China Camp trails offer highs and lows of east Marin

The hiking experience at China Camp State Park is as layered as the land’s history. The park sits on the shores of San Pablo Bay, crisscrossed like most Marin open space by a network of multi-use trails. The trails course through different habitats, from marshy flats to stands of mixed evergreen giving way to bay and oak, madrone and manzanita, peaking on a ridge that affords picturesque panoramas. On the downslopes and in the flats is a mix of grassland, chaparral and freshwater to saltwater marsh.

Once inhabiting these flats and ridges were the Coast Miwok, who lived there for thousands of years before the land was wrested from them in the form of a Mexican land grant to a settler. The grantee was Irishman, meatpacker and local hunter Timothy “Don Timoteo” Murphy, a naturalized Mexican citizen also known as the “Don of San Rafael,” who served as the town’s alcalde, or mayor. By accounts, he was a large fellow, with a cruising altitude of 6 feet 2 inches and weighing in at more than 300 pounds, who once wrestled a bear.

The bear-wrestling Irishman eventually sold a portion of the land grant, Rancho Las Gallinas, to another Irishman, James Miller. At his death from a burst appendix in 1853, Murphy left most of his remaining property, Rancho Santa Margarita, to a nephew, John Lucas. Eventually, the land that would become known as China Camp fell into the ownership of the McNear brothers.

Many Marin residents will recognize some of these names because of the places that bear them: Lucas Valley, Miller Creek, Don Timoteo, Las Gallinas, Santa Margarita, McNears Beach. And China Camp.

In the hands of the McNears, the land that became China Camp was sublet to Chinese shrimp fishermen. The community that built up in the 1880s around a brief boom in shrimping exports gave the region its current name, and the last original shrimp fisherman there, Quan Hung Quock, died in 2016.

The land was designated as a state park in 1978, fell under threat of closure in 2011, and was rescued by nonprofit intervention. The park now runs on funding and volunteerism through the Friends of China Camp, which is why you will pay $5 to park and $3 to use its 15 miles or so of multi-use trails, many of them quite popular with mountain bikers.

We visited the park on a weekday afternoon to enjoy some low-use time on the trails. At 1,640 acres, about 100 acres of it wetlands, the park is not enormous. Most of it lies to the southwest of North San Pedro Road, which runs through it. Above the road rises an oak-covered ridge that tops out at about 1,000 feet.

Drawn by the height of this ridge, we decided to make it our goal. To start, we paid the parking and trail fees at the entrance kiosk for Back Ranch Meadows Campground. You can park along the road here, walk in and start your hike on Shoreline Trail just to the right of the entry station. Or you can drive down the road to a parking lot on the right where there is another entry point for Shoreline.

After the trail skirts this parking lot, it takes users up a gentle series of long shady switchbacks and hairpins until it intersects with the Back Ranch Fire Trail. At this junction, we took a right onto Back Ranch, which is where we started to feel the climb a little more. We stayed on Back Ranch, including keeping right at its junction with the Bay View Trail, until Back Ranch intersected with the Ridge Fire Trail, at about 780 feet above sea level. Continuing upward on Ridge Fire Trail took us a bit higher, and our map assured us that we topped out at about 900 feet before turning around.

After a rocky and rutted return down Ridge Fire and Back Ranch, we took a right onto Shoreline Trail at its junction with Back Ranch. Our goal was to emerge right where we could cross the road to Turtle Back Trail just as the “golden hour” before sunset arrived.

Turtle Back Trail, which is hikers only and wheelchair accessible, gets users as close to the marshes as China Camp trails allow, with stretches of boardwalk and remarkable views over the flats to San Pablo Bay and beyond. This short loop of about 0.7 miles was a fine (and flat) finish to a multi-habitat hiking experience where the layers of history linger.

Getting there: From Highway 101, take the North San Pedro exit and head east on North San Pedro Road as it winds into the parklands. Wide shoulders along the roadside are commonly used for parking, but watch for cars and cyclists. Trails are open 8 a.m. to sunset, all year, and dogs are not allowed on trails. A trail map is recommended.

Emily Willingham is a Marin science journalist, book author and biologist. You can find her on Bluesky @ejwillingham or Instagram at emily.willingham.phd.