#177 Rufus, Oregon we stayed at a boondock on the Colombia River gorge near the John Day Dam

I found this one on freecamp.net. It's called Giles French Park and it was a boondock but intentional. It had no facilities but well organized along the Columbia River. We parked down towards the end looking at John Jay Dam.

The thing that I thought was kind of interesting was we were right on the river and there were these little docks that were handmade by people my guess is during the fishing season. I guess this is the place to be the salmon are running. I don't even know what they catch here. It was pretty cool as you would walk out to the end and carefully I guess, fish. They were all along the shoreline every 100 feet or so. You could out there in a beach chair or something. From the RV to the water would be a steep 20-foot cliff. These decks were level to the road and extended out into the water about 12 feet. They were supported by 45-degree timbers in the cliff. In the end, they have these very long rotating poles. They were maybe 12 ft long and tied to the deck. They had like a large string on the end. I have been fishing a few times so I'm going to guess they were outriggers.

This is where have a snap quick release from your rod and reel from the outrigger. It keeps the bait way out there in the water and away from the rocks at the shoreline. It all guessing as nobody was fishing this time of year. There were lots of Boondockers there. I probably saw 30 some rigs all over the place. Some looked as if they had been here a while and not leaving soon.

It was very smoky here probably worse than Portland. I didn't know it that day but this is called the Columbia Gorge.

I remember distinctly how hot it was I'll say about 106 ish. The wind never stopped. I mean like 25-30 miles an hour.

We were running our generator but we can only run one air conditioner at a time. When it's that hot you need two but it doesn't matter because we couldn't. Running the air conditioner makes it tolerable but that's about it. It's never comfortable you’re just not dead. At some point during the evening, it cooled off and we opened the windows. You had to tune out the smoky smell but the wind rushing through the rig made us comfortable during the night.

Giles French Park

This is a FREE campsite.

Address

Unknown Rufus, Oregon GPS: 45.703075, -120.723419 Elevation: 184' Get Directions

Management

Public - Corps of Engineers Website 541-506-7819

No fees, 14-day use limit. First-come, first-serve availability; no reservations.

Rufus, Oregon

LEPAGE PARK 45.7284, -120.65126 PO BOX 823 Rufus OR 97050

Phone Number: Information: (541)506-4807