Sturtevant Camp

This is a nice village like campground area with many houses, even a rest house Th at offers breakfast. This area is amazing for a camp along a trail. This area was also rebuilt after the Bobcat Fire

So awesome. Secluded, beautiful, and a challenging yet rewarding hike in. Richard and Gary are wonderful hosts and the facilities were well stocked and clean. Will absolutely return

Cool place, hike and get your camping area here. Water close by so u can refill to drink

Just hiked through here but it looks really cool made for some awesome pictures

A totally unique throwback to the old days of mountain camps. Great cabins with -- get this -- clean sheets on the bunks! Hot and cold showers and spotless bathrooms. A huge kitchen with EVERYTHING you need to make as extravagant a meal as you want. Plus a great zipline, horseshoes, archery, an evening campfire under the canopy of huge trees...and all within less than five miles of one of the biggest metropolises in the world. Who knew!?

It's located in the big Santa Anita Canyon of San Gabriel Mountain, it's 4 miles hike with about 1200 feets elevation gain to get there. There is no tent site over there, all they have are cabin and cottage, the environment is very nice with some awesome recreation facilities.

The campground is very nice but small. Be aware it is right by the trail and the trail is quite popular so it can get noisy during the day.

Make reservations for Fall of 2021 and you will always remember how you and yours rediscovered your souls.

As an avid hiker, Sturtevant Camp was always something of a unicorn; relatively close to the nearest parking lot, but even closer to much easier hikes often taken with young Cub Scouts and inexperienced hiking parents (like Sturtevant Falls, for example)... I just never had occasion to visit. Instead, I would just happen upon the website (http://www.sturtevantcamp.com/) from time to time, and marvel at this relic of yesteryear, so close yet so far.... Well, that all changed a few weeks ago. On a short weekend backpacking trip with my eldest son and his Boy Scout troop, our 12 mile loop passing through nearby Spruce Grove put us on the doorstep of Sturtevant Camp... literally 0.1 miles from it! Not wanting to miss the opportunity to visit a place I had read about for years, I took the two minute walk from camp. Upon arrival, you really feel a sense that you've traveled back in time. Huge trees tower overhead-- much larger than any of the laurels and oaks that dot the landscape near the creek. Sturtevant Camp offers small rustic cabins, a mini-museum, a large mess hall (that offers hikers free coffee right nest to a tip/donation jar), and plenty of campy camp. Seasonally, irises bloom in small plantings, a big rope swing between big cedars is eye-catching, and the whole place makes you feel like you're a kid at summer camp, even for the briefest of moments. Due to its proximity to the REI in Arcadia (yeah, I went there, which is to say... I WENT there), large shoals of twenty-something hiking-social groups come through here frequently, especially on weekends. Clad in puffer jackets, workout crop tops, yoga pants, and $200 trail running shoes... oh, and with plenty of fancy hydration devices... the whimsy of your time travel is quickly Thanos-snapped back to reality. Unless you're into that sorta thing. But no matter-- they move along, and you can linger as long as you like. I suppose it might be worth it to try staying here sometime. Per the website, you can hire a mule team to carry your gear in for a nominal fee. Heck, there's even a honeymoon suite (probably not quite as fancy as other similarly-named accommodations at other places down the hill, but not without its charm, I'd guess.) In the meantime, this one is worth hiking to sometime. One note: the trail here from the south is very scenic, very narrow in places, shared with trail cyclists who often ride very fast, and has steep drop-offs that would certainly result in first responders coming to rescue you or recover your corpse. If you bring little ones-- or if you're one of those people who hikes with headphones so you can't hear bikes coming-- please be careful!

Who knew someplace this rustic and wild still existed so close to Los Angeles?! The camp is an easy four-mile hike -- mostly well shaded -- out of Arcadia, CA (a suburb in the San Gabriel Valley). They offer a bunch of terrific cabins for rent...very cheaply as it's a non-profit. They have CLEAN men's and women's bathhouses with hot and cold showers, plus a fully equipped camp kitchen with EVERYTHING you need to make and eat as extravagant a meal as you want. All you need to bring is your food (and they even offer a mule train to haul THAT for you if you want!). There's ping-pong, a zip line, a huge swing between two mammoth Redwood trees, archery, horseshoes...even a piano in the lodge that at least one guest always seems to know how to play. The whole thing is nestled in a heavily forested canyon under a thick canopy of massive trees...you'd swear you're in Sequoia or Yosemite even though you're only a few miles as the crow flies from the big city. Totally unique experience...a great quick weekend adventure without going far at all.