Chinquapin Group Campground

This small campground was fantastic for a group camping adventure. It comes with some pretty nice pit toilets, several waist height grill pits, a large fire circle, and enough space for our group with 13 tents. There was even more space if we had a larger group. It was super close to the Oregon Caves, so utilizing this spot, we were able to make our cave tour with little stress. I would come back here again.

I visited here for my high school’s 20th high school reunion. I didn’t stay the night like some did but I did spend a few hours in the daytime. The bathroom structure was clean enough and had toilet paper. No lights so only daylight coming in the windows though. Plenty of trees to provide shade at and around the 3 picnic tables. Nice swimming hole across the road but there is also a small stream on the same side of the road for getting feet wet and good for kids to splash around too.

I love to walk the trail. It's very pretty and such a delightful experience. However, today I was challenged by a camper for the first time in the three years I've been going there. I politely reminded him the trail is open to the public year round. I was just walking through the parking lot on my way to the beginning of the trail, keeping away from the camp area as much as possible. He seemed to think that because he paid for the campground that no one else should have access to the trail. Campers please be aware you will have hikers coming through. Let's all be respectful so the area can be enjoyed by all.

Very disturbing experience, walking across the parking lot to the loo and trailhead. Whilst my partner was inside the loo, I was verbally accosted by the half dozen or so denizens of the fee-paid group campground. The parking lot is controlled by a locked gate and apparently these cretins interpreted locking the gate with securing the entire area, including foot traffic crossing the parking lot, the public latrine,, and interpretive trailhead. I was standing near the restroom waiting, enjoying the view of the beautiful meadow when I was rudely verbally accosted. Things proceeded to get uglier to the.point I felt threatened and terrified. The FS was notified and I have been told that the campers who assaulted me were counciled and going forward the FS will add verbiage to the camp rental agreement stating that the public facilities are just that, public and not private. I still love the trail and hope no one else has an experience of this sort.

This stand alone, locked gate controlled campground IS NOT PRIVATE. There is access for the public to a trail head and arrogant people that have NO respect for campers walk right down the middle of the camping area, use the facilities that are supposed to be part of the campground and set up their camera tripod to take pictures. Not knowing who these people are I was not able to let my grandchildren walk the short distant to the pit toilet without watching them like a hawk.The pit toilets had no toilet paper. We supplied our own, which was used by John Q public. It is a big enough area to let your dogs roam without leashes. But people going to the trail head walk their dogs. It did not bode well with our protective, territorial dogs. The rangers solution: if we didn't like it, we could leave and we were informed the only area we could consider private was inside our tents. So, if you are looking to get away from it all and not have to deal with people you don't know, this isn't the place to go. Very, very disappointing. And to top it off, they had to turn off the well water due to a health issue prior to our arrival. We were not informed until I got home and the email that was sent 2 days after our arrival.The picture posted is of one arrogant trail-head user’s that tried to hit one of our dogs with his walking stick.