Surething
08-15-2005, 11:45 AM
I'M looking for any info on the boat in campground on the john day river is it first come or do you need to reserve a spot if it is first come how hard is it to get a spot on the weekends and what are the camping spots like . I'm having trouble finding anything on teh web the blm web is down. any info whould be good thanks.
dragon67
08-15-2005, 12:53 PM
If you are talking about the boat camp that is out of LePage park is first come. They have showers there,bathrooms, and freshwater up by the bathrooms. I is nice just to bring camping stuff, food, and coleman stove to cook with and stuff like that. Hope this helps
Pondscum
08-15-2005, 08:35 PM
You can launch at Le Page park, and run up river to the Army Corp of Engineers camp. It is on the east side, about 3.5 miles up from Le Page if memory serves. The camp is real nice, probably room for 30 individual camps. I have never seen more than 5 different camp sites in use personally. I was up there right after Memorial Day weekend (May 30 thru June 3) and saw lots of "tent rings" so the park was probably pretty full then.
As far as amenities, as mentioned in another post there are flush toilets and showers (timed push button types) and fresh water from a faucet outside the bathrooms, plus sinks with running water inside. There are free standing BBQ type implements with a crude grate, and each camp has a fire ring of sorts. All camps have picnic tables that aren't anchored, so you can borrow from vacant camps and have all the seating/table space you need. There are no garbage cans so you have to pack out what you pack in.
The campground is irrigated with river water so the grass is usually nice and green. You will want to take note of the location of sprinkler heads when you set up camp. There should be some deflector type deals that you can pound in the ground near the sprinkles to keep from getting soaked.
Don't know how much you know about the gorge, but the lower John Day can be windy as hell just like the Big C. I have been up there when the wind was blowing so hard the ceiling of my dome tent which is 5'10" was almost touching my nose as I tried in vain to sleep. The upside to that is there aren't many bugs around that I remember.
There is enough room to moor about 10-15 boats depending on size of course. Upper boat dock seems to be more sheltered, and I never had any problems with my boat even when it was really blowing.
All said, it is one of my very favorite places to camp, have been going up there since 2001, really a great place to camp and fish. Never had any bad experiences with rif raf up there either, think the relative remoteness sorta keeps that element out.
Oh yeah, cell phone coverage is real bad. get your calls out of the way before you head upriver.