Kirk Creek Campground

Kirk Creek, and the campground on the bluff above it, just across the creek from the road over the mountains. It is the best-loved campground on the coast. Thirty-three sites, and every one has the ocean in front of it; a path beside site eleven goes down to the beach.

Know what it is not. There is no tap water, so bring what you will drink and wash with; the camp host sells water and firewood, and that is all. Vault toilets, no showers, no hookups, no signal, and nothing longer than thirty feet.

It books at seven in the morning six months ahead, and it is gone in minutes; two sites are held for whoever is standing there at two in the afternoon, and there are walk-in sites for people on foot or bicycle. From November to February the whales pass below the tents. Before the campground, the Barbree cabin stood on Kirk Creek, and the Gorda folk had their mail left there when the carrier came over the mountain.

Joe Barbree was a Plaskett by marriage, the agent who signed the valley over to Hearst in 1922 and sold Victor Girard his thirty-five acres above Limekiln in 1925. The Barbrees are family still, through marriage, and still on this coast's roll.