A great place for camping and when (much!) warmer, playing in the water. It is right there on the “too far to go” for just a week-end but like a friend says, “If it was closer then everyone would go there.” It is a five hour drive so have some good music, road snacks, and don’t pass up a couple of rest sites for a stretch and the dog.
We hit rain (we knew it was coming) so views were a bit shortened but it also apparently kept some folks at home. We were the only one in our camp at Hayward Flat. It was very green with tables, fire rings, etc. covered with what must have been the winter’s growth of moss. 
We had stopped at the ranger station in Weaverville to pick up a California Campfire Permit (necessary when dispersed camping with no fire ring) and a good map of the area. All these little towns along the route look worth spending time in . . . maybe someday when fully retired!
There are at least 10 NFS or BLM campsites in the Big Bar area and numerous places for dispersed camping. We wanted to go to to Hobo Gulch but due to the time and the weather camped at Hayden Flat instead. Parts of the campground were closed and in the open part, we were the only ones there! It was raining when we arrived and that continued into the night. It is very green here and there is beach access to the Trinity River when things warm up!
Lots of “what’s up with that?” on this trip as in being the only ones in a beautiful campground – “What’s up with that?” Or finding a legal dump on the Trinity River – “What’s up with that?”
Yes, a legal dump with direction signs from Hwy 299, located at the Trinity River’s edge, what looked like a dumpster filled with stuff and a bunch of old refrigerators. What IS up with that?
By the way, the awning worked great keeping the door-way area out of the rain so our wood and chairs didn’t get wet. In the first real-world test of the new Espar D2 heater it worked perfectly. It was on low all night long. You could never do that with the Suburban propane heater as the fan would have one, woke you up everytime it cycled on and two, most likely drained the AGM battery to critical levels.
There was no connectivity here so basically it was a perfect camping site!
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Tags: campfire permit, Shasta Trinity National Forest, Weaverville
