We stayed at Mt Hood RV & Camping Resort in Welches, Oregon. (Campground Reviews listing.)

Our second visit to this nice Thousand Trails Encore park; we stayed here last year in late July.

Dates:

• Check in: 2023-06-30
• Check out: 2023-07-09
• 9 nights

Weather:

• Sunny
• High temps ranging between 74-90°F, lows around 50-61°F
• No significant wind

Noise:

• No road noise
• No train noise
• Negligible neighbor noise

Site:

• Hemlock Meadows #97, back in, gravel
• Needed to disconnect toad; parked beside coach (on gravel)
• Unlevel; used blocks on the front jacks
• Fairly large site: gravel about 50 feet long by about 22 feet wide, plus about 20 feet wide weedy bark area
• Picnic table and fire pit on gravel

Utilities:

• 50 amp power, conveniently located
• 55 PSI water, conveniently located
• Good sewer connection, a little inconveniently located (2 10-foot pipes needed)

Internet (in usage priority order):

• Starlink: 22-83 Mbps down, 5-11 Mbps up, 35-110 ms ping
• T-Mobile: 11 Mbps down, 0.5 Mbps up, 70 ms ping
• Verizon: 10-13 Mbps down, 5-8 Mbps up, 150 ms ping
• AT&T: 6-8 Mbps down, 6 Mbps up, 90 ms ping
• Campground Wi-Fi: none

Amenities:

• Garbage dumpsters
• Closed indoor pool
• Onsite restaurant

Our review on Campground Reviews:

Excellent campground near Mt Hood

This was our second stay here, and still really love it. We were originally assigned a site in the Vine Maple Loop that would have been too small for us, so we asked if there were any open sites in the Hemlock Meadows section, which is a more open area with bigger sites. The helpful staff member at the front gate gave us a couple of choices and told us to let her know which one we picked. Seeing as it was the weekend of the 4th of July, we were so relieved that there was availability. We picked site 97, which was on a corner and gave us a large living area backing onto trees, with a good view of the sky for the Starlink. On a side note: We had dinner at the Dragonfly Cafe, which has really good food, but they seemed to be having some massive staffing issues. It took nearly 2 hours from ordering to checkout, and I’m pretty sure the one and only waitress walked off the job while we were eating as the one and only cook had to act as cashier. We never went back, fearing a repeat, which is a shame because I’d been dreaming of their eggs benedict for the past year. We camped at Mt Hood Village RV Resort in a Motorhome.

The campground map:

Interactive map:

Our site was nice and spacious, and we made use of our new flagpole for the Starlink dish (and you may notice something different about our truck; more on that on Monday):

Steak and potato salad, watching a Mariners baseball game on the outside TV from the tent:

 

Unlike normal Thousand Trails parks, Encore ones assign sites. We had originally been assigned a different site, but asked when checking in if they had other options, since we thought this wouldn’t fit us; they agreed it wouldn’t be a good fit.

Looking at it later (the left one in the following picture), we were definitely right to change; it was narrow and very sloped:

The main plaza area, with the (closed) indoor pool, rec center, offices, and cafe:

We enjoy when there’s an onsite restaurant; this campground has the Dragonfly Cafe:

We went there for dinner on our first evening (always nice not having to cook on a travel day). Which was a rather drama-filled experience; we waited over an hour for our food, then the server walked out partway through, and the cook had to come out and accept payment from us and others. It was tasty, though; burger for me:

Prime rib for Jenn:

Laundry:

Other sites in the Hemlock Meadows loop:

See our previous visit for lots more pictures of other loops.

We enjoyed our stay here, and would definitely stay again in the future.