The Gales Creek Campground is scheduled to open to overnight campers Friday, May 19, according to the Oregon Department of Forestry.
Day use and trailhead areas are already open.
The popular site along Gales Creek on the eastern edge of the Tillamook State Forest features 16 vehicle sites, three walk-in tent sites, a day use area, restrooms, picnic tables, fire rings, and trail connections to several popular area hiking and mountain biking trails.
There’s no equestrian access at the site, but also opening May 19 is the nearby Reehers Camp in Timber. There, horse-friendly facilities abound. While driving there from the Gales Creek side is impossible—a landslide closed Timber Road indefinitely in early March between Strassel and Cochran roads—visitors can access the community of Timber from Highway 26 and Timber Road.
Reehers Camp features 10 equestrian sites with corrals and seven non-equestrian vehicle sites.
The two campgrounds are linked by the Gales Creek Trail, which has trailheads at the summit on Highway 6, at the Gales Creek Campground, at Reehers Camp, and the Storey Burn Trailhead. In total, the Gales Creek Trail traverses 12.7 miles of forest once known as the Tillamook Burn.
The portion linking the Gales Creek Campground and Reehers Camp is a popular hiking and mountain biking excursion of just over 10 miles, though the shuttle option of leaving one vehicle in Timber and one in Gales Creek is much longer now thanks to the Timber Road closure.
More information on the trail can be found online.
Information on opening days for campgrounds, trails, and other points of interest in the Tillamook State Forest can be found online using the Oregon Department of Forestry’s recreation website.
Cost:
Gales Creek Campground: $20 vehicle sites, $15 walk-in tent sites, $5 extra vehicle
Reehers Camp: $20 vehicle sites, $5 extra vehicle.
Chas Hundley is the editor of the Gales Creek Journal and sister news publications the Banks Post and the Salmonberry Magazine. He grew up in Gales Creek and has a cat.
