The picnic area
Haypress is near the popular Tennessee Valley parking lot. The camp is in a quiet location on a dead-end trail, well away from the busy lot and trail to the beach, with no traffic noise. It’s next to a line of eucalyptus trees that provide a pleasantly woodsy environment.
The camp itself is nice but the setting isn’t as scenic as most other Marin campgrounds.
The sites are pretty far apart, but there’s still no privacy as every site can be seen from every other site. However, since it doesn’t cost anything to make a reservation, a lot of people don’t actually show up, so the camp is usually mostly (sometimes even completely) empty even on summer weekends when it’s fully booked. The camp is in a shallow valley that provides some shelter from the coastal breezes, but can still get windy and foggy.
The camp has 5 sites, each with a picnic table, bear box, and tent pad. It also has a picnic area with four picnic tables and two bear boxes but no tent pad. There’s an outhouse. The camp has no water, and fires aren’t allowed. It’s about a ten-minute walk from the parking lot to the camp.
It used to be free to stay here, but you now have to pay. Reservations are accepted up to 30 days ahead of time. There are no online reservations; you have to call the park to reserve. Although the sites are numbered, you can’t reserve a specific site. On the day of your reservation you have to pick up an overnight parking pass and camping permit at the rather out-of-the-way Marin Headlands visitor center, which is in the chapel near Rodeo Lagoon.
Site 1
Site 2
© 2019, 2020 David Baselt