China Hat Road Dispersed Camping

Although there was a bit of garbage around and some animal bones, this was an overall acceptable place to stay the night. There were definitely other people in the woods but there are so many roads you can go down to find an empty area that hasn't been partied in, not sure if the other people live out there or were also camping in their vehicle, as we were.

Recent reviews seem a bit dramatic and almost deterred us from staying, maybe things changed within the last year. The fact it was close to town was really nice, didn't get stuck anywhere, might be easy to get lost if you take a bunch of random turns.

I will probably try a different area next time, but based on the fact a lot of parks in the area have quite a bit of trash around, this may just be the case in this area.

We ended up not staying there because it was just too dirty. There are maybe 3 spots in total that would fit a rig like ours and all of them were covered in animal carcasses (seriously covered, we counted almost 20), plus half a car (oil pan, tires and stuff) and various other trash. I don't mind cleaning up a campsite that much, but we don't have a dump truck.

Getting in there was moderately difficult, nothing for big rigs because of the low hanging branches and rutted road. There's one spot that apparently fits a Class A, according to the google satellite picture. But it's a through street, not sure how many friends you'd make.

I'd take the second entrance after the golf course and then scout it out before taking a rig in there.

We read other reviews and thought we would give China Hat a try and are glad we did. Overall it was quiet and dark and close enough to town and other things in the Bend area. The main access point is in National Forest and is dirt and sand with a lot of trees. Large class A's may have difficulty getting in to some spots here because of low branches and the sandy road, but no problem with the truck and trailer. We were able to get the RV totally level without much work. There was only one other couple camping here. Lots of evidence of deer hunters and unfortunately lots of trash dumped in places. Good cell service with Verizon and internet was fine. Would definitely stay here again.

We had heard there was problems with homeless in this area, but we saw all of 2 people out bow hunting. It was perfect! GPS coordinates are pretty accurate, we just pulled our bikes off and scouted around the area until we found a spot we liked. We did end up picking up bags of garbage to haul out as there was quite a bit around. If we hadn't run out of water I'm not sure we would have left!