I am looking for areas for backpacking within a few hours drive from Antioch, CA in SF Bay area to test out hammock and equipment before leaving for longer trips in the Sierra Nevada. I have seen a few places in the Santa Cruz Mountains but they look like they are all for reserved campsites. Are these "reservation only" places the only thing around? I was hoping for something with safe trailhead parking where you can just go hiking for a while and pick a spot that you want to hang your hammock. I would prefer somewhere that I would be able to bring my dog and has streams along the way to get water. Do you all just go for it and hike in but keep a low profile to not get into trouble?
Is it wishful thinking to want a place where you can just hike in and camp anywhere? I was thinking that with the amount of people wanting to do the same thing in an area surrounded by millions of people would destroy the parks or create homeless encampments so it is probably reservation controlled and campsite designated to prevent that. What has been the experience you all have had staying at these designated backpacking campsites?
I would like to do these short trips this winter/early spring and maybe during the summer just to get away.
Any info will be helpful for me to do some more research.
This is my first post here. I did try doing a search on the forum but didn't see any topics that were along these lines. Maybe I need to work on the search entries.
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