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Lava Lake Campground is popular with campers as the lower elevation lodgepole pine stands offer great screening between sites. This campground is located next to Lava Lake, and this site offers hiking and fishing opportunities.
The area has two boat ramps and lots of day use parking. The lake is popular with fishermen and often the same campers come back year after year. There are five tent only sites right near the water. Lava Lake was formed by a flow of lava across the east shore, between Lava Lake and Little Lava Lake.
In Bend, OR, at the intersection of US 97 and Downtown/Mt Bachelor/Exit 138, take Exit 138 to Colorado Ave. Turn right (west) onto Colorado Av and go 1.7 miles to a roundabout. Take the third right off the roundabout onto Century Dr. and go 35.1 miles to campground sign. Turn left, onto Forest Rt. 500 and go 0.6 miles to a "Y" intersection. Bear left and go 0.2 miles to campground on right.
Beautiful area! Rustic primitive campground with potable water. Lots of pretty trails and things to see. Wildlife all around. The resort next door rents boats and kayaks and has laundry and showers. This campground is reservation only, go to recreation.gov to make those.
The campground was well kept and the camp host cleaned the toilets pretty clean. Beautiful view of the lake and Mt. Bachelor. However the lake had algae and was not safe for dogs or kids to swim in it. There were some boaters. We drove a few miles to swim in Elk lake everyday instead. There was a rustic resort with a store and shower (might need to pay) right by the campground.
It's a beautiful campground and the lake is absolutely gorgeous, fish are abundant and the amenities are all right. Shower tokens are $1.50/3 minutes. The toilets are tall plastic seats over holes in the ground, but they are kept well clean. Gosh do they stink, though! Dont bring your phone in the bathroom, cause you will never see it again if it falls in. The convenience store is filled with lots of things from beer to marshmallows to board games and towels, etc. The prices are a little wonky, $8.50 for a bottle of bug spray that lasted a day, just as an example. The trail around the lake is clean and lovely. However, the mosquitos sucked me dry, even with bug spray and a net for my head, they were absolutely ruthless. I got bit 6 times within the first few minutes of stepping out of the truck! There were some drunken unruly camping neighbors who were scream-laughing well past midnight, keeping everyone in my campsite awake, and I'm sure other campers were kept awake too. The camp host was useless to help, so we had to confront them ourselves. If you are allergic to bees, beeware (joke kind of intended!). All in all, it wasnt a bad trip. The bugs had us going home a day early, though, we were so itchy! My dog was being sucked dry by the mosquitos even more than us humans, she was going nuts! Oh, one more thing, PLEASE enforce the dog leash rule, my dog was approached by so many unleashed strange aggressive dogs I thought I would have to hide her in the tent for the rest of the trip.
