It is known for its fishing pier, beautiful beach and historical buildings. Many of the buildings left over Suferfrom the prospering old town still stand as a variety of shops such as restaurants, antique stores, and speciality items. The sandy beach offers mild weather, watersports such as surfing and swimming, and tidepooling. Lifeguards are on duty during peak summer months. Junior lifeguard training is available through the County Parks of San Luis Obispo.

Starting October 15, 2011, Back Ranch Campground will only be open Friday and Saturday nights, and selected holidays, on a first come, first served basis until further notice. Restrooms are closed when the campground is closed. Group Picnic/Day Use Areas, Buckeye and Weber Points, and Miwok Meadows Group Picnic Area will be closed November 1, 2011 through June 30, 2012.

Landscape view of hills and landscape at Chino Hills State ParkChino Hills State Park, a premier natural open-space area in the hills of Santa Ana Canyon near Riverside, is a critical link in the Puente-Chino Hills biological corridor. It encompasses stands of oaks, sycamores and rolling, grassy hills that stretch nearly 31 miles, from the Santa Ana Mountains to the Whittier Hills. Chino Hills is vitally important as a refuge to many species of plants, and as a link between natural areas essential to the survival of many animal species.

The walls of this small cave carved from towering sandstone boulders contain some of the finest remaining rock art created by Chumash Native Americans. A steep path leads to the cave entrance, which is protected by heavy iron grillwork. Anthropologists estimate that the paintings date to the 1600's and earlier. The meaning of these enigmatic images has been lost.

This off road area provides good beginner terrain for off-road enthusiasts. The clay used to build Lake Oroville was taken from the Feather River Valley, three miles west of Oroville. The resulting depression – a large shallow pit ringed with low hills – is the site of this recreation area. It is a motorcycle, all-terrain vehicle, and dune buggy use area.

Clear Lake State Park is on the shores of California’s largest freshwater lake. The area is popular for all kinds of water recreation, including swimming, fishing, boating and water-skiing.

A century has passed since the founding of this unique town dedicated to the dignity of the human spirit. Although the centennial celebration is now a part of history, there are still plenty of opportunities to come learn about Colonel Allen Allensworth and the courageous group of families and individuals who believed they could create their own version of the “American Dream.” Come experience the inspiring story of the people who came to an isolated spot in the southern San Joaquin Valley to build a place of their own—a place where hard work, dedication, and faith would allow them and their children the opportunity to control their own discrimination-free destiny. Come home to Allensworth during its centennial year.

The town's old Gold Rush-era business district has been preserved with shops, restaurants and two hotels. Visitors have the chance to time-travel to the 1850s, imagining life when gold miners rubbed shoulders with businessmen and the other residents in Columbia. Visitors can experience a bygone era watching proprietors in period clothing conduct business in the style of yesterday. There are opportunities to ride a 100 year-old stagecoach, pan for gold, and explore the real working businesses of Columbia.

This area offers visitors campsites, picnic sites, and a launch ramp for small boats. Riverbank cottonwoods and willows shelter one of the finest fishing stretches in California, with king salmon, steelhead, rainbow trout and striped bass some of the catches. The river is on a major migratory route for birds of the Pacific flyway and provides home to an amazing number of species. The River Patwin Indian tribe once lived nearby the area and in 1872 John Muir camped near what is now the park.

Corona del Mar State Beach is a popular place for swimmers. The half-mile long sandy beach is framed by cliffs and a rock jetty that forms the east entrance to Newport Harbor. The beach is also popular with surfers and divers.

The Crystal Cove Historic District is a 12.3-acre coastal portion of the 2,791-acre Crystal Cove State Park. The federally listed Historic District is an enclave of 46 vintage rustic coastal cottages originally built in the 1920’s and 1930’s nestled around the mouth of Los Trancos Creek. It is one of the last remaining examples of early 20th century Southern California coastal development.

The beautiful park offers camping and hiking in an oak woodland forest, with a sprinkling of pines and lovely meadows with creeks. There are over 100 miles of trails which accommodate hikers, bikers, and equestrians. The two family camps, Paso Picacho and Green Valley, are open and on the reservation system spring through fall. Green Valley sits at an elevation of 4,000 feet and has a creek which runs through the middle of the campground. The day use area offers sets of cascades and shallow pools, great for water play on hot days. Green Valley has 81 campsites.

The mixed understory includes tanoak, madrone, red alder, big leaf maple, and California bay. Ground cover is dense with a wide range of species. Vegetation is predominately red alder which will eventually give way to fir and second growth redwood.

