Santa Rosa Island

Great experience!

Beautiful island! Windy as expected but we had a blast with our little friend group. Will be back!

My partner and I camped at Santa Rosa Island in mid June for three nights. Island Packers was our transport out and back. Reliable and professional, I recommend this company for boat transport. We always pick up our motion sickness tablets when we check in just to be on the safe side. Sometimes the channel can be rough to cross. Our island campsite (15) was perfect for us. Potable water is available at a sink adjacent to the restroom building(yes, there are two flush toilets!) and dispersed facets at the campground. The quality of the water taste and smell seems to have improved since drought years. The weather was foggy in the am burning off by midday. We didn't experience high winds at all. The island can be VERY windy. There was a lot of water running in Water Canyon creek, enough to fill small pools to cool off in at the end of the day!
The Cherry Canyon trail was going off with lupine, poppy, paintbrush, campion, gentian, California buttercup and many others! The bluffs at the top of CCT provide a picnic table for a lunch stop and nice panoramic views. Torrey Pines trail was equally impressive with wildflower. The stand-outs being Clarkia, California buttercup, Dudleya, wolly sunflower and the beautiful Fairy Lantern, to name a few. Given its elevation, on a clear day the Torrey Pines trail will reward hikers with expansive views of the coast and Santa Cruz Island.
We did have fox visitors sniffing around the campsite every day in the early evening like clockwork and noted that they were looking for easy food and marking trails. I was sad to see folks leaving food out at their campsites. It's better for all if the fox hunt and eat naturally. The island offers something for birders too, both inland and at the beach. Aside from plant and animal life in abundance, Santa Rosa Island is rich in geological wonder.
It is such a privilege to spend time exploring this extraordinary place. Each year I return and fall in love again.

Love camping here. But there are some issues. We stayed from Monday to Friday. The paper towels in the restroom were gone by Wednesday, and neither restroom was serviced during our visit. The toilet paper is worse than the public toilet mega-roll I expected. It was thin, and perhaps more importantly, rather abrasive. My rear was sore by Wednesday, so I switched to my own TP from home.

Bring back the shower! I was told it is now a storage closet.

Santa Rosa is amazing - the trek from the pier to the campsite is tough - bring a collapsible wagon - but the island is calm and beautiful. I've been 3 times and will go back

Beautiful island, the hikes/trails were great. Would happily spend more time there. Also the ferry over is great fun, seeing dolphins of all kinds and even orcas!

I was there 4 nights and half or more of the sites in the campground were vacant the whole time. I wanted to have two campground spaces but they were not available on recreation.gov, I was lucky to get one. I'm not sure why NPS and Recreation.gov allow this to happen but it has been that way as long as I have been traveling to Channel Islands (4 years).

Saw so many dolphins and whales on the boat ride over! We also lucked out and got perfect weather while we were on the island. Hiking to Carrington Point was definitely a highlight because we got some beautiful views and saw sea lions!

very beautiful place with a lot of fox running around.

My favorite place! The campground is beautiful. The facilities are excellent. The boat ride is great.