Nevada City Spring Camping

Spring in Nevada City…we’ve had sunshine, sunshine and sunshine… and 70 degree days. What we love about the spring shoulder season is that campers are starting to surface after a winter of forced hibernation (although many good nights of camping happen in the winter too). We start getting more phone calls and online bookings and people really start to show how eager they are to get outside (often rain or shine) and enjoy our campground. Spring camping in Nevada City is one of our favorite seasons.

Early spring camping is a great time to dust off the camping supplies and get comfortable sleeping under the stars again. Here are 5 great things about spring camping at ITC:

The Commons: Our fully heated common building with bathrooms, showers, a kitchen, dining room and a lounge are. It all makes for an easy camping experience, especially if there’s a surprise in the weather
Availability: Spring often has great weather with warm days, but the crowds aren’t out yet. We typically have a lot of sites available, including our Glamping tents (they reopen for the season in early March) and last-minute trips are easier to come by.
Cooler Weather: Sometimes summer camping is just plain hot. For those that want to beat the heat, spring is a great time to sleep outside without 90 degree days.
Evening Fires: The ground is moist and the air is crisp in the spring; all of that makes for a great time sitting by one of our smoke-free gas fire pits. They put off a lot of heat, without the fire danger and smoke of a regular fire pit and work perfect for that much needed s’mores.
Spring Flowers: Mother nature kicks old man winter to the curb starting in February when the daffodils start to bloom. Typically the flowers start in mid-February and last well into May / June. Many of the local hikes have spectacular flower displays in the spring.

If you’re looking for a few spring ideas on things to do:

Buttermilk Bend wildflower hikes are every Saturday and Sunday mornings at 11am down at Bridgeport along the South Yuba River starting mid March through mid-May. If you’ve never been down there, now is the time of the year to go. Click here for the self guided trees and shrubs brochure or here for a Wildflowers directory. The photo above is the Point Defiance Loop at South Yuba State Park at Bridgeport, another great spring hike.
Time to plan your trip to check out the tulips at the Crystal Hermitage Gardens at Ananda. Open every day in April, the gardens showcase over 17,000 tulips. If you missed the details about the upcoming photo walk it sold out, but there’s discussion of adding a second date, so stay tuned online.
Go for an urban hike with Folk Trails Hiking Club (Thursdays, March 12th and April 9th, 4pm, meet at the Outside Inn).
Book a site and join us for our upcoming Easter Egg Hunt (Saturday, April 11th, 3pm).
Take a guided tour at the Empire Mine Historic State Park and learn about the rich gold mining history.

We’re re-opening the glamping tents for the 2020 season next week. Summer weekends are definitely filling up, but if you’re interested in a spring getaway, we still have availability. If you’re thinking about trying RVing definitely check out our Riverside Retro, we’ve had a great feedback from the last year of renting out the travel trailer to folks who love trying the RV lifestyle without having to tow a trailer or worry about backing it into a RV site.

We’ve made some updates around camp over the winter. We’ve moved our outdoor movie area to behind the communal building. We’re going to convert the stage to more of a game zone, so stay tuned for more photos when we’ve got that set up and ready to go. Other projects include new paths, expanded bbq area by the kitchen, new fire pits and some additional paths around camp.

To keep tabs on the fun at the campground feel free to follow us along either on Instagram or Facebook or Pinterest. We’re excited about the upcoming camping season… spring fever makes us all want to get outside!

And if you’ve made it this far, we’ve got a fun March special– book any 2 nights in the month of March and get a free gas fire pit with your campsite (offer valid for all types of camping, tent, RV and glamping tents). Look forward to seeing you at the campground.