Clear Lake Campground — Hotel in Sandy

This campground would be an easy 5 star if not for the poor job, don’t-give-a-damn behavior of the “camp host”. I love the campground. It’s very spacious and rugged with easy access to the lake. Now the bad…. The camp host’s site looks like a homeless trash pile you’d find in Portland. A clapped out old travel trailer covered with old tarps, 5-6 old beater cars and junk laying around their site. It looked very unkempt and unwelcoming when you’re arriving. There’s several signs around the campground instructing to keep dogs leashed. However you wouldn’t know this from the camp hosts who are allowing their dog “Jedi” to run out and approach people with their leashed pets. Now let’s talk campfires. It’s late July, high fire danger and a fire restriction alert was posted restricting fires to propane only. In fact there was a nearby wildfire less than 5 miles away that had the highway closed the day prior. There’s even signs posted throughout the campground stating this. We were stunned to see 3-4 wood campfires going on our last night, the most shocking of all being in the site RIGHT next to the camp host. I enjoy camp fires as much as anyone else, but not in the national forest in the driest time of the year. I know I cannot prove something wasn’t said to the occupants of those sites, but no one in these sites were making any attempts to put out their fires. Last of all, trash. While accountability for this one should fall with guests, the camp host’s job is to walk the grounds and keep it clean and presentable. We found nearly a dozen filled dog poop bags and some broken glass bottles just laying around the campground, mostly down by the boat launch/day use area. We would return, but only after there’s a change in hosts and higher level of standards...

This is the worst campground experience I've ever had. If we knew what we were in for, we would have come better prepared. We paid $79 for 3 nights. Off the grid, no power, no running water. Amenities include an outhouse (bring your own hand sanitizer) and a dumpster. There is a community hand-pump water station that is completely overrun by wasps and yellow jackets. The water was murky, not drinkable. I had to boil it before I would wash dishes with it. The wasps and yellow jackets were a serious problem. The entire campground was humming with them. They were highly aggressive, especially if you tried cooking or eating outside. I was annoyed that there were no clear public access paths between campsites. People had to walk through our site to use the bathroom and access the lake. Our site was back to back with another (loud) family. There was plenty of space from side to side, but the layout was as awkward as possible. The lake was pretty, but there was no access to the water because the lake had been drained. There was 50 yards of mud between the shore and the water. The sunsets were fantastic....

Took my 2 adult childern here for my daughters 29th birthday last weekend. We where alittle worried about all the reviews about bears & cougars but we never saw any or heard any at night & I made a few late night trips to use the bathroom. This was a beautful area of Mt Hood, every lake we visited was beautiful. As for the wild life all we ever saw where chimmuncks, birds, hawks, a couple eagles, fish, lots & lots of tadpools at frog lake, spiders & bugs. Loved the campgrounds, each site was spacage & each site was far enough apart that you where not breathing down on your neighbors back door. Every camper was quite & respectful of each other. The camp host where very friendly, helpful & very polite. We where schedule to be there for 4 days but had such a great time that we ware ourselves out & sadly had to live by day 3. will...