Evacuating - Parking/camping spot in Western Oregon ?

[John in Santa Cruz]

wife and I had to evacuate our santa cruz house(*)... currently 'street camping' outside a friend's house in Hollister, but its smokey here (and just about everwherre else in California... https://go.nasa.gov/32k3aVC ). Thinking of heading up to western oregon for a week or so til we get an 'all clear' at home... trouble is, we don't really know anyone up there, and all official campsites seem to be booked solid for months.

per chance do any forum members have a place in western oregon we could park our E21 and F250 for a couple weeks? Being able to run an extension cord would be nice if you live where its hot, but not required. Being within an hour of a town where we can restock our supplies would be nice. Not adverse to dirt roads, the truck is a 4x4 with all terrain tires, as long as its not so rough an E21 would scrape. We're neat, clean and quite, both 65 and retired techies...


(*) we are at the southern extreme of the evac zone, its highly unlikely we'll lose our house, but they want the area cleared just in case....

[TTMartin]

At least pre-Covid, Diamond Lake has fantastic first come first serve camping sites. It is a few minutes north of the entrance to Crater Lake National Park. There are even first come first served sites right on the lake front.

[TTMartin]

Diamond Lake Campground (oregonsbestcamping.com)

Diamond Lake Campground is one of Oregon's premier camping spots. The campground features 238 campsites. Fifty-one of the sites have premium, lakeside locations. More secluded campsites are found a little farther inland among the trees. Campsites on G, H, an M Loops can be reserved. Those on K and L Loops are first-come, first served.

United States Department of AgricultureForest Service
Umpqua National Forest
Diamond Lake Campground

This was our first come first serve site last August. We moved to the lake side site, across drive after the first night.

[Donna D.]

Wish I could help, but I can't even park my own trailer here at home

But I wanted you to know, the Rogue Valley is VERY smokey right now. So you may want to avoid that area.

[John in Santa Cruz]

Originally Posted by Donna D.

Wish I could help, but I can't even park my own trailer here at home

But I wanted you to know, the Rogue Valley is VERY smokey right now. So you may want to avoid that area.

thats like around Medford? Yeah, I was thinking a lot west of there, like west of I5 or even better close to the coast.

[John in Santa Cruz]

Originally Posted by TTMartin

Diamond Lake Campground (oregonsbestcamping.com)

Diamond Lake Campground is one of Oregon's premier camping spots. The campground features 238 campsites. Fifty-one of the sites have premium, lakeside locations. More secluded campsites are found a little farther inland among the trees. Campsites on G, H, an M Loops can be reserved. Those on K and L Loops are first-come, first served. anyways, that whole part of Oregon is under a giant smoke cloud, thats what we're trying to escape, its killing my sinuses, my eyes are all red.

United States Department of AgricultureForest Service
Umpqua National Forest
Diamond Lake Campground

This was our first come first serve site last August. We moved to the lake side site, across drive after the first night.
Attachment 49810

huh, sites say reservations required, nothing about first come first serve, and nothing is available until the next block releases some time in september.

[SamIam]

Three Rivers Casino. Florence. On the coast.

Either boondocking or a campground with hookups.

Stayed in the free boondocking area years ago. Decent buffet.


https://www.campendium.com/three-rivers-casino-hotel


https://www.threeriverscasino.com/rv-parking

Sam

[SamIam]

One more we enjoyed years ago.

Salmon Harbor Marina. Right on the water. Always a nice ocean breeze.

Douglas County Oregon e-Government - Salmon Harbor

[TTMartin]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

huh, sites say reservations required, nothing about first come first serve, and nothing is available until the next block releases some time in september.

Looks like they went to reservation only upon Covid reopening on 6/23. There are sites available except on Friday and Saturday.

https://www.recreation.gov/camping/c...0/availability

There are other campgrounds in the area, but, most seem to require reservations now too. I didn't check availability.

https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/umpq...63378&actid=29

[John in Santa Cruz]

pretty much every campground I've tried anywheres has been booked solid all spring/summer, I suspect with all the family activities like Disneyland closed, *everyone* is going camping. My son, who lives in Reno, and rides dualsport dirty bikes in the Sierras, says everywhere you could possibly get an RV up a fire road is packed with 2-3, and all signs are, lousy campers throwing loud messy parties.

thats why I was asking if anyone had a bit of land or something I could park on for a few weeks.

