Barton Park — Hotel in Happy Valley

I'm sad to see how Barton has changed over the last 2-3 years. We have a large RV and have always stayed in the East Campground which is reserved for RVs. The trees and bushes are now overgrown so that they hang over the roads and campsites. I get the "pinstripe" type scratches on my RV when I drive through the reservation lane. Then I try to dodge the rest of the branches. They have also "progressed" to a new online reservation system. No longer can you reserve through the camp host or the rangers at the park. I think that must be why they put up "Campground Full" signs at the entrance of both campgrounds. But the campgrounds aren't even a third full. Also the grassy middle area of the East Campground used to be mowed so kids could play ball and run around there. Now it is just left dry and overgrown. It looks like it would fuel a grass fire pretty easily. There are 5 individual shower rooms. Three of them are locked up, one of which is the ♿️ accessible one. So only 2 are available for use. The picture below shows what one looks like. Finally, the prices have skyrocketed over the last 2 years. For you Oregon residents it has gone from $28 a night to $37 a night in that time. I'm a non-Oregon resident. I travel here each year to visit my relatives in Oregon. We like to stay for a month or so. We've spent lots of money at the local businesses. We've attended the churches. We've visited and financially supported local schools. We have volunteered in local communities. But now Barton has decided to raise their non-resident rates to $46 per night! That's up from $28 just 2 years ago. It's now cheaper to stay at a nice RV resort with full hookups at their weekly rates. And of course there is an additional $11 fee to use the online reservation system. If I were to book a Friday and Saturday weekend it would cost me $103! I'm sorry to see all this happen. I miss the old Barton. I can only assume that Barton no longer wants out of state campers at their park. By the way, if anybody wonders why I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 star just look at the last picture.

Update: We came back to Barton for a few days, and we could see positive changes. The long dry grass was mowed. A lot of the trees were trimmed. The broken fence was repaired. The "Campground Full" signs are now only up when the campgrounds are nearly full (maybe some were reserved by no-shows). Hopefully these are signs of change, and they'll keep working towards a better run park like it used to be. They've still priced us out, but if I were an Oregon resident it would be a place to...

Hello, my boyfriend and I stayed at Barton park a few days ago August 24th-26th and your camp host, the older couple were extremely rude, basically ran us outta there and ruined our first camping experience as “new camper owners”. We just bought our first camper that we’ve worked really hard to get for our family. Yes it’s a little old and outdated but it’s ours, it is still nice and in good shape as we have been fixing it up but most importantly it serves its purpose. We pulled in at night on the 24th and a kind younger gentleman kindly helped us out. The younger host who checked us in said we could camp up to a week. I only paid for two days but intend to pay for more. That was all the cash I had on me until I could run up to the atm. But when the two days were up they came first thing in the morning to rush us out and kept coming back until we left even though we were supposed to have until 1pm. Fast forward to the following morning, our first morning, when your two elder park host pulled up to us, the older gal says to my boyfriend and I quote “this thing needs to go to the junk yard!” We were in disbelief as to what we just heard and left in complete utter shock. Well from that point Forward they were completely rude to us. That comment was an extremely harsh, hurtful and beyond uncalled for low blow to us. And for what? Why? Because she didn’t like the look of it? Did we do something wrong? No. Absolutely not. From right there at that point it was clear that she(they)were judging us by the looks of our trailer and proceeded to judge us and treat us so badly and With such hate that made us feel very unwelcome, extremely uncomfortable until they ran us out of there. THEN, we thought maybe they were having a bad couple days so we decided to try and stay there again tonight Sept 2nd and as soon as we parked and found a spot they came and told us we had to leave and that we couldn’t stay there. Now I am not sure what can be done about this but I expect something to because this isn’t ok in anyway and I have no choice to write the BBB AS well as leave bad reviews. I’ve Been coming to this park since I was a kid as my parents still to this day live up the hill on kelso and I’ve never ever been treated so poorly and more than...

This is a great park! Seems to have it all -- multiple areas for day use... river access with a boat ramp... multiple playgrounds (with updated playground equipment -- one having several slides for the kids with a combination of spiral and straight slides)... and a lot of pavilions which would be perfect for large groups meeting up and/or eating. They have several camping areas... with everything from tent camping to small and medium-size RV camping, and even one section (loop) dedicated to RV camping only. We have a big motorcoach (40 foot diesel pusher) and snagged one of the pull-thru "loop" spots. Made it in without issue. Cellular access is perfectly fine, unless you're down the hill near the boat ramp (then it can get spotty for some carriers). In the RV section we were able to get cellular connections good enough for streaming. One note about this park, which is unusual -- the close all the gates at 10:00 PM. Seriously -- they have a guy out there looking at his watch and will lock the gates at 10:00 PM... no sooner; no later. They do this for security reasons, and they'll only open the gates up for an emergency -- so make sure you have all your fun in the area and are back by that time, or you might find yourself parking in the entrance parking lot and walking to your campsite (assuming you're staying the night). We went about 30 minutes out to have dinner with friends... right around 7:00 PM. Portland gets a bit more congested than other cities of the same size -- even on the weekends -- and people LOVE to drive in ALL lanes of the freeway at a slow rate (doesn't seem to be a "slow to the right" mentality in this area). Although we got to the restaurant at 7:00 PM, we barely made it back to the park by 10:00 PM (literally seconds to spare). The gates open back up at 6:00 AM. It's a beautiful park... very well maintained... and the camp hosts were an absolute pleasure to talk to. Everyone seemed to be in a wonderful mood. Book as far in advance as you can, as this is a popular spot in the...