8th Annual Friday/Saturday Night Campout in the Wind Wolves Preserve

JOIN your hiking buddies for a Friday and/or Saturday night campout at the San Emigdio Campground in the Wind Wolves Preserve! Cover photo is from the campsites at WW 🐺🐺

Sheila has reserved campsites #7, 8. Syed has #5, 6. Kalamazoo Jim got #2, 9. SoX has #12. Thanks my fellow reservers! So we have campsites 👍 They are the prime campsites 🏕️ there!

6 people are allowed per campsite. However, expecting this to be a very much smaller intimate group, about 10 or so of us. 😀 If we need more campsites and/or you are bringing your whole family, more campsites were available today. It is not peak season for WW 🐺🐺

The campsite 🏕️ 🏕️🏕️ 🏕️🏕️🏕️🏕️🏕️reservations are FREE. Parking will be limited to one car per campsite, with overflow parking available in an overflow lot less than a football 🏈 field walk away. But you can freely load and unload all of your belongings right at the campsites. 😀👍

We have slots for 7 vehicles 🚗 which will be assigned by RSVP time, first RSVP first call on parking 🅿️

The preserve gate locks & closes at 5 pm. So you need to arrive comfortably before 5 pm. There is only keyed ingress/egress through the gate for emergencies after 5 pm.

There are a TOTAL of 12 individual camp sites at the campground that include picnic tables, restrooms with flushing toilets & running water with paper towels, filtered water for drinking & fill up during hikes, and a fire pit. Propane BBQs and propane fire pits are allowed and recommended for cooking. (Our ability to have a fire will depend on the danger of fire and weather conditions at the time. We will be bringing wood with the expectation of having a fire. Each person should bring at least one bundle of wood per night for the campfire.)

This is a car camping experience with gear coming out of our vehicles, and setting it up right there. You will need tent, sleeping bag, mattress, flashlight, camp chair, etc.

The preserve is extending use of the campground to our group for FREE. However, your event hosts will be collecting a ten dollar cash donation per person/per night to give to the Preserve.

On Friday/Saturday evenings about 5-6 PM the fire and potluck picnic dinner will begin. Wind Wolves does NOT provide trash cans for food/camping trash, so we will need to pack out our camping trash and "leave no trace" in the camping area. Quiet time in the campground is between 10 PM and 8 AM.

Check out and departure will be at 11 AM on Sunday morning. Although, if hiking that Sunday, we can make some arrangements to pack up before 11, and then depart later.

ABOUT THE CAMPOUT PICNICS: Please bring hearty food 🥘 to share for only 1 of the potluck dinners preferably, and/or breakfast at the campout. This is a sharing experience and reduces the necessity for each participant to cook each and every meal separately! BYOB (beverage) and plates/utensils. 🍴

ABOUT THE HIKES.
I will not personally be hiking this trip. But I know the place extremely well! And my co-hosts have been there with me before.

Here are some of the suggested hikes. ALL of the major hikes begin at “The Crossing” where you can drive to and park vehicles, or walk there to do some extra mileage!

• Hike starting at “The Crossing” within Wind Wolves Preserve to the Reflection Pond 🌳 and Scull 💀 Rock.
• Hike or bike within the Wind Wolves Preserve on the 5 mile long El Camino Bike Trail and El Camino Wilderness Trail. (It is wide & looks like a fire 🔥 road.)
• Hike starting within the Preserve to the Tule Elk binoculars Overlook and turn around, or go the full 8 mile loop winding down beyond the binoculars.
• Hike starting within the Wind Wolves Preserve to Raven’s Landing for a shorter hike and a beautiful viewpoint of WW.
• Hike starting within the WW Preserve along the “interactive/educational” trail with signs explaining the area. So easy, people in flip-flops 🩴 with regular baby strollers do it.
• Other flat short loops from the campground or nearby, all right in the many acres of WW 🐺🐺

These hikes will provide an array of easy, harder, shorter, or longer hiking opportunities in the lower San Joaquin Valley area.

Every evening, those that are hiking the next day will decide together the best starting time and which hikes they want to do together.

The hikes will not be required for enjoying the camping experience and the camping experience will not be required for doing the hikes. But the campout and hikes are intended to compliment each other.

**************************Note that since it is NOT Spring wildflower season, mostly you will see black-eyed susans, and other desert 🌵 vegetation. And as always, stay on trails and lookout 👀 for rattlesnakes! 🐍

However, it should be perfect camping 🏕️ and hking 🥾weather. Neither too hot 🥵 for hiking, nor too cold 🥶 for sleeping outside! 😀

ABOUT THE PRESERVE: Part of The Wildlands Conservancy, the 93,000 acre Wind Wolves Preserve is the West Coast's largest nonprofit preserve. Due to elevation ranging from 640 to 6,005 feet, the preserve has an impressive array of landforms and habitats that serve as a critical landscape linkage and wildlife corridor between the Coast Ranges and the Sierra Nevada. Tule elk were reintroduced to the Wind Wolves Preserve, and the herd has grown to more than 200. On the San Joaquin Valley floor, the preserve is a 30 square mile veritable sea of grassland with remnant stands of saltbush. The grassland rise from the valley floor into classic California oak savanna with extensive wetlands and further rise into juniper and pinyon forests and stands of ponderosa pine and big cone spruce. In addition to the elk, there will be a chance to see bears (only if you hike 8 miles from “The Crossing”), mule deer, extraordinary bird life, and unique geological features on our hikes. It is the only mountain range in California that goes West to East, and not North/South. Thanks to the earthquakes which faults can be seen hiking on your left going in.

DRIVING DIRECTIONS: Take the 5 Freeway north over the Grapevine and Tejon Pass toward Bakersfield.... just past the junction with Highway 99, take Highway 166 west 9.5 miles toward Maricopa.... past Old River Road continue 1.8 miles to the preserve access road.... look for the sign indicating "Wind Wolves Preserves" on your left.... turn left and proceed 4 miles through the main entrance gate. For the San Emigdio Campground, turn right at the fork after the main entrance.

**************************You can also just stay on Interstate Highway 5 going North (less traffic). And then take Maricopa Highway 166 going East, turn right. Then WW will be on your right (South).

DISCLAIMER: Group organizer and assistant organizers assume no liability; hike at your own risk. By being a member of this group you hereby agree to assume all risks and liability related to or resulting from any group functions. You agree that neither you nor any third party will hold any of the group's leaders, officers, or representatives liable for any injury, loss, or damage to your own person or any members of your family, friends, acquaintances, children, pets, or property, arising directly or as a consequence from a group activity. You also agree that your membership of this group is based on an "at will" basis.