Park At The River

Unbelievable Park. Excellent Location To Explore Area From. Very Reasonable Pricing, Family Oriented, And Beautiful. Some Can’t Live Without WiFi And Cell Service So Prepare Yourself With Options. People Will Always Nitpick something, even this amazing park. My opinion, you can’t beat Park At The River, unless you’re looking for a back country experience, which you’ll need to hike due south from PAR about 15 miles. Cheers!

Other than this stunningly beautiful area near the head of Wallowa Lake, and walking access to the Tramway, some hiking trails, mini golf, go carts, ice cream and coffee, I’m not impressed with the campground itself. The best features were the very clean bathrooms, 2each coin washers & dryers. But…Zero usable cell signal with any carrier (texts don’t even go through), park WiFi is grossly undersized for the number of sites, and the campground is tucked in between tall mountains, so satellite is marginal at best. Too many sites crammed into too small of an area. Roadway inside park is extremely narrow, with VERY little room to maneuver into most sites. Avoid Site 8; it’s super narrow (9’-ish), not anywhere near level, and has two large trees within inches of the site edge. If that’s the only available site, go elsewhere! Will not stay here again.

Park is clean and well maintained and the check in staff was very courteous…thus the 3 star rating. The RV’s and trailers are packed in like sardines. You couldn’t get another rig in there if you tried. We thought we would try the dry camping spots as they were near the river and seemed like there was more space. However, we ended up jammed next to another trailer in the blazing sun. We lasted about an hour and left for the nearby Wallowa State Park…lots more space and trees…much more comfortable. I will not stay at the Park At The River again. The State park is far better…and even though it was last minute there were several spots available…and we were able to piece together enough for our entire stay with the help of the friendly staff at check in.

Beautiful setting. But...be certain you understand the cancelation policy totally. We made a reservation months ago and called to cancel weeks before and only received half back. Their policy is the most restrictive I've ever seen. You only get half back if you cancel 14 days ahead of 5he reservation. Anything less than that, you get ZERO.
Be sure you don't have a health emergency within that time frame because it won't matter. Very inflexible, very unfair and unnecessary.

CROWDED - the sites are sardine-spaced.

CONGESTED (yes, it was during a holiday weekend, however) - small children running around with limited adult supervision created traffic halts and dogs to bark.

DISREGARD FOR WILDLIFE - multiple children were going up to deer wandering through the campground. The owners, despite observing the children feeding the deer, did NOTHING.

ALCOHOL - the sun had not even set yet the overall volume of the campground was fairly loud and given the number of beer bottles and cans being held, the night was going to be even louder.

MANAGEMENT - young couple who do not introduce themselves as they walk into your site. After having a discussion with them it was fairly obvious they were limited with respect to wildlife rules and regulations nor did there seem to be much in the way of understanding what constituted truth in advertising.

BOTTOM LINE - if you must find a place to spend the night and are not in need of a good WiFi signal nor do you care if "domesticated" deer attempt to mooch food from you, this campground will suffice.

As for me, I'll be reporting them to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife department.

We paid for two nights, but left after one. Had we not already unhooked, we would’ve left immediately. We were told that we had one of the best spots, but looked out onto a three car garage, a trash dumpster, gravel pit, and our picnic table was 4 feet from the neighbors hook ups and less than 10 feet from their dump hook up. Plus, the river sites had no hook ups and we had the displeasure of listening to one of their generators, which was frequently running.

The beautiful state park is less than a quarter-mile away and has full hook ups. Go there instead!

The location is the best win for this park. Easy walk to the state park, food, Mini-golf, aerial tramway, hikes, go-carts, and more. Free transit shuttle in summer to Joseph and Enterprise. We took it to town. With COVID-19, the shuttle was limited to 5 passengers. Staff is friendly and helpful. Restrooms are clean. Showers cost 25 cents for 2.5 minutes. Cable TV is no longer offered. WiFi tends to be spotty, at least at our site. AT&T coverage is fine. Verizon is voice only with plenty of signal strength, but no data. This was true by the lake as well.

Tents are not allowed ($100 fine per day) and fires are limited to propane only. We actually liked that there are no wood fires. With the number of sites and close proximity, wood smoke would be a real problem.

Sites are close together, but the park is well kept. We would stay again.

Tight spots to get into but great sites. Right near entrance. Short walk to tram, go karts, mini golf, etc. had no idea when I got reservations is like a little resort town and the park is in the middle of it. Loved the location. Very close to lake. But far enough away mosquitoes might not be as bad.

Would come back in a heartbeat. Staff was super friendly and helpful. When we went they currently had a food cart in one spot. And there are shakes across street. Ice cream across and down the street. So many things to do.

We really enjoyed the dry camping area (River Sites), though we thought it was pricey for dry camping. There was a wonderful view of the mountains, the river was really close, more space than their full hook-up sites and deer!! At one time there was 6 bucks, 1 doe and 1 fawn in the field next to us!

Cell reception was painful.

There is a laundry room with 2 washers and 2 dryers.

Showers are hot but cost $0.25 for 2-1/2 minutes. The men’s bathroom had 2 showers, 1 toilet and 1 urinal. The women’s bathroom had 2 showers and 2 toilets.

There is no formal dump station, but we were able to use a vacant camp site to dump before leaving (on a Saturday).