When we went camping last weekend, we headed up the Chewuch River valley north of Winthrop to pick from a series of three campgrounds. We picked the one in the middle, Chewuch, in between Falls Creek and Camp 4. I think it’s about here:

It was pretty nice.

To give you a sense of scale on this giant tent we keep talking up to our friends, that tree on the right is approximately 700 feet tall.

The best part? I had assumed we wouldn’t want to stay at Chewuch as it was the biggest— 16 whole sites— but we found it nearly deserted. It was empty enough we went through a vague period of worry that we’d missed signs back in Winthrop regarding axe murderers or rampaging grizzlies.  Our site (#9?) was easily big enough for a ten person group and the only other people (two campground hosts) were on the far side of the grounds— that picture above is from our site aiming towards theirs.

Being a National Forest, we could have just packed up and headed into the hills if there was competition for the campground. (Looking back at that Google Map, I can see a pretty attractive hill site just off a Development Road above the campground, for example.) But— flat ground, no people, river access, scenic surrounding hills, water spigot ten yards from camp; we had it made. The only possible improvement would have been if someone had downed and chainsawed an entire tree at the adjacent campsite…