Sunset Bay State Park Campground

Here's my take on the campground at Sunset Bay. In my last post, I fawned over the day use area. Here, I won't do the same. The campground is very nice, the volunteers were friendly, the bathrooms were clean, there was plenty of hot water for the showers (although the only loop with no showers was our loop, a tent loop. Why does the RV loop need showers?), there were few bugs (amazingly few bugs, thank you bats!), the sites were well laid out, the . . . okay, I'm fawning a bit. The campground is great, but I don't think I'll stay there again. There are just too many beautiful Oregon State Park campgrounds on the coast. While I may look past a few minor unpleasantries about say, a restaurant (that I can go to over and over in a year), I want a place that I at least think there is a chance for a perfect vacation when I only go camping once or maybe twice a year. That was an incredibly convoluted sentence. Take a look at my "Le Happy" entry. The service is poor, but the food makes it worth it. I wouldn't take a week out of my life to go to Le Happy because I know it won't be perfect, but I will take a night to go there. In this case, I'll try one of the other great campgrounds on the Oregon Coast and just make Sunset Bay a day trip.

The reason? The weather. I could be horribly wrong, but I have an odd feeling that you don't stand a good chance at hitting good weather. While the weather was 90+ degrees in the valley and 70-80 in Coos Bay and just a few miles inland, it was maybe (I'm being generous) 60 degrees at Sunset Bay. When the weather on the beach just a few miles north was sunny and beautiful, it was misting and damp at the campground. Yes, I know all about the inversion that hits Oregon (hot hot hot in the valley and cloudy at the coast). This didn't seem to be what was going on though. After a short 10 minute drive to Coos Bay, the small cloud bank that had attached itself to Cape Arago was incredibly apparent. No clouds north, no clouds south, no clouds east and I couldn't tell for sure, but probably no clouds even to the west. The clouds (and dampness that really wanted to make everything we brought wet) look like they have a special kind of love affair with the cape. So I, for one, will take the 50% chance of having great weather when camping in many of the other coastal campgrounds over the campground that has a 15% chance. I don't know, maybe it's actually the other way around, but this is my take on it.

A couple of other good notes. On my first day there, I saw a rabbit, two bats and a raccoon. The birds are plentiful and the only bugs were bees (bring something to keep them away). The bats may have scared the hell out of me when I was just in the bathroom brushing my teeth, but it's always nice to see wildlife you don't see all the time and they did a great job of keeping the bugs down (I believe the statistic is something like they eat six times their body weight in bugs each night).

One thing I have to say to the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department is get your act together! In reserving the campsites online, we were told that each of the sites we reserved could only hold one small tent. We could easily have fit four decent sized tents in each of the sites we reserved. Since we thought we wouldn't be able to fit many tents, we reserved three sites when we really only needed two for our group. In giving back one site, we confused the living daylights out of the ranger woman that "helped" us. Since she just randomly assigned my car to a site without letting us look at where we'd want it, she had to move it and the extra cars and and and and and . . . well and all hell broke loose. An easy task became complicated because they insist on knowing which car is in which site rather than just assigning a group a range of sites (i.e. B-9 & B-11), they felt the need to know specifics that made no difference. In the morning, a ranger came to our site telling us that we had to pay for an extra car in one site and wondering where the extra car was in the other site. Could they not put those two things together to come to a reasonable conclusion of, oh, I don't know? It's right there in the next site under the same reservation??

I'm done with my rant. I don't hold this against this park in particular, I'm sure this is more of a statewide problem. I know new software costs money, but common sense shouldn't.

There. Now I'm done.

Really, though. It's a good place. If you don't mind dampness (it was dry and beautiful our last day, which made the whole trip wonderful), go ahead and stay here.

Here are the specifics:

Fee: $16-20 per night per site (depending on amenities - electricity and full hookup) $5 per night for an extra vehicle (2 vehicles per site maximum)

Pets: Pets are welcome on leash

Facilities: Flush toilets, showers, electricity and full hookup available, yurts, picnic tables, fire pits, firewood for sale
Attractions: Beach access, trails, creek (see day use area for additional information)
Reservations: Available (recommended on busy summer weekends)

Season: Year round (of course depends on the weather)

Coordinates: 43.330861, -124.370558 (Unverified)

Governmental Agency Land: Oregon State Parks & Recreation

Nearest town: Charleston, Oregon (2.7 miles)

Nearest 10,000+ city: Coos Bay, Oregon (7.8 miles)

County: Coos County, Oregon

My rating (out of 6): 4.5 (yes, this good - I expect 5-5.5 from my coastal state parks though)

More Information: Oregon State Parks - Sunset Bay

My Current Location: Home - Portland, Oregon