Forest Road 960 Dispersed Camping

Few minutes from the north entrance of crater.
We went to the top (not the very very top who required a 4WD) with a sedan, the road was bumpy and rocky but doable, just go slow.
Perfect spot with beautiful views and sunset !
We went on a Saturday and it was quiet. Two other cars came later. So we were 3 on the top/very top, and it was okay. Enough space !
If you don’t want to drive up top, plenty of spots in the forest before !

This is one of my favorite places on Earth! I think it should be named “Summit Rock Campground”.

The view at the top of Summit Rock is absolutely spectacular. If you can’t get your vehicle to the top, you can still hike up to it and it’s a short moderate hike. I drove to the top in my minivan with no problem. Big rigs definitely can’t get up there.

At the top there are two or three spots that you could get to with a regular car or minivan. Then there are two more spots where you would definitely need a four-wheel-drive to access.

At the bottom however there’s plenty of room for big rigs to turn around and plenty of spaces to choose from. It wasn’t particularly busy on the days I was there but at the top it did see a few extra visitors besides me.

Some helpful info...

The turn off onto NF 960 is located between mile posts 88 and 89 on Highway 138. Once you turn down the road, keep going straight about a half mile until you get to Summit Rock. You can’t miss it! You will see many additional camping spots along the way if there are not enough by the hill.

The road is a little rough in spots but easy to handle in any vehicle if you just take it slow where needed.

There are no toilets of any kind. The closest vault toilets are at the North Crater Lake Trailhead / SnoPark about 0.8 miles before the turn at 209 towards Crater Lake. The next nearest toilets besides inside the national park are at the Diamond Lake Overlook (9 miles) and the Diamond Lake Resort. (11 miles)

Closest gas station is 23 miles away in Chemult. (Diamond lake gas station closed temporarily due to COVID-19)

Closest restaurant is 11 miles to Diamond Lake Resort Restaurant.

Crater Lake North Entrance Station is 3.8 miles away.

Closest showers are 51 miles away at Crater Lake Junction Travel Center in Chiloquin. $12.

The next closest showers are 61 miles away at Gordy’s Truck Stop in La Pine. $10. (I showered here and they are decent, clean and water is hot!)

I got two bars Verizon LTE with decent signal. I could easily watch YouTube videos on my phone.

Lastly here’s a little something about Crater Lake national Park that I didn’t know. The park is actually open 24 hours a day. You can drive through it and stop, look, enjoy and even hike to your hearts content anytime of day or night. You just can’t sleep overnight in your vehicle anywhere in the national park. That being said, I strongly recommend checking out the stars at Crater Lake after dark!

We were cautious when taking our 42' 5th wheel down here. We went straight at the 4 way intersection (960 and 961) to continue on 960. We didn't have any trouble turning around at the next section. I wouldn't recommend going around the loop and would just backup using the crossroads. There were a few good spots for our rig down here and along the entire road. It was fairly busy and a lot of the smaller sites were taken.

Unfortunately the smoke came in and we decided not to stay the night as the road closed. It is a quick drive to the National Park. It's a sandy forest that doesn't have a lot of under growth. The road was very dusty as it was pretty dry out.

Towards the end of 960 we started getting good Verizon service and were getting 18Mbps download with 5Mbps upload.

With the last review of this place in 2019, we were a little apprehensive about boondocking here. The GPS coords in the description will land you in the right spot. We tried to head further North and up to the hill with views, but I almost got our 24' Class C stuck. I think we took a left, and we should have taken a right up that hill.

At any rate, I'd avoid that area back there if you are full-timers like us. We enjoy privacy, but it's gotta be easy to get in and out. Around those GPS coordinates, there's a spur that heads to the right, and that goes to a few spots to setup shop. We did see a smaller class A setup shop close to the road, as well as a schoolie a little further down.

There *are* spots for big fellas, they're all in roughly the same area.

Just a word of caution, it seems everyone lands in this same spot. We had at least (3) different campers around us and everyone was plenty visible (seems to be the case with Campendium locations). But of course, Monday comes and everyone is gone!

Solar is awful here, so we had to run our genny every 2-3 days to recharge. Internet was pretty decent across Verizon and AT&T. Enough to stream in the evening, and work during the day.

And of course, great proximity to the North Entrance station of Crater Lake National Park. We also visited Diamond Lake. It's a great little picnic area on the side of a lake and it's of course way less busy than the park.

We'd definitely stay here again!

We didn't stay. We planned to camp at FR-960 for several nights because of its close proximity to Glacier NP. We were able to squeeze our 40’ 5W into a spot but honestly, the prospect of spending any time at all there was really unappealing. There’s dead wood everywhere, big piles of dirt along the road, and within an hour of setting up there was a fine layer of black dirt on everything. We took water containers to Broken Arrow CG and, when we learned there were plenty of big-rig sites available, we decided to move. MUCH better and equi-distance from Glacier NP. Well worth the $10/night we paid with our Senior Pass.

Great spot with lots of spaces. Like the other reviewer said, if you look on google maps satellite view you can see a pile of rocks that has some awesome campsites if you car can make it up the steep hills.

We stayed in the lower area, which was easily accessible with tons of room. Very close to the entrance to crater lake, perfect for a day trip. 2 ATT LTE bars w/ amplifier, one without.

Dispersed camping along this road. You can follow the road to the end up to the rocks for a great view! You can camp up at the top however it's best for smaller rigs/truck campers/vanlifers since the road is rough, narrow and steep once it starts to climb.

At the bottom there are several spots, some were pull through and we were able to easily fit our 27 foot trailer. Most sites seemed fairly level. We choose the site halfway between the highway and "t" intersection on the right hand side - it had plenty of space for turning the trailer around and was somewhat tucked away from the forest road.

You are an easy 15 minute drive to the north entrance of Crater Lake which is the best part! We even had Verizon cell service (we don't have a booster either). Better reception was at the top of the rocks.