July Camping: Champoeg State Park

This month, we spent two nights at Champoeg (pronounced "sham-POO-eee") State Park and Heritage Area, just 30 minutes south of us on I-5, right along the Willamette River.  The park is open to camping year-round, and even though all the river-side spots get reserved very quickly, I managed to snag an exterior site about two months in advance.

The state park covers a large area, with several day-use spaces, picnic tables and a huge disc golf course throughout.  Originally the homeland of the Tualatin "Kalapuya" tribe, the site became a town in the 1830's of fur trappers and French-Canadians coming west, and eventually became the site of the first declared provisional government in the U.S. along the Pacific coast.  In the 1890's however, a massive flood from the river wiped out the entire settlement and it was never rebuilt, though you can see artifacts in the on-site museum that were recovered in later years.

The park has several hiking and biking trails, a small gift shop at the museum, and even a grave site of an original settler there, though we weren't able to find it.  There are RV sites with full hook-ups (or just without sewer, which is what we had), as well as tent camping and yurt sites as well.  All spots had decent privacy and were pretty large in size, as we have camped on sites where you're basically looking in the windows of the camper next to you.

Our site had electrical and water hook-ups and backed up to an open meadow which made for a great sunset spot.  We had virtually zero shade however, which made the 88-degree days seem worse (thankful for the trailer's AC).  Our son got to ride his bike around the paved loop, played with other kids and enjoyed the on-site playground.  You can buy ice ($1) or a bundle of wood ($5) from the camp host, and there were several park rangers patrolling the park.  We found a dock on the river, but due to the boating traffic, we were unable to swim from it for safety reasons.  

Considering the park is so close to home, open year-round and only $35/night, we definitely hope to be back later this year, albeit for a shadier spot, maybe in the Fall.  Next time, we'll try to find a good place to swim (or float), which we were told we could find in the nearby town of Newberg.  Our son gave Champoeg 4 out of 5 stars, so that's a plus!

Happy Glamping!