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Camping
Tonight will be the last night for camping, and Wednesday, 11/17/2021, the Bivouac (camping) area will be officially closed for the season. Water fill-up stations by the Welcome Center and the bridge are already turned off due to freezing night-time temperatures.
After over a year in hiatus due to COVID closures, Smith Rock State Park management announced today that they will be re-opening the Bivouac Camp this Thursday, May 27th. Parking will be initially reduced to limit total capacity, and the showers will be limited to registered overnight guests only and locked nightly. The cliff rim sites in the tent area are closed for nesting Bald Eagle protection.
We are asked daily (sometimes hourly) when the Bivy Campground will re-open at Smith Rock. Like most other areas where social distancing can be an issue during a pandemic—it’s complicated. We don’t make the decisions at Smith Rock State Park, (independent since our inception in 2000) we get our information from park management, posted here. What follows are some ways we may be able to help, however.
SmithRock.com reached out to Smith Rock State Park management and confirmed today that the Bivy Campground will be closed from April 3 to May 8. Before May 8, the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department (OPRD) will review the state park campground closure to decide whether it should be extended due to COVID-19 measures.
Volunteers from the 2018 American Alpine Club Craggin’ Classic event last weekend and Park staff installed three new ADA accessible camp sites in the Bivy Campground for people with disabilities. Making the park more inclusive to more people is a future focus for the park.