[TTMartin]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

pretty much every campground I've tried anywheres has been booked solid all spring/summer, I suspect with all the family activities like Disneyland closed, *everyone* is going camping. My son, who lives in Reno, and rides dualsport dirty bikes in the Sierras, says everywhere you could possibly get an RV up a fire road is packed with 2-3, and all signs are, lousy campers throwing loud messy parties.

thats why I was asking if anyone had a bit of land or something I could park on for a few weeks.

You're welcome to park next to my boat in Ohio.

[Starbrightsteve]

It’s a ways away from Oregon but try Buffalo camp at the American Prarie Reserve. 10 bucks a nite with electric only. Every time I camped there I had the place to myself.

[John in Santa Cruz]

Sadly, as of this morning, a lot of Montana was covered in the smoke from the fires here. I chose the oregon coast as being the closest area thats in the clear.

I'm beginning to think we should stay within a few hours drive of home and just suck it up. Wife wants to hit the road long distance, but 22 hours of driving one way? eeeek.

[Bobbie54]

Head up to Washington. No smoke once you get past the river. No land here but I do have a driveway (on a beach road) and a friend who might have a boondocking spot on her land. Not to mention Washington has nice rest areas!

[Artlady]

John, we’re so sorry to hear of your situation!
Although I am nowhere near there, I do have a suggestion. When we picked up our trailer two months ago, we stayed at a place in Fernley Nevada called the Desert Rose.
It’s a good Sam camp, right in town. The showers and baths areas there are sparkling clean and excellent!
That’s about 5 hours from you, north east of Reno.
I’m pretty sure they would have openings as they’re basically in the middle of nowhere! The naval base is there, and a Walmart too. When we picked up our trailer, we also visited my son who lives there (he’s a growler EA-18 NFO/pilot.)
We had a chance to see the Jets takeoff and do their maneuvers. Quite exciting!!

There’s some pretty good fishing in the mountain pass on the border as well.
So, you can turn some lemon situations into some pretty good lemonade if you decide to go there.
Good luck!

Desert Rose, Fernley NV
https://www.desertroserv.com/
(775) 575-9399

[dfandrews]

John,
Coastal sites:

San Simeon SP north of Cambria, and Montana de Oro south of Morro Bay/Los Osos, are campgrounds that, because they don't have electricity at the sites, usually have some spots available.
Morro Bay SP, at the SE corner of the town of Morro Bay, by contrast, is tougher to get in, because they do have electrical.

[UncleTim]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

pretty much every campground I've tried anywheres has been booked solid all spring/summer, I suspect with all the family activities like Disneyland closed, *everyone* is going camping.

This has been one strange Summer. Campgrounds in the Rockies went from empty to pegged full in 2 weeks. In early June, there were all sorts of spaces available.

By mid June, everything was full. But when I went around the campgrounds I was in, they were half full at best. Lots of reservations were not filled. And these campgrounds have a policy that if you do not attend your camp first night, you lose your reservations. I just don't get this behavior.

This is the weirdest summer on record for me. I have had lots of fires in Summer, but not this huge set of changing circumstances.

Crazy year!

[Rossue]

Originally Posted by dfandrews

John,
Coastal sites:

San Simeon SP north of Cambria, and Montana de Oro south of Morro Bay/Los Osos, are campgrounds that, because they don't have electricity at the sites, usually have some spots available.
Morro Bay SP, at the SE corner of the town of Morro Bay, by contrast, is tougher to get in, because they do have electrical.

Unfortunately both are closed to camping.

[Sandra L]

You may want to check the Oregon coast again as you can make a reservation up to 30 days in advance (changed for the year from up to 9 months). C loop at Bullard's beach is open I think all year...
also there is a +/- place across (kind of ) on the Coquille River that had several open spots the time of the FGRV rally. I think itis called the Coquille River RV park... it can be a bit dusty, but my sister and her husband have stayed there when visiting me during that rally when no Bullard's Beach spots were opened. There are a couple of other nearby RV spots. But I don't know if you have had a chance to cvheck them out. Good luck! I'm heading up to Oregon and I was hoping the smoke would be gone once I got over the Siskiyou Pass.

[rubicon327]

Originally Posted by UncleTim

By mid June, everything was full. But when I went around the campgrounds I was in, they were half full at best. Lots of reservations were not filled. And these campgrounds have a policy that if you do not attend your camp first night, you lose your reservations. I just don't get this behavior.

I wonder if campgrounds were manipulating reservations. I know when NJ reopened camping it was at "50% capacity". Existing reservations were supposedly honored but the campground I was at in late July was almost empty and it would typically be quite full on a summer weekend.