Best Glamping near Scappoose, OR

There are 8 walk in sites and one drive up site, all first come first serve discovery pass required. Some sites are larger than others, but in ours we were able to fit two 6ptents and one 2p tent. All campsites have a fire ring and picnic table. You’ll still see and hear your fellow campers, but it does seem semi private. Make sure to bring toilet paper, the bathroom seems to never be stocked. Make sure to haul out all trash.

You can’t use motorized boats and can only fly fish in the lake, but a very nice 1 mile hike is adjacent to the day use area. Also very close to Cougar for gas and supplies for emergencies. Driving distance to popular day hikes. No cell service.

This place is incredible. First to cover the basics.

The internet is super fast - I was getting 75mbps up/down when I was in my tent.

They have power/water hookups at each parking spot. The glamping tents have heaters, lights etc. There are heated indoor bathrooms with nice free hot water showers just a short walk away.

This place is at a year round camp/school that has multiple skate parks, trampolines, mountain biking courses, all season ski jumps etc. it’s an action sports camp.

They provide things like firewood and ice which they put in your cooler.

The people are super nice and accommodating. Ask for Jim - he handles all the camping stuff.

I stayed in the 1 of 5 tent spaces. They were a bit close to the other sites, but still large enough for a few tents if needed. There was only 1 parking lot for the tent/cabin spaces, so had to carry all my stuff about 100 feet. The bathrooms were clean and well lit at night. The bike paths through the campground/park were great and lots of people were using them all day. I walked the path around the entire park, which took me about 3 hours. Along the way got to see the Champoeg Heritage site with period piece actors, wide open spaces, and the Willamette River. There was a huge playground for the kids. There was also a large field area for dogs to roam around, just no fence. For being so close to the greater Portland area it felt like we were much further away. I would recommend this place, just make reservations early.

This campground is under very new ownership and the owners are some of the friendliest we’ve met to date. They are also in the process of renovating the property to make improvements. So as I review this it is with the anticipation of all the great changes to come.

Most of the tent sites had a decent amount of space, and the perimeter ones were a little more private too. We did see some campers set up on the roadside—not sure if they knew what they were getting at the time (I wouldn’t want to be right on the road).

There were some decently sized RV spots, but the pull through spaces looked a little crowded.

There are only two bathrooms, each having a toilet and shower in a self contained unit. Naturally, if two people are showering this means that all flush toilets are also occupied. There are two porta-potties to accommodate for this. The owners did keep the bathrooms as clean as possible—but the bathrooms could use some renovating themselves and have a musty smell. There is laundry on site. It’s not the quietest campground we’ve stayed at (not the noisiest either) and it might benefits from clearly defined quiet hours.

Two blocks away there are two gas stations with mini-markets.

Only a few minutes away are the Cougar and Beaver recreation areas in the Lewis River. It only takes 10 minutes to get to Mt St Helens Ape Cave, Trail of Two Forests and Lava Canyon area.

This is a campground on one of the roads leading to Mt. Saint Helen's. It was a decent sized campground with RV spots, tent spots, group spots, and walk-in spots. It had a huge playground area as well as a day use site with covered shelters within the park. The visitor center was a short 1 mile walk from the campground that had an under road tunnel leading under the highway. From the visitor center here was an additional path through the marsh with views of Mt. Saint Helen's, or at least I think there are views the smoke was so thick we could not see the mountain. At night the campground had a great Junior Ranger program with a very enthusiastic park ranger that kept the almost 50 people/kids entertained. She was great at engaging all the kids and teaching them about the park, highly recommend this for anyone bringing kids. For being completely full the nights we were there it was pretty quiet with only the occasional noise coming from the nearby highway.

We stayed in the group site, spot 60/61. Since we booked the group site we were required to book both of the spots at the same time. It was the smallest group site I have ever seen. There was barely room for the 3 tents we set up and originally we would have had almost 6, which would not have fit in this spot. There were 2 large tables as well as 2 fire pits, however 1 fire pit was inches away from the bushes and would not have been good for people to sit around. Luckily the other fire pit was great and we were all able to sit around it. The bathrooms and water were close by.

There were other sites that were much bigger and would be able to accommodate larger groups. I would not waste my money on the group site if you need more then 4 tents, honestly 3 was a squeeze. It's a great campground for those that are spending multiple days in Mt. Saint Helen's since it was a very short drive away.

**Ranger Review: GrubStick  at Promontory Park and Marina **

Campground Review: I hadn’t heard of Portland General Electric“PGE” Parks prior to a few weeks ago when friends invited us to camp with them. The campground and Marina were quite nice but one of the main reasons our friend booked this campground was to teach their daughters to fish in the stocked“kids only” pond. Unfortunately, the website doesn’t say the fish can’t survive in the pond during the hot summer months. The campground did, however, have awesome park staff (Matthew was AWESOME) who put on two great activities for kids every day. We stayed in a“Yome,” which is a cross between a yurt and a dome. Between our families, we had three young girls who got to attend two hosted activities per day. The campground has 50 campsites, a handful of yomes and small cabins, too. The restrooms and showers were a bit of a trek down a hill from our yome and weren’t clean as well or as often as I would have liked but, it was nice to have running water all the same. The campground has electric cooking stations and picnic areas spread throughout. Additionally, there is a large picnic shelter, with cooking facilities that you can rent. One of the biggest attractions to this park is the stocked pond called Small Fry Lake. It was developed for kids and is stocked from October to April(the fish can’t survive once the water temperature rises too high). Youth up the 17 can catch a limit of two fish per day. NOTE: the pathway to the“lake” is surprisingly steep!! They have a handrail however, it is steep! The store offers pre-packaged items as well as a handful of items such as corn dogs and hotdogs. There are a picnic and seating area and it appeared to have a small stage for live music. You can rent boats, kayaks, and canoes but, they are more expensive than most places(in my opinion). The marina is on gives easy access to the 350-acre North Fork Reservoir where you can fish and boat.

**Top reasons I love this campground: **

• Kids programming (give Ranger Matthew a raise!) 
• Kids only fishing pond Location(only an hour outside of Portland) 
• Yomes (fun for the family) 
• On the North Fork

Things I didn’t like about this campground: 

• The stocked kid's pond doesn’t have much fish throughout the summer because they can’t survive the heat BUT, this information isn’t on their website. 
• A bit of a trek to the restrooms Restrooms weren’t very clean No alcohol(just keepin it real)…………….

Product Review: As a Ranger for The Dyrt, I occasionally get to test products. At this campground, I tested the Grubstick Deluxe Kit. This collection of camping cooking utensils and accessories is fun and functional for the entire family. I love the compact 30” collapsible, stainless steel, telescope stick, with the rubber handle. It’s sturdy, easy to clean, and comfortable to hold. The Grubfork is awesome. It is strong enough to hold two hotdogs or marshmallows. The Grubcage is good for toasted s’mores (your graham cracker will get toasted or burned if you aren’t careful). It’s square and can hold wider items than the round Grubcage which is meant for burgers and patties. Both can hold items such as veggies, fruit, and bread or English muffins. The release tool takes a bit of getting used to operating while holding your Grubstick I would buy a ton of the handles and sticks to give as gifts but having to buy everything by the package is way too expensive. The good news is that I’ve heard that Grubstick is going to start selling individual pieces- hopefully, this is true. The Grubpocket is the size and shape of a marshmallow. We used this to create bacon pockets and it worked pretty well (can’t go wrong with bacon!). The bacon clip is tough to operate. It needs to be tight to hold the bacon in-place but, that also means that it is hard to squeeze open wide enough to go around tick cut bacon. The Grubtube is a steel cylinder that you can wrap the pastry around. I forgot the pastry but can’t wait to try out a few recipes and start to create our own! All in all, I love that the Grubstick products have given me a spark to rethink my camping meals!

Pros: 

• Rubber handle 
• Telescopic and collapsible to 30” Stainless steel and easy to clean 
• Makes me want to cook more creatively

Cons: 

• The bacon clip is really hard to open. 
• The grabber is good in theory and useless in reality. Falls off your fingers unless your fingers are tilted upward. 
• The packages are pricey 

Overall, I give the Grub Stick and Grubfork 5 stars and the accessories 3.5 stars.

Depending on what you’re looking for in a campsite, Vista Park either delights or disappoints.

Pros: Great views of the Columbia and the Oregon coast. Awesome beach access. Very kid friendly - a nice playground and open play park. Great paddling, cycling and nature trails fairly close-by. Camp hosts are lovely and helpful.

Cons: Many of the sites have really awkward setups — hookups on the wrong side, fire pits far away from pad, etc. The sites are really close together (for someone who likes forest camping), to the point where it’s difficult to set up a lounge area. For sites 12 and 13 the river views are obscured by site 14.

In summary, if you don’t mind a picturesque but awkward campground, you could do much worse than Vista Park.