Spending 24 hours on Santa Cruz Island in Channel Islands National Park!
First of all, Happy Birthday Channel Islands! 43 years ago today you became a National Park, and I'm so glad you did.
Santa Cruz island is the largest Island in Channel Islands National Park and the largest island in California. It's accessible via a 45 minute ferry ride through Island Packers to Scorpion Cove and has 1 campground. When you are planning your trip here you need to make sure a campsite is available and the seats on the ferry (there and back) are available for the dates you're going. Sometimes you can score a site but the ferry will be sold out. I also want to add that this can easily be a day trip if you cannot grab a campsite. If you opt for a day trip book the earliest ferry, and the latest return, which can be either 4pm to 5pm. This will allow you to do the hikes you want without feeling rushed to get back in time for your return ferry.
Another thing to be mindful of if you're camping is that you have to bring everything you need for your time on the island in a backpack and pack out your trash, so also pack a small trash bag. There is a small visitor center, bathrooms, and a kayak rental hut, but that is it! When packing be minimal and only take what you need. There is no food on the island but there is water so no need to bring your water. For food we brought two Backpackers Pantry meals, the lasagna, and the stroganoff, along with one of their breakfast meals the peanut butter and banana oatmeal. We LOVE Backpackers Pantry, all of these meals were so good and extremely easy to make and kept packing food light and trash low. We also brought a couple protein bars for snacks and two sandwiches we grabbed from the grocery store. I made an Amazon List of what I pack for camping, everything besides the stove, table and collapsable sink I brought with me, you can view it here. We also used the two person tent in the list and I cannot recommend it enough!
OK now lets talk about our day on the island. We started our trip by taking the 9:30 am boat ride through @islandpackers to Santa Cruz Island and arrived around 10:40 am. The boat ride can be choppy so if you are prone to seasickness always take a seat in the very back of the boat. Once we got unloaded we walked about .5 miles to our campground.
We luckily got campsite number 1 (photo to the left) so we didn't have to walk very far into the campgrounds and were close to the bathrooms. On your way to the campground you walk by the kayak rentals, we did not kayak but if you are planning to make sure you make reservations ahead of time.
Once we set up our tent we decided to hike to Potato Harbor. There's two ways to get to Potato Harbor, one way is hiking straight through the campground and following the trail to the right of the canyon. Another way is to start on the Cavern Loop Trail (2 miles) and extend it to Potato Harbor (4.5 miles), which is what we did. I highly recommend this because its such a great way to see the island.
Once we got to Potato Harbor we sat and ate our sandwiches and enjoyed the view.
After we sat for about a hour we hiked back down to our campground and headed to Scorpion Rock Overlook. This trail was slightly hidden if you weren't paying attention, make sure you look at the Santa Cruz Island map, it highlights where the trail is and how best to follow it. This was such a cool look out, we sat and watched the kayakers and the ferries come in and and out of Scorpion Anchorage, in the far back you can also see Anacapa Island.
Once we finished enjoying the look out we hiked down to the beach and relaxed for a bit until we headed out for our sunset hike.
When people visit Santa Cruz island they sometimes make the mistake of staying at the beach for sunset, but unfortunately the sunset does not hit the beach, the best place to watch the sunset on Santa Cruz Island is Potato Harbor, and its worth hiking back to check out!
We had the entire trail and area to ourselves for this sunset hike and it was so much fun. It also was extremely windy and cold! So be prepared and bring a warm jacket and hat.
After the sunset we hiked back down, made our Backpackers Pantry meals and went to sleep. We woke up around 6 am, just in time for sunrise. We made a cup of coffee and headed to the beach with our chairs and enjoyed the sunrise with just the two of us on the entire beach.
We stayed at the beach until around 9 am and then went back to our campsite and packed up, at around 11:30 am we headed to the dock for our 12 pm ferry back to the mainland!
All in all, this is a MUST DO trip if you live in SoCal. I would highly recommend this for anyone wanting to get away for the weekend, this could also be a day trip but I’d definitely recommend camping and staying the night, and if doable try for two days to explore more of the island. Looking back on this trip, we missed Smugglers Cove because we were worried we wouldn't have enough time, but now I would definitely hike to Smugglers Cove FIRST, then do the Cavern Loop trail and end at Potato Harbor for sunset.
Lastly, unlike most national parks, Channel Islands is completely free to visit, all you need to do is pay for your ferry there and back, along with campsite!
I hope this inspired you to plan a trip to Santa Cruz Island, or even to just visit Channel Islands National Park!
Comment down below if you've camped at Channel Islands National Park and which island I should go to next time I visit!
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