China Camp is Haunted

I have known China Camp was haunted for a long time. It's pretty tough to prove, or really even explain, but that place has creeped me out for years and I know the hill very well. I have been exploring China Camp my whole life and have spent as much time out there as anyone could have, barring the Rangers (and the ghosts) over the past ten years. I have been in nearly every part of the park, at nearly every part of the day and night either on foot or on my bike. I have spent countless hours running up and down barely discernible deer tracks, taking wrong turns and inevitably ending up in someones back yard. China Camp is one of my favorite places in the world......but the place is freaking haunted......particularly the San Rafael side.

I'll start with the less tangible. There are a couple of abandoned radio towers at the top of China Camp. Whenever I have been up there, whether it's been a perfect sunny Saturday afternoon or an ominous rainy evening there has always been a strange unsettled feeling around those towers. For those of you familiar with China Camp I'm not talking about the Nike Site drop ins. These towers are closer to Glenwood. It' s hard to describe but the feeling is tangible. It is just creepy up there, like there are people around when you know there aren't.

I also know a family who recently built a house on that side of the hill, a big house, when they began expanding Glenwood upwards around 2000. The couple almost put the house on the market because of ghost problems. Seriously. And this is a reasonable, very successful older couple who have lived in Glenwood for 20+. There contractors basically quit because so many strange things happened. They ultimately had a Miwok Indian priest bless the house although I don't know if it helped. Really weird stuff was going on, straight out of Poltergeist, and recently. I am not the only one that things China Camp is haunted.

Now a quick history:

China Camp has been a working state park since the late 70's. It was "purchased" for $2.70 and is about 1,600 acres. It connects to Harry Barbier park which is not a state park but rather owned by the city of San Rafael. China Camp was a Chinese Camp for many years and a fishing village. It primarily accommodated Chinese migrant workers who worked for the McNear family in their quarry which is located nearby. The quarry is still functioning btw, despite a huge amount of protest from local residents.

In the early 1900's legislation stopped shrimping in the bay (as well as increasing sediment levels in the bay) and the Chinese village broke up and slowly moved away.

Before the Chinese and before the settlement of San Rafael it was Coastal Miwok Indian Land. The hills of China Camp were the tribes hunting lands and were also the used as a site of burial and worship.

In the years between the Chinese village breaking up and the incorporation of the state park China Camp was accessible by car and a great spot for local high school kids to party. This explains the three old cars (that I am aware of) that are rusting away at the bottom of valleys up there. I know at least one of these crashes resulted in two dead teenagers. Whoah.

Final incident......China Camp was briefly made famous in 1975 by a occult influenced double murder popularly coined "the barbecue murders." A 19 year old dork from Terra Linda HS and his 16 year old girl friend killed both of her parents in a TL suburb, wrapped then in a carpet, doused it in lighter fluid and burned them in a fire pit in China Camp. There was a book written on the murders called Bad Blood.

Ok, so quick summary. China Camp land was initially Miwok Indian land. Countless Miwok Indians died of disease when San Rafael was being settled. Then it was Chinese land until the Chinese were forced out by changing laws and lack of food/sustenance from the Bay. At least two kids were killed up there in car crashes and it was the scene of a infamous occult double murder. It's also creepy as hell. I'd say that is a pretty strong case for a small, local state park.

Quick Story:

Last night about an hour after dark I was riding up on the far western side of China Camp with two friends. We were in a fairly isolated part of the park and randomly came across an older guy walking down a fire trail with no lights, no dog, nothing. Just walking out of the hills in the pitch dark, at least an hour after sunset. There wasn't even really a moon. Very strang.

Two of us ride past him with a quick nod of the head. Our third rider says hello and what does he respond with? "Don't get killed up there." Seriously.......