Best Tent Camping near Malheur National Forest, OR

Campground is very well maintained. Excellent tent sites and bathrooms.

Free camping in sno park parking lot in Malheur National Forest between May and October. Huge parking lot, accessible for any giant RV. Lot is flat enough, not totally flat but good enough for the night. 

There’s an accessible pit toilet here but it was locked when we stayed here in July. 

We had the whole lot to ourselves for the night. Very peaceful and quiet, very minimal traffic and road noise. Nice forest roads to walk along. Lots of green grass and trees when we came in July. 

No amenities here at all, please pack out your waste and keep it clean. Zero cell reception here in this entire area with Verizon or ATT but the lot is in a big clearing with no trees around so I’m guessing starlink would work well here.

Our truck broke down just outside of Burns and we ended up having our travel trailer towed to this RV park, as it was the only place we could stay for the week while waiting to get our truck repaired. We had a full hookup spot, which was super nice, but the spot itself was pretty small. This is typical of many RV parks I have been too - good amenities but small spot.

There were some other spots in the park that were slightly larger and had picnic tables, but ours did not. We had only a tiny plastic table with 2 chairs, but we were so close to the RV next to us that we were basically either looking in their window or we would have to be right next to the "road'. Not ideal so we didn't spend much time outside.

There was room here for all sizes of campers - from tents (I saw I guy on a bicycle who tent camped for the night) to giant motorhomes with cars towed behind. The park hosts were all extremely nice and helpful, given our circumstances. They also gave us a military discount since my husband is a veteran.

Restrooms and showers were fairly small (only 2 toilets and 2 showers in each bathroom) but I think most folks used the facilities in their RVs. The shop/office sells propane and ice, so we were able to restock on both (plus they have wine and ice cream if you need a little splurge).

The park is right off of the highway so you may get some truck/traffic noise but it didn't seem to bother us city folks too much. :)

Wifi was fairly decent and you can get some local channels in the TV, if those things are important to you.

Dog and kid friendly, but there is really not much for either to do here.

Overall, this suited our purpose, in that we had a nice safe place to stay while our truck was repaired, but I'm not sure I would stay here just for kicks. Close to the Malheur Wildlife Refuge and a great stopover if you need a night to rest while driving through the high desert of Oregon.

a couple tent spots. sub-par for tents, not scenic. but clean, bathrooms, fresh water. rv hook ups, some nice shade and a play area for kids. in the town of prairie city, with good coffee

Needed a place to pitch a tent for the night and stopped here. The park is fairly large and has a lot of shade trees around it. Unfortunately, I guess the tent area they normally use was closed and I was directed to pitch my tent behind the front office. It was a small shaded grassy area. For $20, it worked. The only real complaint I would have was the bathroom area could have used some cleaning, both inside and out, washing and cleaning of showers, sinks, shelves, sweeping up of dirt and leaves around the building.

We chose Dixie because it was a little closer to civilization than Yellow Pine, Wetmore & Oregon campgrounds further east on Hwy 26. There is no host, it’s at a higher elevation and it is a little off the highway. The loop is kind of on two levels so some spaces are well spaced out. Vault toilets distributed around the loop. The one we used was clean and supplied. There were only 2-3 other sites occupied and no one near us when we stayed. No reservations. We chose a site that sat a bit downhill from where our car was parked but was a really lovely spot. We didn’t mind hauling our stuff down. The wind picked up the first afternoon we were there and we actually saw a tree fall in the distance which was a little disconcerting. Just be aware of where you place your tent and the trees around you. Absolutely beautiful area with wild strawberries and blueberries and salmon berries, currants and more. Loved the peace and tranquillity of this campground but close enough to Prairie City which is where we got firewood (from Mountain View mini mart, no wood at Huffman’s Market & no wood at Austin House market at the top of the pass). We visited the little Sumpter Railroad interpretive site and Bates State Park both great for walking around with kids. Would definitely come back and do more hiking in the Blue Mountains.

Right by the freeway but super nice park. Showers, fhu, cable, wifi is really slow, tee pee, tent and RV Park.

One vault toilet, nice padded tent spots, access to water, $5 a night. Nice little paved hike that is wheelchair accessible and let's you see some nice big trees. Very quiet on a Friday night in June.

Enjoyed a last sunny weekend home at this campground. I am a tent camper and enjoyed the weekend. Quite and clean. Alot of spaces for larger groups and elbow room between most spaces.

This campground has 8 sites all but the first site have easy creek access, sites are large and can fit a few tents! 7 has a direct path to the restroom.

This is basically a little RV park adjacent to a museum and playground. Points for character. It’s off the main drag and there are not a lot of choices in the area. Big lawn is well watered. However, I can’t get behind the prices. $14 just to pitch a tent is steep. Bathrooms are filthy, shower (behind a ragged shower curtain) is not worth paying for.

The 6-mile gravel road, while mostly level was not ideal. But plenty of spots, pit toilets and water spigots. The creek is pretty high and the current very strong and the spots next to it fairly small I didn’t even want to attempt to set up my tent down there.

May 17-26, 2019 Very nice campground. Site C6 walk-up site had electric and water. Park has dump station, Restrooms had flush toilets but no hot water and no showers. Elevation 4,097. Verizon had 2 bars 4G.  Address: 17564 Sumpter Stage Highway, Baker City Oregon 97814. Hike 16 mile trail around the lake. Legally sale cannibus in Sumpter - 10 miles from the park. Enjoyed D&J Taco Shop restaurant downtown. No sales tax in Oregon.

This camp is 6 miles off the highway along a path that is better described as a loose pile of stones than a dirtroad. The camp itself is not really set up for tents and needs some maintenance. It was buggy, but that might have been the time of year. Much more crowded than expected, entirely rvs and truck campers. The views were disappointing given that there are much more spectacular views only a few miles away. It was near the river though.