Joe Graham Horse Camp
Location: Joe Graham Horse Camp, no address available
Facilities: Vault toilets, manure goes in garbage dumpsters, fire pits and picnic tables at each site Camp Site Amenities: picnic table, fire pit, Site Type: back-in Water: Water Spigot Footing: Rocky, hoof boots recomended Cell Signal: No cell signal Dogs: Dogs allowed Other: Weed-free hay required Website: https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/mthood/recarea/?recid=53400 Reservations: https://www.recreation.gov/camping/campgrounds/232834 |
Horse Campsites
All of the horse sites are back-in except for 1 strange pull-through site. You must have a horse to reserve a site....except that is not true. As I walked around the campsite more than half of the sites were taken by non-horse campers and they had reservations! If you are attracted to Joe Graham because you are looking for a quiet, peaceful campsite full of horses and not full of tents or RVs then this is not the place. If your main goal is to ride around Timothy lake as much as possible then that could happen here. This campsite is very close to Skyline road which is the road off of Hwy 26. There is a lot of traffic that drives very fast down Skyline road. I would opt for a site on the far end of the loop, site 6-9 to avoid road noise and have a better view of the lovely meadow behind the camp. I would also take note of the location of the water spigots. Unless you are at a site right next to the spigot or have an extremely long hose then I would count on hauling your own stock water or using a device to transport it from the spigot to your horse corral. Sites 6, 7 and 8 may be the best sites here.
Horse Campsite Details
|
- Site 5: Three horse corral, driveway length 50 feet, max vehicle length 40 feet, back-in, 3 horse corrals in a box, kind-of a strange configuration with the entrance in the middle. This may be hard to access.
- Site 6: Four horse max, driveway length 70 feet, max vehicle length 40 feet, back-in, 4 horse corral in typical box/grid configuration
- Site 7: Three horse max, driveway length 45 feet, max vehicle length 27 feet, back-in, 3 corrals in-line
- Site 8 Two horse max, driveway length 35 feet, max vehicle length 30 feet, back-in, 2 horse corrals
- Site 9: Two horse max, driveway length 35 feet, max vehicle length 20 feet, back-in, 2 horse corrals with a broken outer rail, again, who knows when this will be fixed.
- Site 10: Three horse max, driveway length 35 feet, max vehicle length 26 feet, back-in, this site only has a tie-rail. It is not a high-tie, just a tie-rail. I would avoid this site if you want sturdy containment for your horse. I would pretty much panic if I thought this horse site had a corral and arrived only to find a tie-rail!
- Site 11: Three horse max. driveway length 65 feet, max vehicle length 26 feet, pull-through, this is a weird pull-through site which only has a tie-rail. The 3 horse max listing on the website is very misleading. There is no corral at this site!
- Site 12: Two horse max, driveway length 45 feet, max vehicle length 20 feet, back-in, 2 horse corral
- Site 13: Two horse max, drive-way length 40 feet, max vehicle length 36 feet, back-in, 2 horse corral
- Site 14: Not pictured on camp map on reservation website, 2 horse corral
Horse Campsite Pictures
The camp loop is a pretty tight circle. I saw some big rigs in the sites but their drivers must be very skilled. Especially having all back-in sites. The sites were very close together. Usually with horse sites you have more room between campers but this is a very small and tight campground.
Site 1 - More unusual 4 horse configuration of corrals.
Site 2
Site 3
Site 4
Site 5 - This felt like a very awkward corral configuration with the opening in the middle of the 3 corrals.
Site 6
Site 7 - closer to spigot and nicer view of meadow behind camp
Site 8 - can see meadow behind camp, may or may not be able to reach spigot with 2-3 100 foot hoses.
Site 9 - Broken outer corral rail so corral is unusable, this has a nice view and would be great if corral wasn't broken
Site 10 - Tie Rail Only!
Site 11 - Nice pull-through site but only a tie-rail!! I wish they could put a corral here, it would be a nice pull-through site if it had better horse containment options.
Site 12
Site 13 - I couldn't see the horse corrals but I was impressed the occupants fit 2 trucks in the space provided
Site 14
Riding
Joe Graham to Little Crater Lake
It is 5.2 miles to the Little Crater Lake Trail from Skyline Road and Joe Graham Horse Camp. It is about 0.15 miles to get to the Little Crater Lake. That means it is a 10.5 mile round trip ride from Joe Graham to Little Crater Lake. We visited before Sam and I started doing longer endurance rides. At this time Jon was hiking on foot with the dogs and 11 miles was a little too daunting for us. With two horses that can trot, this could be a 2 hr ride.
|
537 to PCT
I am looking forward to riding this trail. The 537 trail is a way for bikers to ride around Timothy Lake. If you are not a fan of bikes, ride the PCT. If you are ok with bikes and want less foot traffic then avoid the PCT.
|
Ride Around Timothy Lake
It is at least a 13 mile ride around the entire lake, 15 miles from Clackamas Lake Campground. Sam and I could ride 15 miles pretty easy, the hard part is dodging the hikers and worrying about a lot of foot traffic. The south shore of the lake can be pretty busy in the summer so there may be a lot of tents, cars, paddleboards, boats to avoid. This is not a quiet ride in the woods!
Riding around the whole lake would involve the scary river crossing I wrote about in the Clackamas Lake chapter depending on which way you rode back to camp. |
Rating
The day I checked out this campsite I had Sam at the Clackamas Lake Campsite. Do I regret my decision? No. Maybe if I had a larger group with their hopes set on riding around Timothy lake I would want to stay here. My site 4 at Clackamas was much nicer than any of the sites at Joe Graham. There were non horse campers at Joe Graham and it was very close to Skyline Road. This combined with the tight camp loop, broken corrals and tie-rails only, at several sites, made me not want to camp here. It also made me wonder if horse sites got the lowest priority for location and placement? The riding from camp would be more around Timothy lake and you could go farther north to the Little Crater Lake. That is a very long ride, and longer than my preferred 2-3 hours in the saddle. Maybe I will be back to write about different rides....maybe we will move on to other campsites.