Coalmine Hill Campground
This is how it should work.
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
Coalmine Hill is just off the paved Blue Mountain Scenic Byway (also called the Western Route). The Campground serves as access to the Bald Mountain, Hells Half Acre, and Willow Creek trails, offering a 7.5 mile-long loop experience for hikers and equestrians. Once inside the campground's large parking area, there is an information board on the northeast side. Past the information board runs the Bald Mountain hiking trail leading to Gibson Cave, which is 1.25 miles from the parking lot. The cave is really a shallow overhanging shelter with an interpretive sign describing its history. Keep reading
Once you've reached Gibson's cave, continue up the Bald Mountain trail until you reach a nice view point. The mountain's view point overlooks the drainages in between Coalmine Hill (to the northwest) and Little Bald Mountain (to the east), providing fantastic views and tranquility. About five miles southwest of the campground is Penland Lake; follow the Blue mountain Scenic Byway and Forest Service Road 21 and 2103, until you've reached Penland Lake where there are fishing and nonelectric boating opportunities. . Coalmine Hill Campground provides one larger, separate site near the entrance and the remaining five sites are located along the tree edges of the large parking area. There is one vault toilet and a travel access information board. This campground was constructed to serve double-duty as a snow park in the winter. There is no potable water or garbage service, so please pack out all garbage and dispose of it at home.
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…of the large parking area. There is one vault toilet and a travel access information board. This…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…as a snow park in the winter. There is no potable water or garbage service, so please pack out all garbage…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek
Nothing to book, just show up
One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.
recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.
Every line of the receipt · 5
What you actually pay
How we know this receipt · 4
record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Where it is
Ditch Creek Guard Station CabUmatilla National Forest · 3.3 miPenland Lake CampgroundUmatilla National Forest · 3.5 miDivide Well CampgroundUmatilla National Forest · 10 miWillow Creek Campground16 mi
Bull Prairie Campground (OR)Umatilla National Forest · 21 miTollbridge CampgroundUmatilla National Forest · 23 miThe weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Heppner, OR
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Coalmine Hill Campground is in Oregon’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Cliff Bentz (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →