Badlands Rock Dispersed Camping
BLM
Write a Review 66 Central Oregon Hwy. Bend, OR 97701 541-416-6700 Official WebsiteGPS: 43.9435, -121.0257
Overview of Badlands Rock Dispersed Camping
Accessibility is not guaranteed, always scout ahead before driving down dirt roads.
Learn more: Boondocking 101
Last Price Paid: $0
Reported by Jordan S. on 9/11/2024
Longest RV Reported: 41 feet (Class A)
Reported by Jay & Dee on 6/18/2023
Pad Type gravel
Elevation 3,608 ft / 1,099 m
Tent Camping Yes
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To ask questions of the owner or manager please contact the campground directly. 541-416-6700
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Reviews of Badlands Rock Dispersed Camping 26 people have reviewed this location.
Cell Phone Coverage
Confirmed by 14 Users
Last reported 11/1/2023
Confirmed by 8 Users
Last reported 6/18/2023
Confirmed by 4 Users
Last reported 5/29/2021
“Multiple locations in the area so look around”
Reviewed 5/29/2021
| Nightly rate: | FREE! |
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| Days stayed: | 9 |
Overall Rating
The marked location has a large gravel area and the road continues on with a couple more sites. We actually stayed at these coordinates instead 43.950125, -121.017339 and had good privacy. There is nothing past the Badlands Rock Tailhead and you will run into a private road with signs posted to turn around. There are no services any... more
The marked location has a large gravel area and the road continues on with a couple more sites. We actually stayed at these coordinates instead 43.950125, -121.017339 and had good privacy. There is nothing past the Badlands Rock Tailhead and you will run into a private road with signs posted to turn around. There are no services anywhere nearby. We had to go into Bend for water. Overall, we enjoyed this quiet location a few miles east of Bend. We were able to get good cell service to stream TV and use the computer with both T-Mobile and AT&T.
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AT&T 4G
T-Mobile 4G
Jason would stay here again
This review is the opinion of a Campendium member and not of Campendium.com
“Convenient while passing through Bend”
Reviewed 10/19/2020
| Nightly rate: | FREE! |
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| Days stayed: | 1 |
| Site Number: | N/A |
Overall Rating
We stopped here overnight while passing through Bend and stayed on a Saturday night. The graveled area is large, but not very private. Behind one one of the mounds though, were several smaller roads, which you could park in. No fire rings or other amenities, just a place to pull your rig over for a night. Road noise wasn't really p... more
We stopped here overnight while passing through Bend and stayed on a Saturday night. The graveled area is large, but not very private. Behind one one of the mounds though, were several smaller roads, which you could park in. No fire rings or other amenities, just a place to pull your rig over for a night. Road noise wasn't really perceptible within our rig.
The one negative of this spot was that it was clear that other campers didn't take terrific care of it. Buckets, animal bones and other debris were found throughout the campsite. Would and probably will stay at again.
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AT&T 4G
T-Mobile 4G
Hvacsonair would stay here again
This review is the opinion of a Campendium member and not of Campendium.com
“Quiet ”
Reviewed 7/22/2020
| Nightly rate: | FREE! |
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| Days stayed: | 2 |
| RV Length: | 19' (Travel Trailer) |
Overall Rating
We didn't have a problem finding our site. The road is nice, we just went straight past the gravel piles and took a right off the main road. This was a quiet site but very dirty. There was the trail head down the dirt road, but we explored the road our site was on.
Maureen would stay here again
This review is the opinion of a Campendium member and not of Campendium.com
“Great Area, Remote feeling not far from Bend”
Reviewed 7/12/2020
| Nightly rate: | FREE! |
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| Days stayed: | 3 |
| Site Number: | NA |
| RV Length: | 21' (Travel Trailer) |
Overall Rating
I've done a lot of boondock camping, and it is unfortunate there is almost no information on the web posted about camping in this area, and what is posted is vague and incomplete, so I hope this review helps with that. This is in the BLM managed Oregon Badlands, and there are many places you can camp and setup your gear. This area ... more
I've done a lot of boondock camping, and it is unfortunate there is almost no information on the web posted about camping in this area, and what is posted is vague and incomplete, so I hope this review helps with that.
This is in the BLM managed Oregon Badlands, and there are many places you can camp and setup your gear. This area is also home to the Bend Aero Modelers (you can Google Map search that as well). I like to do astrophotography and as best I can tell from the maps and color scales, this is a Bortle 3 dark sky. There was some light dome coming from Bend and Redmond, but it was not bad and most of the Milky Way is clearly visible.
Arriving from Bend (traveling east) you turn left off of Hwy 20 at the Oregon Badlands sign. This road has no name that I am aware of. You have two options. The first is to take an almost immediate veer to the right and there are some boondock camping sites kind of between the piles of Highway material and the Bend Aero Modelers airport that are difficult to see in map satellite images and have some shade. The second is if you go straight and continue about 2/3 of a mile there will be a dirt road to your right. You can see it in the Satellite View of Google Maps, Apple Maps, etc. but you need to zoom way in. GPS for our campsite was 43.940050, -121.010189 a few miles up the dirt road.
We followed the road up the hill to the GPS coordinates I listed above. I was towing a light, fully self contained 19' Escape fiberglass trailer with my Ford F150 4x4 and it was a bit treacherous in a few places, mostly because we don't have a lift kit installed for the trailer, but we cleared everything okay. This hill is steeper than it looks on google maps and I did use 4x4 low for a bit.
I would not take a passenger car more than mile or so down the dirt road. There are only two places to turn around before you start heading up the hill where 4-Wheel Drive would be desirable. The last spot to turn around is a fork to a dirt road that goes back around the east end of the Aero Club runway. I suspect you can take a passenger car and follow the dirt road around the end of the airport runway, and back to the main highway, but I did not drive on that part so I don't know for sure.
If you keep going up the hill the road forks. To the right is one more camping spot, but I would not go much farther than that. Going to the left at the fork you will find several more suitable campsites, and quite frankly I wished we had driven up there to one of those.
It was darned hot the weekend we were there and it was cold at night (very cold one of the nights) so be prepared for the huge swing in temps, at least in summer. There is no way I would try going up the hill in the winter. If it snowed you would be stuck there for sure.
The only problem we had - and this is one of those "it could only happen to me" kind of stories, is that one night around 1:00AM a group of good old boys drove their Jeep up the hill past us to the campsite about 1/2 mile away where I wished we had setup (left of the fork in the road) and promptly turned on their car headlights (yep aimed right at our camp and my telescope) and proceeded to build a bonfire and finish off a six pack or two. So a long trip to a good dark sky only to be stymied one night by car headlights out in the middle of nowhere. At least they were gone by sunrise and kept to themselves and were quiet.
Slight ding on the rating for site quality (it is a mixed use area, e.g. gravel mining) and noise (highway and some noise from the gravel pit during the day).
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T-Mobile 4G
DT would stay here again
This review is the opinion of a Campendium member and not of Campendium.com
“Large, flat, lots of options ”
Reviewed 7/6/2020
| Nightly rate: | FREE! |
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| Days stayed: | 1 |
| RV Length: | 19' (Travel Trailer) |
Overall Rating
Super easy to find & get into, lots of places to park. Everything seemed pretty level. We stayed in the main gravel lot area instead of going down some of the side roads, and there was a good amount of trash where we parked. Overall good overnight spot though.
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Verizon 4G
aavery13 would stay here again
This review is the opinion of a Campendium member and not of Campendium.com
“Good Location for Free Overnighting ”
Reviewed 6/8/2020
| Nightly rate: | FREE! |
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| Days stayed: | 3 |
| RV Length: | 25' (Class C) |
Overall Rating
The location was as stated by prior visitors....visible gravel piles on your left heading SE from Bend on Hwy 20. The first sign on your left ignore Flatiron Trailhead, continue on Hwy 20 down the hill a mile or two and you’ll see the Badlands Rock sign. There were 2 other campers when we pulled in at least 150-300 yards apart fr... more
The location was as stated by prior visitors....visible gravel piles on your left heading SE from Bend on Hwy 20.
The first sign on your left ignore Flatiron Trailhead, continue on Hwy 20 down the hill a mile or two and you’ll see the Badlands Rock sign. There were 2 other campers when we pulled in at least 150-300 yards apart from one another....plenty of room. We chose to go through the gravel pit towards the model airplane airport and stayed there for 3 nights.....very quiet except for traffic going up the hill when you’re outside.....we saw a few hikers and a few motorists with ATVs. Pleasant and boring just the way I like it no drama.
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T-Mobile 4G
Francis would stay here again
This review is the opinion of a Campendium member and not of Campendium.com
“Convenient, flat & big rig friendly”
Reviewed 2/26/2020
| Nightly rate: | FREE! |
|---|---|
| Days stayed: | 1 |
| Site Number: | N/a |
Overall Rating
Conveniently located just outside of Bend off the 20 - and easy to spot the entrance by looking for the gravel piles. From earlier posts we determined there were two spots to choose from. We chose to go to the right and found an area just after the gravel piles but before the private RC (remote control) airstrip. There are a series of ... more
Conveniently located just outside of Bend off the 20 - and easy to spot the entrance by looking for the gravel piles. From earlier posts we determined there were two spots to choose from. We chose to go to the right and found an area just after the gravel piles but before the private RC (remote control) airstrip. There are a series of loops that you can choose as your site.
During the day there was a little bit of traffic through the area with people going to the airstrip, but no one bothered us. The evening was very quiet and we felt safe in the area.
The site itself was very level, with a mixture of dirt/gravel. The views vary depending on how you park. We had a nice view off the eastern horizon.
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AT&T 4G
Verizon 4G
The Roads We Roam would stay here again
This review is the opinion of a Campendium member and not of Campendium.com
“Good Dispersed Camping”
Reviewed 10/15/2019
| Nightly rate: | FREE! |
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| Days stayed: | 14 |
| Site Number: | NA |
Overall Rating
We parked here for a couple weeks while visiting family in Bend. We followed the edge of the gravel pit to a road that leads back to an air strip for UAVs and found several camping spots to choose from. We stayed down in a little dip that was mostly secluded. Full sun and very dusty, but for a free spot to park we didn’t complain. ... more
We parked here for a couple weeks while visiting family in Bend. We followed the edge of the gravel pit to a road that leads back to an air strip for UAVs and found several camping spots to choose from. We stayed down in a little dip that was mostly secluded. Full sun and very dusty, but for a free spot to park we didn’t complain.
Verizon signal maxed at 2 bars of LTE without a booster but I was able to work off of that just fine.
For more details, including directions on how to get here from Bend, check out my post at simplejoyfuljourney.com/oregon-2019.
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Verizon 4G
SimpleJoyfulJourney would stay here again
This review is the opinion of a Campendium member and not of Campendium.com
“Comfortable ”
Reviewed 9/18/2019
| Nightly rate: | FREE! |
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| Days stayed: | 3 |
| Site Number: | None |
| RV Length: | 34' (Class A) |
Overall Rating
We looked around but the sites mentioned in the early reviews were taken and the road was a little muddy. With rain expected we opted to stay at the trailhead just off the paved road. Plenty of space and quiet till 6 am every morning when the gravel pit opened. We have a 25 foot RV and truck. The trailhead leads to numerous options f... more
We looked around but the sites mentioned in the early reviews were taken and the road was a little muddy. With rain expected we opted to stay at the trailhead just off the paved road. Plenty of space and quiet till 6 am every morning when the gravel pit opened. We have a 25 foot RV and truck.
The trailhead leads to numerous options for walks. We did a 4 mile walk on fine stone wide pathways, even though it rained the trail was dry. A number of cars maybe 6 during our 3 day stay came to walk with numerous dogs.
Close to Bend and convenient for exploring around. There was Mountain bike trail close.
We originally planned on 2 nights but decided to stay due to the rain.
Cell coverage was spotty probably better closer to the road 20.
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AT&T 4G
Verizon 4G
Outdoor Girl would stay here again
This review is the opinion of a Campendium member and not of Campendium.com
“Quiet, Secluded & off the road spot”
Reviewed 9/10/2019
| Nightly rate: | FREE! |
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| Days stayed: | 1 |
Overall Rating
On hwy 20 to East Bend. Easy to see sign on the right hand side of the just after you come down the hill. The main road is asphalting.The first right enters the gravel pit and you can drive farther back to dry camping spots. We found a really nice spot off to the left but when we pulled in someone had abandoned there tent site and tras... more
On hwy 20 to East Bend. Easy to see sign on the right hand side of the just after you come down the hill. The main road is asphalting.The first right enters the gravel pit and you can drive farther back to dry camping spots. We found a really nice spot off to the left but when we pulled in someone had abandoned there tent site and trash everywhere.We saw a sign for Badlands Trailhead and decided to leave the gravel pits and take a right onto the asphalt and continue down the road. The first dirt road to the right we took and saw a road to the right with a big outcropping of rocks. Pulled in and was a secluded dirt camp spot surrounded with rocks and off the main road. Walked farther down the road and found one more campsite encircled with lava rock and even more hidden. Would definitely come again. Walked to the trail head down main asphalt road about 1/4 mile
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Verizon 4G
Lynn would stay here again
This review is the opinion of a Campendium member and not of Campendium.com
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