Pitching a tent on Angel Island: An urban camping story

When you go camping on Angel Island, you presumably know before you ever arrive that you're not getting away from it all. You are in fact going to the middle of it all — smack in the center of San Francisco Bay, surrounded by Marin, the East Bay and San Francisco. If you're used to camping in what we generally think of as "the woods," there can be a period of adjustment to this. It may even last your entire stay.

I'm not sure when this reality about Angel Island hit me. Maybe it was when we were walking to our site along the blacktop of the island's Perimeter Road and then, as we rounded a bend, someone in our group shouted out: "Look, it's the Chevron refinery!"

Or maybe it was sooner.

While we definitely weren't in the Sierra backcountry, we also hadn't driven five hours. Combine the proximity with the spectacular views and you get why campers have to reserve one of Angel Island's nine sites six months in advance. Yes, there are other attractions, but I doubt people spend the night in the howling winds just to be first in line at the island's Segway scooter rental.

There are some oddities to Angel Island camping, which seemed to throw me for a bit of a loop when planning the trip. For one, it is an island. Surprise! This means you must take a ferry. On this note, do not, like me, spend weeks planning how to catch the Larkspur ferry because that would be wrong.

What you will take is the Tiburon ferry and if you're smart, just bring backpacks. I say this because we decided to make this trip a kind of hybrid transition to backpacking for our kids, with everyone — four adults, four kids — carrying backpacks while we also had a rolling cooler and a Radio Flyer stacked like some pioneer wagon with various camping luxuries, which after about 10 minutes of dragging I just wanted to roll into the bay.

Because on Angel Island, all campers with wagons must take the paved road. Forget traveling on a hiking trail and pretending you're out in nature. Furthermore, the first hill you hit is so steep your wagon suddenly feels like you packed your kitchen — including all major appliances — and you start asking questions like: "Do we really need ALL THIS WINE?" "Do we really need THESE STUPID CHAIRS?" "Why do we have a lantern WHEN WE GO TO BED AT NINE!!!"

Etcetera, etcetera.

After over an hour of winding toward the east end of the island, slowly gaining in elevation, hitting another major climb — everything turns out to be "major" with the wagon involved — you reach sites 7, 8 and 9, which are not too far from sites 1, 2 and 3.

(Sites 4, 5 and 6 are more toward the western side of the island and have the spectacular Golden Gate views as well as, rumor has it, winds that demand you anchor your tent with railroad spikes.)

Our group of sites shared a single big, open space of bare, hard ground that had occasional patches of dry grass. Each site has a picnic table, rusty barbeque, no fire pit, and they all share a fairly high quality outhouse, if that isn't an oxymoron.

While I was very happy to have finally arrived at our island spot, it was tough to pretend we were getting away from it all since the view from the site was of my neighborhood in the East Bay. While the vista is dramatic, stretching from Treasure Island to the Richmond Bridge, I couldn't help looking out and wondering if our neighbor was feeding the cat.

But slowly I settled into camping on Angel Island and its basic paradox: You are surrounded by a bustling, gridlocked, industrious Bay Area while feeling extremely isolated. When you are on the far side of that island, chances are you will see fewer people in a day than you do in your first five minutes of waking up in popular places like Samuel P. Taylor, Big Trees or Yosemite.