Best Equestrian Camping near Crater Lake National Park

This campground is huge! We stayed at K035 which was an awesome site right off the lake. We had a great view of Mt. Bailey, and also access to the lake from our site. We were not super far from the restrooms so that was also great. The restrooms aren’t too bad. The women’s restroom was clean, but the men’s restroom wasn’t as clean. The boat launch which was a three minute drive from our site has showers and bathrooms also. These showers are warm, and don’t forget to donate to the shower box to help maintain it. The water felt really awesome and we kayaked from our campsite right in. There are a lot of black bugs that just land on you almost every other minute here. You get over it though. There’s a store down the road from the area we were at which was the marina and boat rental store. They sell a bunch of groceries but of course they’re pricier than normal it’s a camp store. The location makes it’s perfect to visit Crater Lake National Park being 30 minutes or so away. It is also about 40 minutes or less from Toketee falls which is an easy hike and pretty popular. Beautiful views the whole way, definitely worth staying at.

We were headed to Thompson Creek reservoir, but opted for this lovely little FS campground.  We had the place to ourselves the first night and another camper came in for the 2nd.  Easy pull-through site, pretty level and fit both rigs.  Otherwise plenty of room between sites.

It was a bit of a trek down gravel roads to get here.  Took it easy, though, and no problems.

 Lovely walks and hikes to be had.  Beautiful stargazing.  Clean pit toilets and clean overall campground.  There were corrals at one end for horse camping.  No cell service. (in 2020)

4 stars only because of the sometimes-washboard road to get here.

From here we visited Crack in the ground, Cowboy Dinner Tree, The Sand Dunes, Fort Rock and Christmas Valley.

Collier State Park is a typically nice Oregon State park, with the benefit that there's often spaces open only a few days out that you can book online and just 30 miles from Crater Lake. There's enough to keep kids busy for a day or so, including the free logging museum across the road. Clean bathrooms and showers and tons of rangers/employees getting sites ready, picking up litter etc. Prices were great, just $19 for tent sites and $29 for a full RV hook-up, including a few pull-through spots, plus flush toilets and showers. On our recent road trip in a 32-foot RV, this was probably the best deal of anywhere we went. For a state park, though, spots were right on top of each other, with very little in terms of privacy.

Pros:

• Nice, well maintained facilities
• Good deal, especially for RVs with hook-ups.

Cons:

• Spots felt very crowded and on top of each other.
• Horrible mosquitoes kept us inside the RV in the evening.

We stayed one night on August 17 through August 18, 2019, in campsite A5, the overnight cost was$24, there was no electrical or water service). The site was level, only needed 2 inch lift to level left side. The campground is at an elevation of 5180 ft. 

Access to the campground was right off hwy 138, which is a few miles from the north entrance to Crater Lake. Our 28 ft travel trailer easily fit with room to spare in our site. Once we enter the campground, the asphalt pavement surrounds the campsites as we drove directly to our campsite, each campsite pad also asphalt. Weather was sunny upper 80's, the nights low 40's. 

This is a very quite campground, there was no noise from main road entering the campground. Activities we enjoyed at the campground to keep busy was hiking and moutain biking. The restroom was a couple spaced down from our campsite. The free showers were also easy to find and had great water pressure. The lake is very nice, smooth water and a few mosquitos, but not that bad. 

My wife and I enjoyed the campground, we will stay again next time we travel to Crater Lake, Oregon.

This is a very large campground with over 200 sites.  I stayed overnight, July 3, 2023.  I was a walk in .  The ranger office was closed when I arrived and they did not have a list of available sites posted.  I found a site, K11, without any reserved tag and spent a wonderful night.  There was a very strong onshore breeze from the lake that kept the mosquitoes grounded and I didn't really need repellant.

The campground is two halves.  In the upper half, the campsites are higher, above the lake.  To the south or east, the sites are closer to the lake.  Water was only available (non threaded faucets) outside the flush latrines, which were not very well kept (mostly due to the dead bugs).  There is not electricity and I was only able to get 2 bars on Verizon.  I could get a text through, but rarely a photo.

I have camped throughout Oregon and what impressed me as different were the large number of tent campers.  More than half were tent camping, though the site would fit small to medium size rigs.  I only saw one Class A and few trailers.  Noisy neighbors can be a problem, as the sites though not exactly next to each other, are still close.  The roads and parking for sites are paved, but some have very steep driveways.  Be careful in your site selection if you have a long trailer or RV.

There are some nearby stores and gas station if you need, but very little else.  A very beautiful spot with lots to do and see nearby.