Best Dispersed Camping near Mossyrock, WA

It's ok just a spot to pull over and camp really. There is a trail next to it I don't know how far but, it's cool. The road up the Montana is dirt but some parts are very rocky. Not many dispersed camping spots just pullover spots really

This dispersed camping is free, huge bonus in my book. While searching for our perfect spot we did come across a few large parties, making us apprehensive that we would experience our ideal peaceful experience, but we were wrong to be. There were dozens of open sites that we had our pick of. A handful of cars drove by throughout the evening and night, but not an outrageous amount. Pretty dang good for very accessible NF camping spots. There are a good deal of trailheads near by, meaning you're never too far from a pit toilet or a bulletin board with information.

We visited in early September and found the weather to be very pleasant. Our view of Mt. St Helen's was obscured by the tall trees that offered our site seclusion and privacy, but we relished the view of the active volcano while driving to and from our site.

There are a lot of places for dispersed camping along FS-83, but they do get pretty full on nice weekends. Overall enjoyable camping, just expect neighbors and some trash from previous occupants.

Pumice Butte is a dispersed camping area along the Loowit trail that circles Mt St Helens. If you're starting from Ape Canyon or June lake Pumice Butte is a great place to camp for your first night (about 5-6 miles in respectively) There is some tree cover here before you enter the Plains of Abraham that works for shade or a wind break - you mind need both.

There is not much water along the trail, but we found a small spring about 1 mile past Pumice Butte

This is my first wildcamping/boondocking location, but I loved it. It feels like you're right in the middle of the forest! It's a wide dirt pullout with room for 7-10 cars. And although it's right alongside the road, it's not a super busy road like some highway spots, so it felt pretty secluded and quiet. Very few cars at night.

No signs of any kind indicating "no parking." 1 bar of Verizon LTE.

The dirt was solid -- I wasn't worried at all about getting stuck in the mud (and I'm here in the middle of winter with tons of recent rain). Plenty of room to turn around with ease.

And you're right at a hiking trail that takes you to beautiful falls!! What more could you ask for? -- Don't make the mistake I did. The trail all the way on the left side of the parking lot takes you to the falls. The trails in the middle of the lot are super steep and muddy and don't lead to the falls.

Only downside is it's not perfectly flat. It wasn't too bad though. I just parked with my head pointing uphill when I go to bed, of course.

There is also another option down the road to the east about 500 feet. It's a paved pullout, but it is smaller so it doesn't have as much space to turnaround.

Got here around sunset. Looks like some good camping spots to walk into. Beautiful view of Rainier. There was a little bit of traffic but nothing crazy. Would stay here again.

This is a dispersed campsite near the south side of Mount St. Helens. It's free, which is always great. The drive in is just off the highway and up a little hill, but my car had no problems with it. There's a lot of space here. From our spot, we saw at least a half a dozen fire pits, but we were the only ones there. It has some nice trees and a trail. Up the road is Lava Canyon, where there are toilets if you need. There are some decently flat spots for a tent and I felt was all around a good site.

Found this campsite when driving up to the south side of Mount St. Helens Hikes - it is situated between Ape Caves (farther away) and pretty close to Lava Canyon and Ape Canyon.

It is pretty close to the road, so we could hear road noise. However, there's nothing past the campsite really besides a couple more campsite spots and the hikes, so there really wasn't any road traffic at night.

It's easy enough for a car to pull in to - my honda fit had no problem. This spot on a circle pull-out that has a couple more sites, but this is the only one you drive right up to. The circle pull out looks like a spot for RVs. My hiking buddy said the middle of the pull-out had a fire ring, but I didn't go investigate.

Our spot had a fire ring, a nice flat spot for the tent and trees close enough together that we set up the hammock.

There is a little trail that I didn't use too much, except to find a place to use the bathroom. If you do this method, remember to bring a trowel and dig. Please practice this method and keep it nice for the next people. I did see a fair bit of TP on the trail :( There is also a toilet up the road at Lava Canyon, but despite a sign in the bathroom proclaiming it a smell-free toilet, it was frankly the worst smelling toilet I have ever experienced, so I preferred the outdoors.

The site is sheltered by large trees which gave it a nice feel of privacy.

We went camping twice this past week because it was so beautiful! We entered near Cougar and passed Lower Lewis Falls. There are multiple sites along the road, some have plenty of room for RVs but I wouldn't want to drive one on the roads. We explored the Forrest and ended up driving all the way to Trout Lake. Found great sites for multiple people, on the river or off the river, and multiple sites that are smaller and more secluded.

