Camping at Ice Cap Campground

Last weekend I stayed at Ice Cap Campground near McKenzie Bridge, Oregon. While looking for details on this campground I came across numerous conflicting details, so I'd figure I'd share what my experience was as of late July, 2022.

First off, we stayed at the campground on a weekend where the high was 105 degrees Fahrenheit. It was a HOT one. We made due and enjoyed ourselves just fine, but the heat kept us from doing too much. Thankfully, the campsite is covered in trees so there's lots of shade. We had campsite 9 and it was pretty small. Even with just our two tents, we weren't really sure where to place them (and I apparently placed mine on top of a spider nest the first night judging by the amount of spiders that were on the tent and the ground surrounding it when I was getting ready to go to bed for the night.

Let's talk about the amenities.

• FIREWOOD - they have it for sale for $7/bundle or slightly less if you buy 4 bundles at once. There weren't that many bundles left when we got there.
• TOILETS - Vault toilets look new and were clean and did not smell. There were 4 bathrooms for the campground to share.
• POTABLE WATER - There were two places where you could pump your own water. The pump took some significant movement to get going and was pretty tall, so it couldn't be used by a child younger than a teen most likely. The metal of the pump itself gets hot in the sun, so we needed a towel to hold onto it for some of the day. The water itself is cold and refreshing!

The campsite's bathroom building.

Bathrooms were clean and had no smell.

One of the two water pumps you could use for water.

We were there from Friday evening through Sunday around noon, as the campsite checkout time is 1 pm.

My friend Olivia and I spent our time hiking, hammocking, and making yummy food. The campsite sits just north of the Carmen Reservoir and is bordered on the west by the McKenzie River. We hiked down from our campsite to the Waterfalls Loop Trail and crossed the river at the reservoir before walking north towards Koosah and Sahalie Falls. The trail isn't overly difficult, we did it in Teva and Chacos sandals, but it has the occasional exposed moments that were hard when the sun was beating down on the 105 degree day! I ran out of water in my small water bottle in the stretch going from the reservoir to the bridge that crosses the river above the falls. The rushing water was gorgeous and sometimes you were hit with a bit of refreshing mist!

On the east side of the river there are a couple spots where you can wade in the river where it pools, right above the falls. The water is fed by snowmelt from Mount Washington and so it's freezing! It was nice to dip our toes in and splash a bit on our bodies before continuing the hike in the heat.

​When we got back to camp, we mainly just hung out and ate some food.

On Saturday evening, we decided it had finally cooled off enough to find a place to paddleboard. Our camp host wrote us a parking pass for Cold Water Cove Campground, which was just a couple of minutes down the road and has access to Clear Lake, a beautiful and serene lake…also…cold! We were able to spend about an hour on the lake as the sun started to set.

We got back to campground and made some dinner and baked a big cookie in a cast iron over the fire. We went to bed with the sound of the McKenzie River rushing in the background.