Ruby van Deventer County Park

Ruby van Deventer is a small campground sandwiched into a thin strip of second-growth redwoods between busy Highway 197 and the Smith River, five miles north of Jedediah Smith Redwoods.

All campsites are first-come, first-served; only the group picnic area can be reserved. They usually have sites available, except on summer holiday weekends.

The campground isn’t nearly as well laid-out as the much larger Florence Keller Regional Park, which is also run by Del Norte County. There aren’t assigned parking spaces and the picnic tables are just randomly scattered around the redwood grove. There isn’t any privacy (except maybe in site 18) since the sites are close together and the woods are very open. Some of the tables are clustered together to make a group site.

There are no RV sites or places to park a trailer longer than 19 feet.

Highway 197 is just a few yards away, on top of an embankment above the campground, and the entire campground gets considerable noise from the high-speed traffic on the highway.

Site 3; the embankment behind the site is Highway 197

Site 12 is out on the river bank and gets a little less noise since it’s further from the road.

Site 12

There’s a bathroom but no showers.

Roads lead down to the gravel river bank, and during the day, most visitors are locals who come to fish in the river.

Links

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• Here’s the campground’s location in Google Maps.