Rather than beginning this month’s Fresh Tracks in medias res – atop the Oak Ridge Trail looking down on San Pablo Bay, say, or maybe wending through oak-studded singletrack – what say we start at the very start, at a Porta-Potty?
The inside door of a Porta-Potty, to be exact.
Perhaps figuring they had a captive audience, the Friends of China Camp tacked a laminated flier in each facility at its Miwok Meadows picnic area telling park users that, essentially, they’d be you-know-what out of luck if not for the efforts of this nonprofit organization.
It’s not just the bathrooms to which they refer. China Camp itself was one of 70 state parks scheduled to be closed as part of a $22 million budget cut. Within weeks of this declaration last spring, a loose affiliation of Marin County residents – fishermen, hikers, mountain bike and kayak groups, scores of history buffs – formed the Friends of China Camp.
They may have harbored disparate interests, but they united in attempting to save a 1, 500-acre park abutting San Pablo Bay that once served as thatched housing tracts for the Coast Miwok Indians, later thrived as a post-Gold Rush Chinese immigrant fishing village and has, since time immemorial, been home to delicate marine and arboreal habitats.
In that four-month effort, Friends of China Camp signed up 1, 400 members and raised more than $250, 000. And, taking advantage of a 2011 Assembly bill allowing nonprofits to essentially sublet state parks set aside for closure, the group sought to take control of a beautiful and historic village and open space that otherwise would have gone fallow.
The result: a three-year operating agreement allowing Friends of China Camp to keep the gates open, the picnic sites spruced up, the trails groomed and, yes, the Porta-Potties well-stocked and tidy.
Whether the change of operators will translate into more visitors to a traditionally underused park is an open question. But , for now, we should just cheer that it’s still open.
Why China Camp is, as the San Francisco Chronicle once called it, “the most overlooked state park in the Bay Area” is a mystery to anyone who has spent a day there. Not only are there fascinating historical remains of the Chinese settlement at China Camp Village on the promontory, but there are gorgeous bayside picnic spots at Weber Point, Buckeye Point and China Camp Point and, at the southernmost point, a beach that draws sunbathers and long-distance swimmers.