Mt.Shasta/Bowman Lake Disperse Camping

Something about getting away from the city life is so relaxing. Staring at nature and forgetting all of your responsibilities over the weekend is so soothing and calming for the mind.

So let’s begin a week of disperse camping around Northern California. We left on a Monday (June 20th) and our first stop is Lakeview Campgrounds (39.101418885948284,-122.75854278965818) in Mendocino. It took about 3-4 hours to reach the destination from San Francisco and find a solid spot.

Since we went on a Monday, there was no one camping around us and we barely saw cars coming in and out. Most of the campsites had trash (probably because there is shooting allowed). There was probably only 2-3 spots with a lake view. I don’t think we would ever come back because the amount of bugs were crazy at night and there was nothing really around for us to do like any walking trails, it was pretty deserted. So we only stayed for one night.

BUGS:

We saw deers, lizards, bees, and I believe it was gnats we saw at night. There were probably over 50 of them at night near the lights. It was really annoying and didn’t want to stay outside since we didn’t have any mesh nets yet.

Our itinerary was to go to Lassen next specifically Manzanita Lake, and as beautifully as it is, sadly there is no dispersed camping there. We wanted to check out all these spots listed below:

Yellow Creek Breach (40.124847, -121.246632)

Butt Valley (40.1459° N, 121.1739° W)

Thousand Lake Wilderness (40.7005936, -121.587812)

Crater Peak (40.69802, -121.619024)

Burney Falls (41.0121° N, 121.6518° W)

However, there was no signal at all until we reached Mount Shasta. We had all the coordinates to put in the Tacoma GPS, but all these coordinates did not work! It said no location found. So HUGE LESSON learned, download all the maps or make sure the coordinates work in your car GPS…

From Manzanita Lake to Mount Shasta, there is only one road you take which is about 4 hours long with no service at all.

Mendocino to Castle Lake was about a 6-8 hour drive. What a trip that was to get here.

Finally, Day 2 (June 21st) we reached Castle Lake (41° 14' 8.4023" N, 122° 22' 44.4187" W) around 8pm and was able to find a good spot for dispersed camping with a view of Mt. Shasta. There are a couple spots here with the view, average amount of people doing dispersed camping here and everyone was respectful of each others space. I love how it’s super close to Castle Lake, you can drive to it in about 5mins, bike it in 20mins, or walk it about 35mins.

Weather: high 80s to 90s from 7am - 7pm. about 60s-70s at night time.

BUGS: tiny spiders on the floor, mosquitos, moths, bees, and deers.

We only stayed here till June 23rd because there wasn’t much around except Castle Lake and as amazing as the view was, we wanted to see and explore more!

We really didn’t have another destination to go to and thought we could just find one around Shasta-Trinity National Forest, however, we drove all around (5-6 hours) and we weren’t satisfied with any of the views.

If you know any amazing spots around there, please let me know! (:

Because of that, we decided to drive all the way to Lake Tahoe for Bowman Lake because the view is so gorgeous and relaxing and it was the best way to end our trip.

Bowman Lake (June 24th)