Shady Campground

The Lostine River Valley climbs from the town of Lostine up to the heart of the Eagle Cap Wilderness. The road from Lostine starts as a well-maintained paved road that turns to graded gravel after 5 miles and roughens the higher you go. At mile 6 is the Ranger Station, which has a powerful water spigot. This is the only safe drinking water you'll find in the valley, so fill up there.

The campgrounds along the road vary from undeveloped pull-offs and single roadside developed sites (marked with a simple post and tent sign) to developed campgrounds of various sizes. The "campgrounds" of Williamson and Shady are the biggies, each having a dozen or more sites. The others are called "Forest Camps" and feature the same amenities as the larger areas, just with fewer sites. All of the developed areas are self-register and cost $5 per night. The Forest Camps and Campgrounds have vault toilets (some newer, some older) and numbered sites with tables and fire rings. We stopped at most of the areas as we made our way up the valley and we liked Walla Walla FC, Williamson CG, Irondyke, Turkey Flat and Arrow, but Shady was by far the most pleasant, so we camped there for three nights.

Shady has two tiers of sites, the original sites (#4-10) are scattered neatly along the branch of the river that runs through camp. Above these and back from the river are newer sites with plenty of room and large tent pads. The two vault toilets are situated near each other in between the two strings of sites.

The riverside sites have plenty of space for families and small groups. None of the older sites were close enough to the neighboring sites to infringe upon privacy and thanks to the cascading river nearby, we never even heard anyone else though we could see them. Our site, #9, was huge and had a standard USFS fire ring with a grate near a massive old timber table. The winter had brought down many trees in the area and there was plenty of firewood to be found. The site had at least three areas where we could have set up our large 4-person tent. Down a short trail was the river bank with several pleasant "beaches" and plenty of trees for stringing up hammocks.

Like I mentioned, there is no potable water available in the campground. While we were there, the vault toilets were clean and not bad at all smell-wise. One had a serious fly problem, but the other was as good as you can expect for a pit toilet.

We had no issues with animals while we were there. We locked our food in our car at night, but left out a garbage bag and it was undisturbed. We saw some robins and heard other birds, but only saw one squirrel the entire trip. It was strange to be surrounded by forested wilderness and not encounter bear, cat, coyote or other creatures. On the drive up and back along the road we saw rabbits, deer, squirrels and marmots, so they are in the valley.