Avery Recreation Area

I arrived about 4 and had no problem finding a spot. It’s basically a parking lot on the river. Very rocky not really accessible to the water. There was a rather sketchy guy who looks like he’s been there a long time. .. The spot I chose had been used recently by someone who emptied their cooler of food (including raw meat) and just left it in the grass instead of putting it in the dumpster. I put on my gloves and got rid of it. No toilet facilities that I saw… of course I did not look around much because I was avoiding the sketchy guy. It probably a great spot for fishermen, and one nighters. Oh and trains! At least five through the night each blowing the horn….

Wanted to spend the night on the Columbia River and this site provided more than we expected.
Coming from the west it was an easy right hand angle onto the road down the hill, past a winery, criss the railroad tracks and a short drive to Avery. There are two entrances and we chose to enter 2nd as we wanted the drivers side parallel to the river.
Site offers back in thru the trees and side views for the longer / taller rigs.
There were three other trailers on the west end when we arrived and a guy who appeared to be living in his pickup who was friendly.
The train track is about 120' away and while I slept fine when the trains rolled thru, it did wake the wife up a lot. During the day there can be a train every 20 minutes and at night about every 40 minutes, after midnight till about sunrise trains were about every hour. Because of the train crossing the road they blow train horns 4 to 5 times, and the westbound does this right next to the Avery Rec Site.. next to this site are single tracks with the start of another set splitting off. Further east these tracks split into four tracks and these four run several miles to the east.
Boat launch and dock had several boaters using the site daily along with some day use folks.
This is a treaty access site and as such when tribal fishing is going on this site is closed to public. On Thursday a maint crew of two showed up and did a very good job of cutting grass and weedeating.
While here we watched domestic goats climbing the nearby rocks, some deer grazing at east end of site, vultures, hawks, eagles performing flyby's, along with a lot of smaller birds singing in the many trees.
River barges of many sizes and carrying grains, rocks / sand an fish transport are a constant River view. Speaking of views, the mighty Columbia River with Mt Hood in the background is a sight to behold. Simply stunning!
We stayed 3 days with very comfortable day and night weather of 50 - 70 degrees. Winds pick up in afternoon with big rollers on the river with white caps. Last day we woke to cooler temps, steady breeze and couple very light rain.
We left when the Memorial Weekend family's started arriving.
When leaving with our rig we came to top of access onto hwy and as we were heading east we stayed in the wide viewpoint area to be able to turn east. (To enter from the east the longer rigs will need to go past entrance and turn around in the viewpoint to head down hill).
We found this to be be a relaxing, beautiful place to spend some time. Site is gravel, level with plenty of shade. Road down hill is paved, gravel after rr track crossing.
Satellite and cell reception is very good. No hookups, no water and has a nice restroom, a dumpster, picnic tables, boat launch and dock. A rock jetty said to have good fishing. Easy in and out. Avery Rec Site is very clean.
Marking this as a favorite site and will return.

I was the only person here at 5 PM and only one other camper van showed up after me. You’re literally 30 feet from the train tracks that are loud as heck but I slept through the night anyway. My whole camera was shaking and vibrating from the trains and even the sound of the boats wailing on their horns in the river. But it didn’t seem to bother me and I slept just fine. The river is absolutely gorgeous and the whole area is very level. I could teach online with T-Mobile and Verizon.

This is almost the perfect campsite. It backs directly up to the water of the Columbia River. We had a beautiful night with a full moon and a gorgeous sunrise that lit up Mt. Hood. We even got a visit from a river otter which was amazing. Perfect!!!… except for those dang trains. The tracks are very close and the trains come by about every 15-minutes throughout the night and because of the road crossing they lay on the horn. It sucks! So close to perfection but we had a few rough nights of sleep.

We camped right next to the River (5 feet). We had a great after noon there. The temps were in the high 80's, but there was a cool wind next to the river to keep things cool.

There are no designated spots, but we easily found a spot for our 35 ' 5th wheel. There were a few old beat up RV's there taking advantage of the free camping, but we had no problems.

One great perk was that Jacob Williams winery was a short walk of the hill. We took advantage of that had went and tasted some of there great wine.

The one problem was that we were a couple of hundred feet from a very busy train track, I would guess that there were 3 to 4 trains per hour there all through the night,

If coming from the east on hwy 14, and your pulling a trailer, go just past the road, and turn into the view point area so you can make it to the road.

Free up to 14 days. Able to back 35 foot 5th wheel into shaded site.
Pros: easy access, on the river, pit toilet. Saw 1 sheriff and 1 ranger patrol the area.
Cons: The train is frequent and SO loud, shook the rig all night long=no sleep. Fine for 1 night if needed, but most folks were in old trashy trailers and looked like they were trying to live here..digging in the trash, clothes lines etc.