Boondocking in Oregon near Mount Hood and the Deschutes River in Terrebonne. We share two free dispersed camping\dry camping options that we stayed at with great views and one amazing sunset. Don’t have time to read this now? Pin it for later!

Mount Hood, OR | White River West Sno-Park

We left Portland and started our journey to Bend. Our plan was to stay two nights in the White River West Sno-Park parking lot near Mount Hood so we could explore the area. This parking lot is a free boondocking spot, except that a Sno Park permit is required from November 1 - April 30. It was the end of October so no permit was required.

The view of Mount Hood was spectacular, but one downside was that the parking lot was on a significant slope so lots of leveling blocks were needed. Our front tires and jacks were on blocks but not the back tires or jacks. This is not typical since our motorhome self-levels so that gives you an idea of the slope of this parking lot.

Another downside was the freezing temperatures and high winds that started in the evening and went all night long. We realized quickly we would need to bring in all our pop-out slides making it a little tight. Even then, I couldn’t sleep because the wind was so loud all night and I was freaking out that it was going to knock us over even though Penguin assured me that wasn’t going to happen.

When we woke up our freshwater inlet pipes were frozen since they were exposed to cold temps in the wet bay. We have a heater to prevent this from happening, but we hadn’t set it up yet. While it wasn’t below freezing much, the wind chill was significant. They eventually thawed in a few hours, but we decided it was best to continue on our journey and stay an extra night in our next boondocking spot.

Overall we wouldn’t recommend White River West Sno-Park when it is freezing and windy but this spot would be amazing when the weather is nice and no Sno Park permit is required.

White River West Sno-Park Pictures

Terrebonne, OR | Deschutes River BLM

A campfire and sliver of the moon while boondocking in Oregon

There were a few boondocking options near Terrebonne, OR and we didn’t know which one would work best for our motorhome so we stopped at Peter Skene Ogden State Park. This state park has an impressive canyon and three cool bridges worth seeing. After walking around the park we unhooked the Jeep and started on our adventure to find a good boondocking spot for the next three nights.

We looked at Henderson Flat but the entry would not work for our motorhome. This spot would be a great spot for smaller rigs but not for us.

We decided on BLM land near the Deschutes River. There was a spot that we could back in to without too much trouble not too far from the canyon. This was a nice boondocking area and has the potential to be a great area if people would pick up after themselves. Our spot didn’t have any trash but as we explored we found an abandoned mattress, lots of broken glass and trash, and half-burned cushions in other areas.

Our spot didn’t have a campfire ring, like some of the other spots did, so we collected some nearby lava rocks and built one. That was my first time building a campfire ring and the engineer in me enjoyed it. It was cold outside so after taking a walk around we decided to build a campfire. The campfire kept us nice and warm and we were blessed with a beautiful sunset but once that sun went down we had to go inside. It was too cold.

The temperature dropped below freezing each night. The first night our pipes froze again because we didn’t run the wet bay heater long enough but after that, we got everything set up and we had no more issues. The nice thing about this spot (end of October) was that it wasn’t busy and our few neighbors were spread out so we could run our generator as needed.

We had three great days in this spot. We relaxed, read books, and played our computer games. It was a great chance to decompress and disconnect from the internet (no cell signal). We had no issues with wind and I slept great.

We recommend Deschutes River BLM, even in the cold, because there was no wind and the area wasn’t busy so you can run your generator as needed just be prepared from some trash.

I highly recommend unhooking at Peter Skene Ogden State Park so you can easily scope out the few boondocking options to figure out which one is going to work best for you, especially if you have a larger rig like us.

RV Cold Weather Setup

Don’t make the same mistakes we did. We have improved our cold weather setup, and you can read our recommendations in our How to keep your RV warm in winter and How to keep RV pipes and holding tanks from freezing articles.

Looking for things to do in Oregon? Take a look at our Oregon articles. Where are we going next? Don’t miss an adventure, subscribe today.