This was a large pull-off right off of NF-52, so there was no privacy from the hwy but at least the area was big enough to be a little distanced from traffic. The spots on the river were already occupied when I was looking late on a Sat afternoon, this is a popular dispersed area. The entire area was littered with toilet paper and discarded furniture. There was also a memorial hidden in some trees just out of sight of 52. Wouldn't have been a bad spot if people had picked up after themselves, but the trash situation was over the top. Thankful to have in a pinch but def wouldn't camp there again. (The pull off is right off the highway from what the coordinates show).

A friend and I drove around for a campsite for hours because our original one was under 2 feet of snow (late April 2023). I was able to get a bar of service and found this area off 83. There’s a bunch of pull offs, we found one that was covered in twigs and brambles. It was easy to get back to the site once we moved the blockage. Great, quiet area. Clean and not much left behind. Bet it’s busy in the summer but we didn’t see anyone for miles in late April.

So first off, this location is beautiful. It is so relaxing! We were so excited when we found a spot with a fire pit. We set up camp and started enjoying ourselves. Here where it gets weird. People were harassing us about camping. We spoke to a ranger and verified that we were at the right spot. She said yes. One person drove past and yelled that you don't belong here. It was super uncomfortable specially considering I had a four year old with me. We ended up packing up camp and hiking into a further remote camp site. It was great after that.

Ipsut Creek Campground is a relatively easy 5 mile trek or bike ride with a 700’ elevation gain, down a closed road (due to the road wash out about 3 miles in) to a wooded campground nestled along the Carbon River.

Located at the trailhead are two bathrooms, a covered picnic area and a handful of parking stalls with additional parking located along the road. 

The trail begins behind the closed gates into the shade of the old growth forest. The trail then alternates between the shade of the forest and sunny skys with river views and wildflowers along the way.

There are a few side trips off the main Carbon River Trail even before reaching the Ipsut Creek Camp;

1. Mini Rainforest Loop, 0.25 miles

2. Old Mine Trail, 0.6 miles round trip

3. Green Lake & Ranger Falls trail, 3.6 miles round trip

Note: Sadly, the trail to Chenuis Falls has washed out, so now there is just a log bridge into the water to nowhere.

Once you reach the campground, it has about 20 campsites with about half the sites located on the river. We were lucky enough to swoop up site number 15 though, strangely, another family decided to share it with us for our easy river front access.  Thankfully the river is pretty loud and drowned out the noise of our close campers. We did choose to camp on the high-profile weekend of the 4th of July, so all the cool campsites along the river were obviously full, which is why we think we had “friends” join us. There was a large fallen tree sort of splitting the camp site in half, so we took the left half, with the smaller 1 picnic table option, while the strangers took the right half with 2 picnic tables. 

The trees in camp are great for setting up hammocks. We set up a hammock triangle upon arrival in camp near the river for lazy afternoon naps. My siblings both slept in their hammocks fulltime, while my husband and I set up a tent in a small clearing on the opposite side of the picnic table, closer to the bear lockers (bear lockers are a huge plus, meaning a bear canister isn’t necessary if you’re not heading deeper into the backcountry). 

The campground had a decent amount of wildlife running around.  We had a number of chipmunks running around our camp cleaning up any scraps left daily; we found a live mouse chilling in a water bottle one morning upon setting up for breakfast, and deer came through the camp just about anytime it was quiet.  

The campground does have two restrooms but they smell like the bog of eternal stench, so bring strong essential oils, a scented hanky, or a shovel to dig cat tracks in the woods far from camp and water sources. 

The campground is a good base camp to explore the surrounding Carbon Glacier/ Mowich Lake area. We visited Ipsut Falls, which was less than a half mile round trip out of camp, making for a sweet little trip to break up the day in camp. 

We also chose to make the adventure up to the Suspension Bridge and to the Carbon Glacier view point. Our morning started off cool in heavy fog, which burned off throughout the day, giving way to magnificent views of the mountain and glacier. The trail was covered in wildflowers, cairns, creeks and mini waterfalls. It made for a beautiful day trip out of camp with plenty of opportunities to go further into the backcountry closer to Winthrop Glacier, out to Tolmie peak area or back out along the Wonderland Trail. Backcountry options seemed endless. 

Though the trail and camp (and site) were crowded, the hike to the glacier made the entire trip worth our cozy campsite. The Carbon Glacier is a bit dirty looking but to be standing in front of something so ancient and magnificent is truly amazing.  My husband, sister and I have now added a new item to our bucket lists and that is to see as many glaciers as we can before they melt, here’s to our first. =) 

Note: The campground is located within Mount Rainier National Park (no pets are allowed) so you’ll need to stop by the Carbonado Ranger Station for a Wilderness Permit and National Park Day Pass or Annual Permit to display for parking. No campfires within the campground.

Ipsut Creek can be approached from a few different ways. The way we approached was via a multi-day backpacking trip. We had gotten used to only a couple of sites per spot so we were not prepared for a larger campsite with facilities.

The pluses: There are around 20ish sites? We got a nice spot along the river. The sites were identified via fallen and chopped logs. The sites are decently far away from each other but no trees to block me from my neighbors.

There are picnic tables - it was nice to be able to sit on something other than the ground or a rock.

The trees were close enough together to string up a clothesline, or if we had brought it, a hammock.

There are bear boxes to store you stuff.

There are toilets, but be prepared, there were lines for the toilets and they were pretty gross.

There was what looked to be a community center place for picnics or the like.

We pumped our water from the creek.

I have camped here twice now, once during a scouting trip in 2016 with my boys and again in September 2024 with just me and my dog :).  I could pull my 17' pop-up "A" frame trailer and back into one of the two spots with no problem.  Due to the narrow road, it may be a bit more snug with bigger rigs (25+ feet long and anything more than 8+ feet wide).  I would scout the road and area before committing; however, there is a turnaround that you could use to maneuver the trailer to drive out.  It's plenty big to accommodate a few trucks/cars and one, maybe two towable trailers.  If you're going tent camping, there are about four flat places for tents.  The area has no trails, so you would not have to worry about people wandering into the campsite. The Ape Caves is a small drive away. The town of Cougar, WA. is about 10 miles away if you need gas or food.  There is a lot of shade, and it is not solar-friendly.  The main road is about 100 feet away, relatively quiet, and very private.  There was a large rock fire pit in the middle. There is no cell phone reception; however, if you drive East for a few miles, you may be able to get 2 bars with Verizon.

Per the state website, "On the southwest side of Mount St. Helens, Forest Road 81 provides an experience away from crowds. On this road, access Kalama Horse Camp, Red Rock Pass, and Forest Road 830, the road to Climber's Bivouac, and the start of the summer climbing route. From the west, the road begins on Forest Road 90, near Cougar, WA, and travels through private timberlands and state lands before entering Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. The road connects with Forest Road 83 on its east side. While mostly paved, be prepared for several miles of gravel(between Forest Road 830 and 8123) and a road that is sometimes very rough."

The camp is around a gully on the north side of Pumice Butte with outstanding views of Mt St Helens and Mt Adams. Water was flowing at this camp when we passed in late July, but it was silty in the late afternoon and early evening, clear in the morning. There is a lovely site in the trees near the water, but more spots are scattered on the hillsides. The camp gets very crowded on peak summer weekends.

The area around mount Saint Helens is beautiful, tons of space to park any rig, tent, or vehicle. The forest has majestic trees and when it rains, it resembles a rainforest. During August and September, you can find tons of edible mushrooms.

Right off forest road 81. Group camping with 4-5 places for tents and 2 maybe 3 spots for travel trailers but will need to back in. 2 fire pits and a few walking trails. Solar friendly and level. No bathroom. 1-2 bars with Verizon.

Campground Review:

There are a ton of amazing places to camp around Mt. Rainier and Cora Lake did not disappoint. Though it was raining on the day that we headed up we were mostly covered by a shelter of trees on the short hike in. Once you get to the lake you can walk around until you find a spot, though there are some fire pits throughout, it was a pretty fire-filled summer so there were no fires on our trip. We stayed at one of the first spots we came to because after taking a look at the other nearby spots this had the best trees for hanging our hammocks. We didn't have a ton of daylight left by the time we got there, but we also never saw another person during our trip (except a couple of forest fire fighters). Waking up the next morning directly in front of the lake in a hammock is amazing and breathtaking, I highly recommend it! If you have good hiking weather there's also a fire lookout nearby with great views.

Product Review:

As a Ranger for The Dyrt I get to review some great and often very practical products. This trip I was lucky enough to review two products from COLDPRUF.

Women's premium performance crew and Women's premium performance pant in cranberry. Camping in the late summer months is always an adventure with the threat of cold weather and rain. These base layers from Coldpruf definitely did their job of keeping me warm. I wore the top and bottoms to bed under my sweats snuggled into my sleeping bag and they were perfect. They are super breathable and soft so you never feel itchy or too warm. I left the top on the next morning for my hike back to the car, paired with my puffy vest it was just enough to keep me warm, and breathable enough that I wasn't covered in sweat when I got back to my car. The base layer is also a snug fit, so it's easy to add more layers on top in colder nights. I'd definitely recommend Coldpruf if you're looking for new, very affordable layering. They look great too and the color is perfect!