July 13, 2024
Written By: J.Couch
We have some great friends who like to camp at Lost Lake in Oregon. It is a small lake in the Mt Hood National Forest about 30 to 40 minutes out of Hood River, Oregon. They got a site that had the availability to park two trailers back-to-back. They called and asked if we would like to join them for the weekend. Of course, we wanted to join them for the weekend.
We drove down to Portland and picked up our trailer, which is the first time this year that we have been able to get out to camp. If you don’t count the time I camped along the way for my drive from Colorado to Oregon.
We left Portland in the late afternoon and headed east down the Columbia Gorge towards Hood River. It’s about a 2-hour drive from the Portland area up to the lake. This is a dry camping area, so there are no camping spots that have power, water, or sewer. They do have a spot where you can fill up your water and a place to dump when you leave. But beyond that you need to plan on not having electricity unless you have a generator. We can normally get by for a few days on battery so we were not too worried.
We got to camp as the sun was preparing for bed in the western sky and began to set up our camp. Our friends had been there for a couple hours already so they were waiting for us so that we could start dinner. As I set up the trailer, they started to prepare for dinner. We had a nice evening sitting around the fire (Propane Fire, at this time of the year they don’t allow wood fires due to forest fire threat.) and catching up. The stars came out and we soon realized that it was pushing midnight and time for bed. We needed our rest for the big day of lounging around all day at the lake.
We slept in the next morning and took our time getting up and going for the day. We had some coffee and made a big breakfast at camp. Gathered all our things for the lake and drove down to fight the traffic that comes into this lake over the weekend. This is a very popular lake and it can get very crowded after about 11:00 a.m. In fact, we were not able to park down there, we had to drop our kayaks and paddle boards and take the car back to the campground.
We spent most of the day floating around on the lake, mostly on the southern side of the lake away from all the craziness of the boat launch area and to get out of the wind that was blowing us back towards shore. It was very enjoyable and peaceful. Just floating around talking. Having a good time enjoying the scenery which is very beautiful out there. This is one of the best places to float around and see Mount Hood in the background. After a few hours of fun in the sun, we headed back to camp to make dinner and play some games to finish the evening. This time we didn’t get to bed as late in the evening, partially because we ran out of propane for our fire and after playing some games, we were all pretty worn out from the Sun.
We were up fairly early the next morning to pack up camp and start to head back towards Portland to drop our trailer. We still had a long way to go since we had to head towards Seattle for that 3-hour drive back home. Which in the end turns out to be about a 4 to 5 hour drive due to all the traffic headed back into Seattle. Not the greatest of drives. It was a great weekend and we had a good time, not too sure how many camping weekends we will get this year. Having our trailer 3 hours away from where we live makes it a little more challenging to get out.
Have you been to Lost Lake? What are your favorite memories of that beautiful lake and area? Comment below.
Thanks for wandering with us,
The Wandering Couchs
