Name: I tried pandemic camping in CA and only one thing went horribly wrong
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I tried pandemic camping in CA and only one thing went horribly wrong

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateMy fingers are bleeding. Everywhere.I’m holding my mangled hand above my heart (I read somewhere this is how you stop something from bleeding, even though it is very clearly not stopping any bleeding) with my 10-year-old daughter’s favorite sweatshirt being used as a temporary tourniquet.We’re at campsite 109 in newly reopened Big Basin Redwoods State Park, huddled together around a whimpering campfire — whimpering because I badly cut my hand while trying to split firewood that never made it into our fire ring. We peel off the blood-soaked sweatshirt and try to put Band-Aids on the tip of one finger (which is hanging off) and the top of the other (which is squirting blood like a leaky water balloon), and the bandages immediately soak all the way through. I’ve never seen blood leak out of the top of a Band-Aid before until right now.“OK, we need to go get help.”Weirdly, even with blood gushing from two of my digits, Big Basin — one of newly reopened in the state — is one of the few places in the world right now where I feel completely safe. If there’s a figurative cure for the coronavirus, camping in California’s oldest state park is it.We ultimately opted for Big Basin because of its close proximity to us (Californians are still for recreation), the fact that we could get a campsite just one week out, and because even just our neighborhood feels more crowded than it should during the middle of a pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than 130,000 in the U.S.In Big Basin, there are no tight spaces where you can’t socially distance yourself from someone who’s potentially asymptomatic, no one is delivering anything to your campsite, and there isn’t a crowd of mask-less outdoor diners in the middle of the redwoods. But at the same time, there are still the wonders of the great outdoors — the towering trees, the top-of-the-mountain views, the downed lumber impeding your path, the absolutely massive, hollowed out redwoods you seriously consider living inside of.Right now, though, I’m far more concerned with just the "living" part. I can hear the guy one campsite over yell to his wife, “I THINK HE CUT HIS HAND REALLY BAD,” as we slam the car doors and I drive us one-handed to the park headquarters, where a ranger in a mask tells us no doctors are on-call or even nearby, because it’s the Sunday of Fourth of July weekend.Really we only have two choices: 1) call the paramedics (who will arrive in 45 minutes, then drive me 45 minutes to a hospital, where we’d be stranded for the night), or 2) I can drive myself 45 minutes to Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz and hope I don’t pass out.I opt for the latter, taking the windy road down the backside of Big Basin through Santa Cruz County with my fourth-grader applying pressure to two fingers on my right hand, which dangles just below the roof of the car.Three hours after we arrive at Dominican Hospital, I’m out of the ER with 12 stitches, no pain meds (none of the pharmacies nearby are open) and, weirdly, a newfound purpose.“Let’s finish the camping trip.”And we do. Throughout the rest of our 24-hour camping trip, we only make real contact with anyone twice: once when we checked in at the ranger station to get our parking pass, and once when we checked in at the ranger station for how to get my fingers sewn back on.Other than that, we were largely left alone thanks to a handful of changes to Big Basin:1. They’ve added one-way trailsAfter parking at our campsite and setting up our tent, we grab our masks, a bag of M&amp;M trail mix and a bunch of water, then immediately hit the Sequoia to Skyline to the Sea loop trail. When we enter it just north of Blooms Creek, we’re greeted with a sign explaining the new one-way rules, which it feels like most folks follow. There are only maybe a dozen people we see during the 4-plus mile hike who are going the wrong way.2. You might not be able to hike all the way to points of interestOne of the reasons we opt for the Sequoia to Skyline to the Sea loop trail? Sempervirens Falls. One of the places we can’t actually see up close on the Sequoia to Skyline to the Sea loop trail? Sempervirens Falls. The short and tight connector trail that gets you down to the mouth of the falls is caution-taped off and inaccessible save for two “influencers” who couldn’t resist the opportunity for #content. They hopped the caution tape to go take selfies down by the falls.3. Most of the things around the park headquarters are closed or limitedCaution tape criss-crosses the water fountains, the visitor’s center is essentially closed save a table wedged between the doorway, and the grocery store is only accessible if you first follow a Disneyland-caliber line through the gift shop — a pretty clever commercial version of a one-way trail.While Big Basin is on the doorstep of the Bay Area, there are several state parks actually in the nine Bay Area counties that are now taking camping reservations on ReserveCalifornia.com, including Salt Point State Park (Sonoma County), Sonoma Coast State Park (Sonoma), Henry W. Coe State Park (Santa Clara), Bothe-Napa Valley State Park (Napa), Sugarloaf Ridge State Park (Napa/Sonoma), Samuel P Taylor State Park (Marin), Mount Diablo State Park (Contra Costa), and Portola Redwoods State Park (San Mateo).All of the state parks above have made similar changes, and likely will make more — definitely check the state park website before you leave your house for the latest (especially when it comes to parking, which a camping reservation guaranteed us).If you can find a reservation, though, I can assure you that at least one thing hasn’t changed, and it might just be the most important one: the feeling of looking up at the infinite night sky, snuggled in a sleeping bag, with throbbing fingers and a full heart.Grant Marek is the Editorial Director of SFGATE. Email: grant.marek@sfgate.com | Twitter: @grant_marek

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateMy fingers are bleeding. Everywhere.I’m holding my mangled hand above my heart (I read somewhere this is how you stop something from bleeding, even though it is very clearly not stopping any bleeding) with my 10-year-old daughter’s favorite sweatshirt being used as a temporary tourniquet.We’re at campsite 109 in newly reopened Big Basin Redwoods State Park, huddled together around a whimpering campfire — whimpering because I badly cut my hand while trying to split firewood that never made it into our fire ring. We peel off the...

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Grant Marek

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I tried pandemic camping in CA and only one thing went horribly wrong

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