Road trip suggestions wanted..Oregon

Lapine state park is a great starting place. But you will need reservations.

Shuttle Lake outside of Sisters. There are three FS campgrounds right on the lake. There are several other FS campgrounds in the area, some of which are on the Metolius River.

Newberry Crater, Metolius River, Cascade Lakes Hwy (Fall River, Upper Deschutes, Crane Prairie, Hosmer Lake). Ton of NFS boondocking or FS campground opportunities. Couple of links that could prove useful...

http://www.west-fly-fishing.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/forums/4/1/oregon.html
http://oregonflyfishingblog.com/

BBF

Been to Shuttle the one on the east end I found to be very nice.

Go along the Columbia. Out to Hood River from Mt Hood, stop at the Dalles museum, visit the locks at Bonneville...camp on the bluff over looking river on both sides. You see others just pick a spot. There is a toilet building there and if you have a 4-way hose bib key you can get some water, just don't be too conspicuous. Have hose ready to go. Ask if there is someone official around. Don't remember any dump.

Then along old river highway to all the falls and maybe up to the lookout at Vista House...Troutdale has good fuel prices...hit Portland and go eat at the place that was featured on Diners Dives and Drive-ins (give something to do to find out the places name on the website.) Then head for home...that should fill your 9 days. There is a C.O. beach at Rooster Rock SP. Loads of nice camping SP on river. Enjoy your planning and trip.

We visited Silver Falls State park a few years ago and thought it very interesting. Yeah its an Oregon State park so very developed, but you can hike up the river past 10 waterfalls, very enjoyable.

Buzzcut,

Try Hosmer Lake located on Century Drive outside of Bend. Fly fishing only with trout and atlantic salmon fishing. No motors on the lake so very peaceful. Small forest service campground, but could be a good base camp for all of centeral Oregon. Great for Kayaks as well.

Enjoy!

For boondocking next to a lake, try Crane Prairie Reservoir on the south side of the lake off of NF-4285. I was able to get my tall DRW rig in there and down to the water with no damage, but it was very tight. Crane Prairie is off of the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway (46) and is a great place to spend a couple of days before you head into Bend. It's between Crater Lake and Bend. Take mosquito repellant. There are lots of private spots, but most of them were taken 4th of July week so it took us a while to finally find one. Well worth it though.

We took a week-long trip through Oregon earlier this year, and our favorite campground (not boondocking) was Nehalem Bay state park on the coast near Manzanita. 2nd was Jackson F Kimball state park, which is just south of Crater Lake ($11 / night). 3rd was Maryhill on the Columbia river. We did not care for Beverley Beach at all. If I had it to do all over again I would spend more time at Crater Lake and Crane Prairie and the rest at Nehalem/Manzanita.

Hi Buzz,
There are a lot of nice places in Oregon. Even just taking a chance on something would likely be rewarding.
An old trip report of ours along the Oregon coast and mountains up through Hood River.
Along the caost, there is a river between Reedsport and Florence with three NFS CGs all of which are nice. We would hike along the river to the ocean about a mile for some beautiful scenery along the way and walking along the beach. Lots of Eagles and sea birds.

Another spot we really liked was in the mountains called Cascadia SP east of I-5 on Hwy 20 which will also take you towards Bend. There are pictures and information about it in the middle or so of this report. We really liked it there and extended our stay it was so relaxing. You can swim and fish in the river pools beneath the bridge as you come into the CG. When we were there, a very nice retired vet would gather folks around the flag pole and talk about the flag and it's care as he performed the daily retiring of the flag. There is an ancient Native American campsite about a half mile hike through the woods. There is a nice trail that hikes up hill from the CG to a water fall. We found the CG to be impressively well maintained.
From there you can continue west on 20 then head north on 22 to Detroit lake. Turn East onto Breitenbush road where with a detailed map, you can take the forest roads to Mt Hood and down to Hood River. A spectacular drive all the way. Just for fun, drive through the little campgrounds along the road. They are really pretty little diversions. One has or had an artesian pump well you could use for drinking.
Have yourself a great trip.

There were two posts regarding Oregon . . .

Topic: Ideas on camping spots? Picking up my 2015 wolf creek in May
Posted By: anutami on 03/25/14 10:49pm
http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/27612650/print/true.cfm

Topic: Wolf Creek 850 Break in Period TR Oregon to the Redwoods
Posted By: anutami on 06/02/14 07:17pm
http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/27746140/print/true.cfm

If the weather isn't great on the west side, I'd be tempted to go up to Alturas. Just west of town on 299 is a county road #73 (aka Crowder Flat Road). 50 miles of gravel through the Modoc NF into the Fremont NF of southern OR. Lots of pot hole lakes for fishing. NF Lofton Reservoir CG is a nice area. A lot of the development roads in the Fremont area are paved, so nice road bike riding. Most CG in this area don't have water. Plenty of back routes to get you to Bend.

2x Newberry Crater National Monument. A very large obsidian flow hike inside the crater is really amazing. Little Crater CG on Paulina lake is very nice if you can get a spot.

After all the usual activities in Bend and Sisters, consider heading west over McKenzie Pass (Hwy 242 out of Sisters) very pretty, with an impressive lava flow at the top of the pass. Narrow curvy road, but very doable. Take some FS development roads to the south and east through the Willamette and Umpqua NF back over to the Diamond lake area. Time will go fast, jump on 97 south but when you get to Klamath Falls consider taking 39 SE toward Hatfield, or just north of Doris head east on 161 toward Hatfield. Then back route it to the Lava Beds National Monument Caves before heading home.

If you use a charting/mapping program on a laptop, like Delorme or MS that can import waypoints, I have an excel file or text file you can PM me for which will locate 566 NF, State Park and National parks and monuments in Oregon by GPS position. Makes free form trips in the region easy.

Everybody on the west coast should be checking out central / eastern Oregon as the last total eclipse of the sun in the US, until almost 2050, will happen on 8/21/2017