Wickiup Reservoir (houses, camping, price)

[oregonwoodsmoke]

My family was at Wickiup Reservoir last week. The campground is divided into two loops. One loop is mostly forest campsites and there are few lakeside campsites. The other loop has more lakeside campsites and the sites away from the lake mostly have lake views.

It's jackpine, so the forest is a bit scruffy, but campsites are nice, good tables, excellent fire rings, sufficient parking and most sites have pull-through parking, which is always a bonus. All the sites were extra clean.

Almost all sites have reservation tags for the memorial day weekend. The campground host told me that there are 80 sites and his busiest day ever, had 76 sites filled. I interpret that to mean that there is still a chance to get a site, even if you don't make reservations, but it isn't going to be the best site.

The majority of the sites right next to the lake were labeled "multiple occupancy" and they were $38 a night. No reason for it that I could see. No bigger parking, no additional tent pads. Some of them had 2 tables and some had 1 table, but the normal priced sites also varied in the number of tables.

We stayed in a very nice site, right on the lake that was not double priced. The lake is enormous and gorgeous, with a view of the Cascades beyond the lake. It's the High Cascades at its very best.

The loop with the mostly forest sites is either very stingy with the outhouses, or else they are extremely good at hiding them. I'm wondering what it is like with 40 campsites full of campers and only 3 single hole potties. The loop with mostly lake sites appeared to have the standard number of outhouses.

The throne in the outhouse is rather weird. My camping companion came back complaining about the outhouse, so it wasn't just me that thought so.

Still, beautiful campsites, gorgeous lake and gorgeous views, and all very close to home for a nice getaway weekend.

[BendLocal]

Great post! Thanks for taking the time to write it.

[whirnot]

Thanks for posting both of these, in fact you might just start a new thread and these would be good for reference for a lot of Noobies. Maybe the Mods can move these two into it.

[ddhibb]

We stayed at Sheep Bridge Campground on the north end of Wickiup this past Sunday night into Memorial Day. We initially tried to find a spot to camp on the west side along a forest service road, but everything was either taken already, or blocked with debris (or muddy to the point of getting stuck). Folks said they'd arrived Wednesday night to get those spots. Ironically, we practically had the whole campground to ourselves by mid morning on Monday (all but a few campers bailed out by 10am).

Sheep Bridge was excellent. It's rather small, all dirt, no water, but there were a handful of sites available with nice tables and fire pits. Plenty of trees for privacy. We were camped on the south end of the campground, a very short walk to the water. We could even see the lake from our camp through the trees. Most of the fellow campers were fishermen (there's a decent dirt boat ramp on the north end of the campground).

This section of the lake is fantabulous for kayaking. There's a large island across from the camp, and several small streams were flowing along the opposite shore. My husband kayaked all the way up to where the river flows in briskly. Fishing up there was supposedly decent, but we saw/heard very little action elsewhere. We observed several bald eagles bickering at each other for quite some time while out in the kayaks.

[BendLocal]

Originally Posted by ddhibb

We observed several bald eagles bickering at each other for quite some time while out in the kayaks.

So cool. I would have loved to get a pic of that!

[Steve Pickering]

Wickiup was always one of my favorite camp and fish spots. I haven't been in a couple of decades. I used to hike to the top of the rim. I actually have some picture of me and the kids up there when I had hair.

[Hawk J]

Some of the good folks on OFF, camp & fish at Wickiup & Crane Prairie, etc...

Oregon Fishing Forum

[Steve Pickering]

When I saw OFF I thought you were talking about my Friends at OFF http://www.oregonfirearms.org/

A lot of us use Wickiup also.

[kapetrich]

Prescribed burn starting today, fyi: Prescribed burn planned near Wickiup Reservoir | News - Home

[Steve Pickering]

Originally Posted by kapetrich

Prescribed burn starting today, fyi: Prescribed burn planned near Wickiup Reservoir | News - Home

The smoke clears pretty quickly.