Collier Memorial State Park: Campground Review in which Oregon State Parks Continue to be Cheap

Travel dates: June 27-29, 2017

I love a campground that offers something extra…like some kind of interesting attraction right there on the property….like, say, a big outdoor museum about the history of logging! For example.

Collier Memorial State Park was our campground choice for visiting Crater Lake National Park, about thirty minutes away. Dave’s sister and family were with us for this stop, and they rented a house a few miles away since the campground offers only tent and RV sites–no cabins or other accommodations.

There are two loops in the campground; the A loop has 16 full hook-up sites and 18 unserviced sites. The B loop has 30 full hook-up sites, 9 of which are pull-throughs (from what we saw, they’re the “pull-off,” parallel to the road, variety of pull-through). Full hook-up sites are $29 (!), and tent sites are $19.

We really enjoyed our stay here. Our site was spacious and private and backed up to woods and the river. As I recall, this was another site where stuff across the road made backing in challenging. Stupid old long trailer. Oh! I remember now–there were big rocks on the edge of the site across from us that kept getting in the way of our front tires.

Two things to note: the sewer connections here are weird. Dave reports, “they’re the only ones I’d ever seen that are horizontal instead of vertical.” But he asked a neighbor for help in figuring things out, and that guy was not unfamiliar with such sewer connections at all. Perhaps it’s a west coast thing? Anyway, it worked out fine. Also, they are very picky here about having all your tires on the asphalt pad (even though there’s just dirt and gravel next to the pad; it’s not like you’re parking on nicely manicured grass if you have a tire off the asphalt). Unfortunately, we didn’t know about this pickiness until a campground worker came by after we’d unhitched, leaving a good bit of room behind the trailer so that we could open the garage door. This meant we had to park the van at a right angle to the trailer, and it was very tricky to get all the tires on the asphalt. We just managed to get it situated well enough to suit them, though.

I don’t recall setting foot in the bathhouse, but word is they have free hot showers, which is something of a rarity at public campgrounds in the west. There’s no camp store or even an office, but campground hosts drove around in golf carts pretty frequently, and everyone was friendly and helpful.

My favorite thing about this campground was the lovely little walking path and the logging museum at the end of it. It’s an easy and pleasant 10 or 15 minute walk along the beautiful, incredibly clear river to get to the outdoor museum:

And then a very cool museum on one of our favorite themes: the remains of industry! The exhibits take you through the history of logging in the area and make you wish that the light were better so that you could get awesomer REMAINS OF INDUSTRY! photos. But here are a few:

We had two nights here; the first we did the logging museum and hung out at the campground–the second we had a birthday party for my brother-in-law, Craig, at the house Amy and Craig rented close by. It didn’t have a logging museum, but it did have a huge yard and access to the river (I can’t remember if it was the same river as at the campground. Probably?) Anyway, we had a nice party, and a campfire, and an enthusiastically decorated cake:

Next up: Crater Lake!

 

 

 

 

 

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