Camping near Gifford Pinchot National Forest

Spent a quiet weekend at Little Soda Springs Rd Dispersed and loved it. The area is peaceful with a nice mix of forest and open space—felt super remote with hardly anyone else around. We found a great shady spot not far from a small creek, and it was perfect for relaxing. Heads up: there’s absolutely no cell service, so make sure to download any maps or trail guides(we used an offline hiking APK) before you get there. It’s close to Mount St. Helens and Columbia River Gorge, so we got in a great day hike. Nights were cool, days were warm and bug-free. Forest service came by once, which was nice to see. You’ll need a Forest Pass.

We stopped for a picnic lunch as we were passing through with our camper, but we didn’t stay over night.

When we drove through the camp loop, the sites looked a little on the small side, but clean and with good tree coverage for shade and wind break. We have a 36’ bumper pull, and hubby said he wouldn’t have had problems parking there.

The first day use area had a little play structure, the river access day use area was large enough for a handful of vehicles and our combined 58’ of truck and camper. There were multiple picnic tables along the path to the river, and along the water access itself and the bathroom in this area was clean, according to our teenager. We enjoyed watching the wind surfers, and wading in the river as we ate our lunch and allowed the kids to exert some energy.

We’re keeping this park in mind for our next trip through the corridor!

Absolutely loved the spot. There were about three sites. I believe from what I saw. I stayed at the first site when you first get there back there on the right hand side. It's a short hike down to the creek. It looks like there might be two walk-in campsites as well and I believe there might be one if you walk across the Creek. It's very close to trapper Creek trailhead and there is a vault toilet there. Minimal bugs didn't get any bug bites and it was in the '90s while I was there. Very little traffic. Not far from the highway just in case of emergencies. Absolutely no cell service. You must have a Northwest Forest pass or America the beautiful pass. Forest service does drive through there frequently to check

So I want to start out by saying this campground was not bad but I had the impression from the pictures I saw beforehand that the campsites were pretty well spaced out, not the case. At all. They are practically connected, only a few trees between each site. We don’t go camping to socialize, we go camping to get away from everyone and enjoy nature, that’s really hard to do when people are set up barely 30 feet from you. I want to hear birds and the trees and other nature sounds not other people’s conversations, music, cars etc. so having booked this site months in advance I was upset with the situation and lack of privacy we ended up leaving. We did go down the trail to the lower falls which were very beautiful and maybe this kind of campground with the sites all crammed together is other people’s idea of camping but not ours. I would like to add the campground host was very nice and also helpful.

Absolutely beautiful campground in Washington state nestled into the woods between Randall and Morton on the Cowlitz River. 4 loops to choose from. 2 with electric and water, 2 geared to tent or dry trailer camping. Loop A & D have utilities for camping with the water Spicket and drains in each loop. Nice, clean bathrooms with showers in every loop. Boat ramp and dump station available for campers. Recreation fields and trails nicely groomed. Very attentive staff regularly driving around cleaning and checking on the campground. I would say the only drawback is that they don’t have sewer hook ups. We stayed Friday to Monday trying to be moderately careful filling our tanks and did just fine dumping tanks on our way out. We will definitely be back to this PNW Beauty.