Sutton Campground

It is hard to pick the right site from a website. I originally reserved A22. Turns out the angle was too difficult to back in my 31 foot travel trailer. Since the CG was empty, the camp host let us move to A10. The location was perfect for visiting beautiful sites north and south of Florence. A nice 4 mile loop hike through forest and dunes from the campground.

This goes into my top 5 list of most beautiful campgrounds but there are two things you need to know: 1. There is no water in the sites. Only electricity. I’ve never seen that before and assumed electricity meant water also. Don’t show up with an empty water tank like I did. 2. There is no AT&T signal there. Nothing. Nada. Don’t even try it. Even your booster antenna won’t help you. I’m told Verizon is good there but cannot confirm.

So will I be back? Yes. When I want to dry camp and disconnect from the world. I had to leave early this time because I needed to get work done and the no AT&T was a show stopper for me. The hosts were very nice also!

The most important thing to know about this campground is that you cannot access the beach. You have to get in your car and drive to Heceta Beach. We didn’t know that until we took a walk to see the ocean and realized there is a creek and large dunes between the campground and the ocean.

We decided to leave the next day and move to a campground with beach access.

That being said, it’s a pretty spot with a fair amount of space between sites. There’s a 4 mile hike that leaves from the campground. If you don’t
mind having to leave to drive to the beach then it’s a nice spot.

My 31’ Class C fit well in the site and there were many sites I saw that accommodate larger rigs. The layout of most of the sites provides privacy and all have fire rings and picnic tables. There were plenty of bathrooms for those who need them. I did not use them so have no comment. There are reservable group sites as well.
Near the start to the C loop there is a portable water spigot that has threads you can attach your fresh water hose to and the handle for that spigot stays on for you unlike some of the others.
The trails are quite lovely. A friend described Sutton trail as “enchanted”. That trail starts at A loop and, though it is marked a trail the name is not noted. It leads to a parking lot and another trailhead near the beach where a left side trail goes to the lookout deck and the right leads to two beaches. NOTE to dog owners: During Snowy Plover nesting season (May - September) no dogs are allowed on these beaches (nor are bikes allowed at that time.)
My favorite trail is near C loop off of B loop (name unknown). It has steps to start, leads you along a beautiful, flowing creek. It is lush with trees and shrubs but there is a lot of light there as well. It goes under one road and, eventually, ends up at its other entrance from Hwy 101.
If you are depending on solar, peruse the sites first because are quite shaded (unless you are reserving.) B14 looked like an exceptional site for this.

Our check-in was the typical self check-in with the iron ranger. The host did come out and explain that being off season (October) that only the A and B loops were open. We took our usually driving tour of the park and picked our spot. Since the park is mostly in the trees if you are depending on solar, it's hard to come by. We picked one of the electrical hook-up sites, hence the $29.00 cost. We chose site A20 and we had to do a bit of leveling, but not too bad. We were just staying one night so we didn't unhitch.

We got a break in the weather and decided to enjoy some of the trails around the park. We set out for the portion of the Darlingtonia walkway that is in the park. Being this late in season, the Darlingtonia had pretty much died back for the season. We then took the trial along the creek to the vista point. A great hike with some beautiful scenery along the way. Note - there is not beach access from this park.
The bathrooms were nice, but no showers. The park overall seemed nicely maintained and we enjoyed our short visit.

This may be the best national forest campground we've ever stayed at... One of the challenges of fulltime/longterm RVing is having to contend with holiday weekends. We headed to the Oregon Coast for Labor Day weekend to avoid the heat and smoke. We hoped by getting a Thursday start we may luck into a walk-in campsite for the weekend. While the walk-in Loop was full we lucked into a secluded reservable site for one night and hoped we might find a walk-in site Friday morning. Then we met a guy who said he was leaving at 8AM in the morning, but when we showed up in the morning he was already gone and someone else had already claimed and paid for the site. After circling a couple of times looking for another site, we went for a great hike on the Sutton Creek trail to the observation tower. Upon our return we lucked to another reservable non-electric site that was open for one night. The sites are quite secluded even when they are close together. Most are in deep forest and without electric (or solar generation) we had to run the generator to make it through the night (about half the sites have electric). Finally our Labor Day luck ran out and we had to move on.

Actually, Sutton Campground has 4 loops, not 3. All are generally open in the summer when the weather is good. Usually, in the winter, only B loop or possibly A and B loop are open. Camping rate is half price with a Golden Age Pass or some other similar pass. All four loops have clean and well maintained restrooms with flush toilets but no showers. A beautiful creek flows through the campground and empties into the Pacific Ocean. There are nice hiking trails in the area but it is very difficult to get to the beach after walking approximately 1 1/2 miles toward the ocean, due to fording the creek and heavy brush and traversing a large sand dune. This campground is about 6 miles north of Florence, Oregon on Hwy.101. Then a side road takes off to the west and goes about 3 miles to a viewpoint and Sutton Creek. The turnoff to the campground on this side road is about a mile off Hwy. 101 and is well marked. There are many lakes in the area and are stocked in early Spring with rainbow trout, some going to near 20 inches. There are no actual lakes at Sutton Campground but further north about one mile on Hwy. 101 is Alder Dune Campground that has two small trout lakes for fishing. Florence is a nice town that is clean, quiet, friendly and has all the amenities you will require while camping. There are two spots on Hwy. 101 where you can shower and wash clothes and even a car wash nearby that has a dog wash facility. There is a casino very close to Florence on Hwy. 126 that runs about 75 miles to Eugene, Or.. Sutton Campground is approachable from the north or south on Hwy. 101 or from the east on Hwy. 126. This campground is very pretty and well maintained and I have been camping here for many years. Florence and the central Oregon coast is a very beautiful area to visit and has many things to do. Have fun!

This was a lovely campground in the Siuslaw National Forest. Many spots have fantastic privacy with thick vegetation (super tall trees). Satellite TV/radio probably won't work here. Sutton Campground has three loops with a host who sells firewood, and there's another campground nearby called Alder Dune.

The electrical sites have 30A service with no 15A outlet - if you're wanting to plug into residential 15A service, you'll need a 30A female to 15A male adapter.