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- Campgrounds & RV Parks in Sunset Valley Road
- Davy Brown Campground
Davy Brown Campground Introduce
Davy Brown Campground, located in Los Olivos, CA 93441, provides a rustic and adventurous camping experience within the Campgrounds & RV Parks category. This campground is ideal for those seeking a secluded wilderness retreat, but it requires careful planning and preparation.
For inquiries, you can contact the campground at (805) 434-1996 or +1 805-434-1996.
Accessing Davy Brown Campground presents a significant challenge. The road leading to the campsite is narrow, riddled with potholes, and features a washboard surface, making it unsuitable for large RVs. The journey involves navigating long, curvy, and narrow roads with blind curves, and there is no cell phone service, even with satellite internet hotspots. Therefore, downloading offline maps is essential. Additionally, the nearest stores and services are far away, so campers must bring all necessary supplies, including water, as there are no water spigots on site.
The campground experiences a significant insect population, particularly gnats, flies, and mosquitoes during June and July. Campers should bring ample bug spray. Pesky skunks are also known to frequent the area. The nearby creek, while beautiful, tends to dry up during the summer and is often overcrowded with day visitors, impacting the experience for paying campers. The campground's management should improve day use pass enforcement to ensure fairness.
Some campsites offer decent shade, while others provide only partial shade, making summer camping potentially hot. The bathroom facilities are reported to be poorly maintained. However, the overall area is beautiful, offering hiking trails, including a steep trail that becomes unmaintained further in. Hikers should wear long sleeves and pants due to sharp bushes and fallen trees. The reported abandoned cabin on the trail can be difficult to locate.
Key features of Davy Brown Campground include:
- Rustic and secluded wilderness setting.
- Challenging access via a narrow, potholed road.
- No cell phone service.
- No water spigots; campers must bring their own water.
- Significant insect population during summer.
- Nearby creek, often crowded with day visitors.
- Hiking trails, including a challenging unmaintained trail.
- Limited amenities and poorly maintained bathrooms.
Davy Brown Campground is best suited for adventurous campers who are well-prepared for the challenges of remote camping. While the area offers beautiful scenery and hiking opportunities, the challenging access and limited amenities require careful planning and self-sufficiency.
Location
CaliforniaSanta Barbara CountyLos OlivosSunset Valley Road
Customer Reviews
The road up to this campsite is not for everyone. Especially rvs..it very narrow and washboard and full of potholes. There is no cell signal, even with my sirius internet hotspot, zero until you get mostly down the mountain. Therefore you will be navigating a long curvy and narrow road up and down with other vehicles coming in opposite direction (some blind curves). There are also no stores super close or other services, so plan accordingly. A vehicle breaking down here would not be ideal. We helped a few folks who where lost, so download your maps beforehand. There are no water spigots, so you must bring your own water. Lots and lots of gnats, flies and mosquitoes in june-july. Some super pesky but cute skunks kept coming right into our campsite despite us sitting there making noise to deterr them. The creek nearby is really nice, but very dried up in summer and seems to get overused by folks coming in that are not camping in the area, they come and take up the little spots there that are for folks that did pay to camp. The camphost needs to check more often for day use passes, as this area should be treated with care, there was a biologist there during our visit testing the water quality and its impact on fish downstream that are endangered. Also some campsites have very decent shade, but several only partial and the heat was brutal in summer. Bathrooms where not cleaned or maintained for days while we where there. Overall the area is beautiful but an adventure to reach.
We drove up here on a whim hoping to snag a spot. We ended up grabbing the last spot which was close to the trail. Trail is steep and becomes very unmaintained the further you go. Good thing we had a machete because we had to hack and crawl our way through (SHARP!) bushes and fallen trees. (I definitely recommend pants and long sleeves- I wore my normal tank and shorts and got destroyed by sharp bushes). We overall went about 6-7 miles and somehow couldn't find the abandoned cabin 🤷🏻‍♀️ Bugs were a whole other issue. They were mostly gnats though and few mosquitoes, so I can't complain much. Just bring lots of bug spray. Weather was nice in June, not too hot and not too cold. Overall, I would give the campsite a 4 star but the trail (and road to get there) a 3 star.
It’s a really nice and quiet campground. The waterfall and creek are on the Munch Canyon Trail but it was super overgrown. This trail is in between campsite 12 and 13. The bugs were a lot but just make sure to bring lots of bug spray.
Excellent! No cell service! Quiet! There’s an ice cold swimming hole. A local told me it flows year round! We were there three night in spring. Totally gorgeous. Empty during the weekdays. DONT RESERVE #9. Muddy and full of poison oak. If you’re a big group, reserve 12. Most spacious for multiple tents. You don’t have to pack in water if you have a water filter for the creek water. The trail was also out of the is world beautiful. Not sure what it would like in the summer but April was GLORIOUS.
It is a very nice and quiet cg and it was really a plus having multiple swimming holes and a good flow of water in the creek. Bring a bug tent with you because the little 🪰 are extremely annoying and mosquito spray doesn't seem to work. I would've loved to give this place 5 stars but being that they are now charging $30.00 per night and this place doesn't have running water for when the creeks go dry and they are cash only just isn't really worth it when I compare this cg to others up and down the west coast. We ended paying with a check because there is no way anybody is going to drive back to a town to get cash and the camp host who was very nice thanked us and eventually they will deposit the check.
Nice little campground on the creek. Pretty heavily impacted by fire and rains. Campground seemed to have been somewhat missed by the fire, but the trails are a mess. Very hard to navigate without a trails app. Some parts of trail are just gone, with lots of debris and downed trees. If you’re here just to hike the trails, you might want to wait until trails are cleaned up. Who knows when that will be. Looks like a nice place to camp, but hiking the burn scar is definitely a dirty challenge. Pretty cool to see the spring growth over the burn, with plenty of water in the creeks. Get out and check it out, anyway!
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