Lewis & Clark State Park

River Floating Review! We love going river floating down on Sandy River. Dabney State Recreation Park is where we launch off at and we end our floating trip down near Lewis and Clark State Park. It is a very family oriented area and some of the river height is pretty shallow. Very beautiful scenery along the gorge. There’s lots of sandy area where you can walk barefoot in the river and along the shore. You will have to get out of the floats along certain shallow water, so that you don’t puncture your float. There’s still lots of rocky areas so it’s suggested to have water shoes for easier walking movement in the river. There’s a handful of rapids that are fun. There’s even wild blackberries along the shore. It’s free to park at the lower level (Lewis and Clark) and I think its $ 5 at the upper level (Dabney) to park. However, if you’re just getting dropped off at the upper level, they don’t make you pay to enter into the park. Overall, it’s my favorite place to go to cool off or just to hang out and escape the hot heat!

Meh this park is truly one you could take or leave honestly I feel its just a place people use for a bathroom break while at the Sandy. That being said they do keep it clean and tidy and sure you may come across the occasional tweaker in the grass but this is 2014 and we are in Portland people so it could either be a tweaker or a forager who knows, they get the same head shake response from us. Im not going to say this is the perfect place to bring the fam but its 10mins from us and it has bathrooms and when we are feeling not so inclined to brave the buggy infested dog park that is Thousand acres. This place will do.

Summer time review: Stay away — TOO much white trash. WAY too much. Go to Benson Park or some place that requires a $ 5.00 fee to park, it seems to dissuade the parolees and gangsters from visiting. I was at L&C State Park yesterday and we had to leave. It is SO crowded and full of scary people when it’s hot out. A woman allowed her dog to crap in the water that we were all swimming in, and when her dog was finished she KICKED all the crap into the sand where people could step in it… dog crap spreads Giardia:
Winter time review: Great place to fish and it’s pretty.

This «park» is a total shit show on hot days in the summertime. Especially hot weekend days. While we primarily use this park as the end-​point for daytime floats down the Sandy River (from Dabney), I’ve stopped through here a time or two just to dip in the water, and it’s quite the spectacle.
There’s a small free parking area just upstream from the railroad bridge, and unless you get there early, that’s pretty much always sold out. Not even worth driving in to. Your better (yet more sketchy) bet is to backtrack down towards the freeway and park in the huge unmonitored gravel lot just south of the tracks. This lot varies between hard-​pack dirt and mud pits, with errant huge puddles (more like vernal lakes). It’s choc-​a-​bloc full of jacked up pickups, ghetto hoopties and cars in various states of disrepair. There’s no real rhyme or reason to the parking here, so beware you may end up getting wedged in as people just stop their cars willy-​nilly without much regard for who they might be hemming in.
Once you park, you get to frogger past a steady stream of traffic along the old highway to get to unimproved paths down to the sandy bank. Remember that plenty of the people driving on this road are coming from hanging at the river themselves, and probably drinking in the hot sun. So use extreme caution.
Once down a sketchy little path (there are plenty) you’ll find the beach. Welcome to hordes of folks chilling, grilling, and splaying out along the bank with entire families in tow, dogs, lots of beer cans and trash, and, well, it’s summertime on the outskirts of East Portland. Last time I was there some lady was trying to call her pet pitbull Cujo (seriously, the dog’s name was Cujo) who was running around off leash going apeshit on the beach. Awesome.
The water is plenty refreshing here, and while the beach is sandy the riverbed can be quite rocky, so bring river sandals. Also, since it’s a river, the current is constant. So it’s not really the easiest place to chillax — you are constantly fighting the pull downstream. There are not really any rocks to jump off of, and it being the Sandy River, the water is plenty murky. Plus you’re downstream from hundreds of drinking river-​floaters, so you can imagine what’s infused in the water at this point in the river’s course (just upstream from the delta).
Honestly, the only reason I give this park more than one star is because it’s safer swimming than the Clack (people drown at Carver all the time) and the beach makes it easy to load boats/​tubes out of the river at the end of your float.
My advice — skip a visit here and go somewhere that charges a fee to get in. Your sanity is worth the $ 5 parking.

this is a great little excursion east of pdx for dogs who like to swim & romp in the water. take exit 18 off I-​84, loop right under the highway & you’ll go straight into the no fee parking lot.
highlights:
1. go one direction & cavort in the Columbia river, go the opposite direction & romp in the Sandy river.
2. lots of meandering paths through brush to get to the river, making for a shorter or longer walk
3. the sandy river has a little sand bar that you can reach by walking through 2 – 3 ft of nippy water, multiple depths so dogs can run, hop, & swim around no matter how big or small they are
4. lots of ripe blackberry bushes for a quick snack
lowlights:
1. no signage, just lots of meandering paths which will eventually get you to the water, just keep on going north-​ish
2. no one seems to pick up after their dog so watch out for land mines: P
3. poor drainage so this turns into a bog during the rainy season – you know, the other 9 months of the year
4. the Sandy river lives up to its name, the river bed is primarily silt so bring towels to wipe off your crusty critter for the ride home
5. there is a decent current farther out from the sand bar where the water is deeper so keep an eye out, even for good swimmers.
so hopefully if the weather complies we can squeeze in a few more jaunts for our crusty critter.