Best Tent Camping near Oxbow, OR

We scheduled three nights here but after two nights of amazing lightning storms, we skipped the third night. Still, this is a beautiful place, very private, secluded, and shady. The fast-moving creek creates a soothing white noise that we found calming. The campsites are spaced quite far apart, some only large enough for a tent. No hookups, but there is a clean vault toilet. We planned to hit the nearby hiking trail, but when we got to the trailhead, the parking lot was completely packed. When we go there again, we will stay and relax at the campground.

We have high expectations since we’ve been at so many places, so please bear that in mind when reading this.

1. Only vault toilets and water spigots placed randomly around.
2. No electric/water hook ups, flushing toilets, or showers
3. Outside of one vault toilet building some animal made a nest above out of dirt where they continually poop out of that looks like it hasn’t been touched in months so when you go to use the restroom you walk by a giant pile of poop.
4. Pea gravel pads where they encourage you put your tent, not bad if you have a blow up mattress. It is nicely raked upon arrival.
5. Campsite was clean.
6. Most sites had trees, but not all so definitely check site pictures online if you need shade.
7. Most sites have a view of the lake, since it’s almost like a peninsula campground.
8. Nice boat ramps and lots of parking for boaters to leave trucks and trailers.
9. Bugs would get a bit crazy at random times of day depending on weather.
10. 20 minutes south of McCall if you wanted to get out and see a quaint little town.
11. Cows on opposite side of water from campground; you can hear them, but not smell them.

The fir trees stand tall and still. I can’t figure out if they are waiting for something to happen or if they simply don’t care.

If you’re looking for sone sort of gorgeous panorama, this might not be the place for you. It’s really just a small meadow in the mountains that the BLM put a vault toilet and a couple of fire rings in. That being said, this place is beautiful.

You can’t see rapid creek from the campground but you can hear it. And that’s really just as good. The white noise from the creek matched with the occasional bird or other nature sound is one of the most relaxing things on the planet.

It’s high enough in elevation that this place gets nippy at night. I stayed in early August and the temps dropped into the upper 30s at night.

The campground is well maintained and the vault toilet was reasonably clean when I arrived. It became Kevin clean shortly after I set up camp.

There are trails from both sites near the vault toilet that lead down to Rapid Creek.

I never saw any bear scat but signs on the property warn of them so be smart with your food.

All in all, Rapid Creek dispersed camping is excellent if you just want a quiet place where no one is around. It’s amazing but not for the reasons people usually like in my opinion. ◦

Lovely location in the mountains of Oregon. We drove a few thousand feet up a gravel road to get to this campsite. Easy access for my little sedan. I typed the latitude and longitude (found on the website) into my gps but lost service maybe 15 or 20 minutes before we arrived. Luckily it still was able to track our location and tell us “you have arrived” but as the campsite description said, these sites are spread out along the road, so it took us an extra 10 or 15 minutes to find the site we were going to stay at. The easiest campsites to find are at the trailhead of the North Fork Catharine Creek trail, which has a large parking lot with a minimal parking fee. The vault toilets are at this parking lot. For us, we crossed the bridge right before the parking lot and found a pull-off loop that had a few trailers with what seemed to be seasonal campers. They were cheerful and friendly. We went to the very back of the loop and found a nice secluded spot that was literally yards from the river. It was a primitive spot; it had no picnic table and only a fire ring made of rocks but since we had chairs we didn’t mind.

The forest floor was extremely easy to drive stakes into, and the river made a lovely background noise to fall asleep to.

The only thing I didn’t like was a couple bags of trash sitting on the side of the loop. We figured they were from the seasonal campers who put them at a distance so they didn’t have to deal with the smell. Not a great idea since an animal could get into it though. That’s something to keep in mind; THERE IS NO DUMPSTER so you have to pack all trash back out.

We stayed in the middle of July and it was delightfully cool, in the mid 70s during the day and dropped down to the upper 40s over night.

All in all a lovely overnight trip. I would go back.

Beautiful area, incredibly scenic and photographable, but a few things to be aware of.

There is a heck of a drive to get into this place, there’s a very winding and steep road to get there and it took us about an hour from White Bird. That being said, it was a very lovely and scenic drive, and based on the number of trailers and boats that were down there it doesn’t seem to deter many people. Just be aware you’ll want to come prepared with whatever you’ll need while you’re there because it’s not a quick ride back into town to get supplies (and make sure you have enough gas in your tank)

Also, word of warning to any dog owners; I discovered as soon as we unloaded from the vehicle that there are sticky burs absolutely everywhere on the ground and our furry labradoodle was soon covered with them. The first thing we did when we got back into cell phone range was call and schedule him a grooming appointment to get shaved because they were on every inch of his body and would be impossible to comb out.

The campsites are all pretty close together and since this is a desert area there are very few trees, so you will be able to see your fellow campers and they will be able to see you. Each site has a little canopy thing for both shade and I suspect some wind protection (it got extremely windy one of the nights we were there).

It was $8 a night when I was there in August 2020. There was a burn restriction in place from July 1st to September 15th according to posted signs.

If you do not have a trailer, there are some dispersed camping sites at the “Upper Landing” that are clearly marked. They are walk in only but didn’t appear to be too far to walk and seem that they would afford a bit more privacy if that’s what you’d looking for.

Farewell bend is a day use state park and campground located near Huntington Oregon and nestled on the Snake River.

The park is a dry desert setting with yellowing grasses, tall spiny trees and sand dunes. The snake river is a deep emerald green flowing with foam from the upriver reservoir.

The campground has three large loops that can accommodate the largest of personal busses down to the classic sleeping bag. There are electric and water connections, a sewer dump and a boat launch. There are a couple of rentable waterfront cabins available on C-loop.

Many fisherman come here to enjoy the well stocked waters, keep an eye out for the other river wildlife commonly seen, rattle snakes. Other water sports are welcome here, boating and waterskiing happens all day long. The dunes across the river are a popular off-road and motorized fun location.

The river is pretty much inaccessible from the campgrounds, the day use area allows for access to the rocky beach, but the waters edge is not clean sadly, polluted with litter and river foam.

The park is a very warm and sunny Oregon escape with little to no cellular service.