip). One of the reasons he loves camping is he has so much independence. But, if I’m off taking down the tent and he gets into trouble, it can take a minute or two for me to get to him. Any emergencies can’t be sub-minute response-time emergencies¹
• The activity is camping. This is something I didn’t take enough into account this trip. For adults, “camping” means all the travel and stopping at random places and taking some side trails along the way. The campsite is the rest at the end of a long day. For my son, Camping™ is the goal. He wants to have the camp set up, have everything in order, and then activities will flow from there²
• I need to be fairly close to toddler-friendly activities. Fortunately, almost everything amuses a toddler. You need one of:
  • Water, preferably with beach or rocks (mud is the only bad option)
  • Trails, preferably bike friendly
  • Space, preferably without nuisances like poison oak, mosquitos, snakes, etc³.
• If with other kids and parents, being near a family-friendly outdoor food/drink place is the bees-knees. I was on my own for this trip so I didn’t care much, but having a social place where the parents can do their thing while sitting in the sun and the kids keep each other busy is pure bliss.
• Fires are pretty nice. They are distracting a kill a lot of time. They’re not necessary (we didn’t have one this weekend even though we could have), but if all things are equal, having a campfire is a plus.

Yep

We did have a lot of fun. It’s hard not to when the requirements are

• Have treats
• Get tent set up
• Pay attention

These notes will help me in the future though, and who knows maybe they’ll help you too.

Footnotes

Footnotes

1. Yes, I know that at any moment there may be an emergency that requires my immediate attention. That will always be true, and it’s the constant nightmare of any parent. Here I’m talking about risk-adjusted emergencies, ie controlling for what we can and praying for the rest. ↩

2. This really really isn’t a bad way to do things, and I wish I had done it more pre-kid. You get the best camping spots and can delay the decision on how hard you want to go on a given day. ↩

3. I once had the most amazing campsite next to a gentle mountain stream, secluded from the road, with changing shade a couple little swimming holes. Unfortunately horse people liked the spot too and apparently kept their horses in a little grove that my dog immediately fell in love with. I stabbed my leg while chasing him on what I’m sure was a horse-infested stick and got the worst infection a couple day later. ↩