The grandeur of the parks and their setting is a product of successive upheavals of the mountain-building processes that raised the Sierra Nevada. From promontories such as Rubicon Point in D.L. Bliss State Park you can see over one hundred feet into the depths of Lake Tahoe.

Dockweiler State Beach features a three mile long shoreline with a picnic area and concession stand. The wide beach is beneath the takeoff path from Los Angeles International Airport.

Doheny State Beach is two parks in one - with camping in the southern area (with some campsites only steps away from the beach) and day use in the northern area, where there is a five-acre lawn with picnic facilities and volleyball courts. Surfing is popular, but is restricted to the north end of the beach. Surf fishing is also popular.

Located in the beautiful Sierra Nevada, Donner Memorial State Park offers the summer vacationer opportunities for camping, picnicking, boating, fishing, water-skiing, and hiking. In winter, visitors can cross-country ski and snowshoe on trails and enjoy the season's beauty. Visitors are welcome year-round at the Emigrant Trail Museum and at the Pioneer Monument, built to commemorate those who emigrated to California from the east in the mid-1800's. Included in the museum are displays and information about one of the earliest pioneer wagon trains, the Donner Party, forced by circumstances to camp at the east end of Donner Lake in the winter of 1846-47, resulting in human suffering and loss of life.

The park includes tidelands and upland property along 8.5 miles of shoreline of the San Francisco Bay. The park extends from the City of Richmond in the north to Emeryville and Oakland in the south, ending near the east anchorage of the San Francisco Bay Bridge. The tidelands comprise rich tidal marshes, sub tidal areas, and mudflats that extend bay ward from the shoreline including the Emeryville Crescent, Albany Mudflat, and Hoffman Marsh. Much of the existing upland area is the result of fill placement in the Bay west of the historic shoreline. The shoreline reflects the unique influences of both natural systems and human intervention.

The campground closing dates for fall and winter 2011 are weather and budget dependent. Please call 530-525-7982 or 530-525-7232 for current information. Campsites are first come, first served. The showers and dump station will be closed for the season on September 26, 2011.

El Capitán State Beach offers visitors a sandy beach, rocky tidepools, and stands of sycamore and oaks along El Capitán Creek. It’s a perfect setting for swimming, fishing, surfing, picnicking and camping. A stairway provides access from the bluffs to the beach area.

Surrounded by the bustle of the modern-day city of Santa Barbara, El Presidio de Santa Bárbara State Historic Park preserves the site of the last of four military outposts built by the Spanish along the coast of Alta California. Two buildings of the original presidio have been restored, others have been reconstructed and archaeological excavations and additional reconstructions are continuing.

In 1969, Emerald Bay was designated a National Natural Landmark for its brilliant panorama of mountain-building processes and glacier carved granite.

Moderate temperatures help make Emma Wood State Beach popular for swimming, surfing and fishing. Catches include perch, bass, cabezon and corbina. The Ventura River estuary is at the mouth of the Ventura River at the southeast end of the park. It attracts a variety of wildlife including raccoons, songbirds and great blue herons. Dolphins are occasionally seen just offshore. The park also features the crumbling ruins of a World War II coastal artillery site. The offshore Channel Islands can be seen from the beach.

Empire Mine State Historic Park is the site of one of the oldest, largest, deepest, longest and richest gold mines in California. The park is in Grass Valley at 10791 East Empire Street. In existence for more than 100 years, the mine produced 5.6 million ounces of gold before it closed in 1956. (5.6 million ounces of gold is equivalent to a box seven feet long, seven feet high, and seven feet deep filled with gold.) The park contains many of the mine’s buildings, the owner’s home and restored gardens, as well as the entrance to 367 miles (the distance, as the crow flies, from Grass Valley to Magic Mountain) of abandoned and flooded mine shafts. The park consists of forested backcountry and eight miles of trails - including easy hikes (for hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding) - in the park.

Located at the base of the Sierra foothills, the lake and recreation area offers opportunities for hiking, biking, running, camping, picnicking, horseback riding, water-skiing and boating. Fishing offers trout, catfish, big and small mouth bass or perch. Visitors can also see the Folsom Powerhouse (once called "the greatest operative electrical plant on the American continent"), which from 1885 to 1952 produced 11,000 volts of electricity for Sacramento residents. For cyclists, there is a 32-mile long bicycle path that connects Folsom Lake with many Sacramento County parks before reaching Old Sacramento. The park also includes Lake Natoma, downstream from Folsom Lake, which is popular for crew races, sailing, kayaking and other aquatic sports.