Big Pines

Big Pines has been our go to spot for years. It's a great place to camp when you are planning on floating the river for its easy pull out at the boat launch. We tend to camp on the weekdays there as it quickly fills up with the kids on the weekends. The camp hosts Dallas and Cindee were wonderful and helpful when we needed something.

I love the Yakima River. A group of us having been floating the river and enjoying the campground for the past 10 years. We love it!

I love the Yakima River. A group of us having been floating the river and enjoying the campground for the past 10 years. We love it!

it is hot! be sure to choose a shaded spot close to boat launch

it is hot! be sure to choose a shaded spot close to boat launch

The place is awesome dry camping in the beautiful canyon…. Love our yearly visits!

The place is awesome dry camping in the beautiful canyon…. Love our yearly visits!

Nice facilities, setting, paved level sites and easy access. A bit off the beaten path but scenic. No water or dump. Nice day use/boat launch area, though the river moves right along there... Convenient location for our frequent trips between Oregon and BC.

We loved spot #4! It was very large and had some shady areas throughout the day (which was MUCH needed). The walking path down to the water from our spot was overgrown and we didn't venture down it, but there was a clear short path from spot #3 that we used since nobody was camping there. You can also access the water from the boat launch area only a few more spots down. The whole campground was small and felt private since we had it mostly to ourselves each night with 1-2 people staying in some spots far away from us on various nights. We stayed 3 nights and 4 days, Sunday-Wednesday. We also had spot #5 as a part of our group and their spot was in the direct sun almost all day and up higher in the open, so we spent all of our time down at spot #4 where it was more blocked off from people and had some shade.

The only negative part of our stay was on night 2 there were some rafters who missed the boat launch and got onto shore behind our camping spot. They were extremely loud and arguing and it kind of freaked us out, they had to climb out of that overgrown path I mentioned and walk through our site, then late at night they came back to get their raft that they left behind and that freaked us out as well, they seemed very off, but I think that's a one-off experience. It is worth noting though that we had no cell service and the emergency call box was out of service, so in the event of an emergency we'd have to leave our stuff and drive out of there about 15-20 minutes to get cell service.
Overall we felt safe enough though, and the next day went into both Ellensburg and Yakima all day and our stuff/campsite was untouched when we got back.

We would stay at this spot again.

Beautiful views of the canyon and river. Mosquitos were pretty bad (early July) but should be expected camping by a river in the summer. We were thankful we could have a fire!
It should be noted that all of the sites are not equal. Spot #1 and #2 were tiny, spot #3 was a little bigger, spot #4 was about double the size, spot #5 was pretty large as well but closes to the restrooms and no shade, and lastly spots #6 & #7 were decently sized but also in direct sun with no trees or greenery and closest to the entrance to drive into the campground. I would defiantly say spot #4 is the best spot in the campground. Spots #1-#4 are all on the river side with some greenery though while #5-#7 were on the side closes to the road up above them.
There are some reviews mentioning the train, for us it didn't wake us at night and during the day when we heard it we thought it was neat and a cool view, it is pretty loud though and sounds very screechy.
We would stay at spot #4 again out of any!