Best Tent Camping near Wallowa, 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 tent camped for the weekend in mid-July. The plan was to camp at Jubilee Lake, but it was full when we arrived Friday evening. Target Meadows is just a short drive from the lake, but there were plenty of sites available. The campground is heavily wooded with beautiful evergreens. Sites are private and well spaced. This is a rustic campground, so there is no water or power. Amenities include (very clean!) pit toilets, picnic tables, and fire pits with cooking grates. There is a lot of dry timber on the ground, so it is easy to collect your own firewood. There is easy access to hiking, including Burnt Cabin trailhead. Most campsites are trailer friendly, including a few with drive-through access. We really enjoyed the area and will be back again!

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.

Wallowa-Whitman NF

NF 21 

aka Spring Creek Campground 

La Grande, OR

45.2125.6N, 118.1843.3W (Campground)

45.3679N, 118.2972W (signboard)

45.36944, -118.29997 (2nd spot)

14 Day limit

V 4g/2-3b, ATT 4g/1-2b (no booster)

Dirt & grass

Campground:

Not for bigger rigs. 4 spots fairly close together, picnic tables, pit toilets.  Loop in is tight, and while we are only 34' long, we're 13.8 on truck and had to do some creative maneuvering to get ourselves back out. Cell signal here was almost non existent, and fairly dense tree cover if using solar.

There was one spot on the left before getting to the Campground we could have fit into, but again, dense tree cover. Didn't check cell signal here.

There is supposed to be more spots past the campground,  but we haven't taken the bikes out yet to explore. 

Signboard:

Easily found a spot, even on Labor Day weekend (Friday).  This area could handle 4 or 5 rigs. Cell signal better, but still bounced in/out a bit. We stayed here 2nts to get past the holiday weekend.  Picked up a lot of micro trash, spent shells, and broken bottles. This is also the area where a lot of a sxs park for Day Use. VERY dusty area.

2nd Spot:

WOW what a difference.  After we decided to hang out in the area for a bit longer, we knew we had to move off the main road as the dust was making our solar pout. As you come in, just before the signboard there is a road going up a hill to the right. It looks intimidating,  but can be done going slow in 4wd. We found 3 great spots up there without going back very far. 

There are spots further back, as we saw people pulling trailers out, but we haven't explored them yet. We chose the 1st spot on the left for the full solar and gorgeous view of the meadow, tree line, and mountains in the distance. Cell signal comes in stronger on this ridge, but still a little fickle without a booster... note to self, get booster. Picked up medium sized and micro trash here, as well as bullet casings and broken bottles... and a special thanks to whomever left a bag of rotting frozen chicken wings...that was fun, but the view is worth it, and SO MUCH LESS dust.

There is a spot across (right side of road) where we've had over nights pull in late, but they left by 9am and both were very quiet setting up. Other than them, and the people from further back pulling out after the weekend, we've been alone up here.

There is a GORGEOUS spot further up on the right, but I couldn't get any signal.

From all but the campground,  you will hear road noise. I84 is just beyond the trees. I pretend it's waves (don't judge), my husband uses ear plugs. We've both had no issues sleeping.  

If we had only had the 1st 2nts experience I would say we would only be back as a last minute overnight, having discovered this other area, yep we'd be back no problem. 

As with all boondocking,  scouting out is the key.