ABOUT JOHN L. WHITEHEAD, JR. CAMPGROUND AT COLONEL ALLENSWORTH STATE HISTORIC PARK: We had never been to this area before. In desperate need of quiet and to be left alone, we traveled from the Los Angeles area to this campground, planning on staying one night as a stopover. We ended up staying 5 nights and we loved it. The campground is adjacent to the State Historic Park. It’s about halfway between the large cities of Bakersfield and Fresno, CA. After 5 harried hours of travel due to traffic and too many people, we arrived at this out-of-the-way campground in the middle of farms in the southern San Joaquin Valley. There were only two other campers here. We picked our site without reservations (site #10) and moved in.
The campground is small with 15 campsites, none of them too close together. All campsites are fine, but favorites would probably be #1 and #10, but only by a narrow margin. There is potable water and a dump station, but no electric hook-ups. Everyone that came in after us, stayed only one night, even on the weekend. Most of the five days, we had the entire place to ourselves. There are no amenities other than the dump station, water, picnic tables, restrooms, and firepits. About halfway through our stay they developed a problem with the water flow and had to shut down the campground the last couple of days. But they let us stay because we’d already paid and because we were self-contained. Cost is $20 per night with a $2 per night discount with a senior pass. They do offer reservations through Reserve America, or you can pay at the iron ranger. We will definitely come back again as a perfect place to unwind after good old Southern CA.
Two National Wildlife Refuges are reasonably close: Pixley and Kern. We got great pictures at Kern – they had a good auto tour route with 2 loops. We visited 3 times. While we got a few pictures at Pixley (white-faced Ibis), there was no auto tour route, BUT there is a 3-mile round trip walk to the water where they claim are many birds (including the usual migrating suspects).
John L. Whitehead, Jr. Campground at Colonel State Historic Park: The Park is 10 miles southwest of Earlimart, CA on County Road J22A. From Highway 99 north from Bakersfield, take County Road J22 west to Highway 43 south and turn into the Park at Palmer Avenue. The Park is supported in part through a nonprofit organization. For more information contact Friends of Allensworth, Star Route 1, Box 148, Earlimart, CA 93219. Phone: (661) 849-3433. www.friendsofallensworth.com. Or for more information, call California State Parks at (916) 653-6995; www.parks.ca.gov.
- 2022 – 02/24-03/01