Boat-in Sites (Lake Sonoma)

Great campsites and calm waters w/ good fishing.

For all the years I have sailed, rowed, and camped on Lake Sonoma, I always compliment the person who motors to all of the boat-in campsites, hauling out trash to the dumpster at the Rockpile Road launch ramp.

Beautiful lake beautiful campsite getting in touch with nature and family

Booked two boat in sites canoeing from YortyCreek. We passed on Rustler as it was too busy but easy to get to. We lucked out at Homestead and enjoyed the mid day shade. Water gets milky near shore as the motor boats generate wake and the fishing is poor. Good water jumps and clean. Wear good shoes for hillside camping a few of us took some nice spills into the dirt.

Great site at quicksilver and the wasp traps were nice

We got there a day late. When we got there, some other family had our spot. We couldn’t find the family as Im sure them were on the water. We love lake Sonoma yet tbat was a total disappointment. We ended up still having fun yet because our spot was taken, we ended up going home :(

We stayed at Thumb 4 and Thumb 5 and had an amazing trip! We come to Lake Sonoma every year for multiple days, and these are some of our favorite campsites. The views, kayaking, fishing, and overall experience are always incredible.

This year, however, we had two separate rattlesnake encounters that future campers should be aware of. The first happened while we were gathering dead wood for the campfire. We came within about 5 ft of a rattlesnake coiled next to a ground squirrel burrow, and it immediately started rattling. We backed away and left it alone.

The second encounter happened that same evening while we were eating dinner. We heard rustling behind our campsite, shined a flashlight, and found another rattlesnake coiled at the entrance of another ground squirrel hole only about 8 ft from where we were sitting.

I’ve been coming to Lake Sonoma for many years and had never seen a rattlesnake here before, let alone two so close to camp. We respected the wildlife and gave them plenty of space, but it definitely made us much more cautious.

If you’re camping at the Thumb sites, especially Thumb 4 or 5, just stay alert, watch where you step, and use a flashlight after dark. Despite the snake encounters, we still had a fantastic trip and plan to come back next year. It’s a beautiful place—we just hope the area around the campsites can be checked to help make it a little safer for future campers.

We Arrive to find our campsite completely covered in trash from previous campers , leaving their garbage. We had to clean up the entire campsite before we could even start setting up. We filled four 42 gallon yard bags of garbage that was strewn all over the entire campsite. It was disgusting. It took us an hour to clean up and bag all the trash. It was sooo bad.

The campsite was totally trashed. We had to pick up and fill four 42 gallon bags of trash stewn all over the campsite.

Beautiful camp site and reasonably sized. Drawbacks; the vault toilets were FULL to the brim. Not ideal at all. The restrooms are also in the center of the campground which means you may have to walk through other folks camp sites to get to them or others may be walking through your site. There's also no trash can at camp site #7 so we had to hike garbage down to other sites. It's boat-in camping, I anticipated drawbacks. The trip was still well worth it.