Drive-up · public land · OR · 45.29664, -118.13434
Ask an AI about this campsiteOpens Grok already loaded with this site. It reads the same records this page is built from, and links whatever it tells you.
The land manager lists this site. Someone from the agency inventoried it, so it is a real camp — not a spot we guessed at. What changes is conditions — roads, gates, closures, fire rules. Check those with the unit before you commit to the drive.
Free, three nights, from the city's own mouth -- but know what you are driving up before you commit the rig. Morgan Lake is not a park on the town square; it is the City of La Grande's own recreation lake sitting on the bench about three miles southwest of and roughly 700 feet above downtown, and the way up is a steep, washboarded gravel climb -- travellers report a posted 17% grade, and the consensus is that it is not set up for big rigs, though a 24-foot Class C is reported to have made it. Take it slow, and think twice in the wet. What is waiting at the top is genuinely lovely: a small no-motors trout lake ringed by a dozen or so marked sites, several right at the water's edge, each with a picnic table and a fire ring, with pine and open hill around and the Grande Ronde Valley below. The City says it plainly: 'Currently, there is no fee for camping at the Lake, although there is a limitation of 3 nights per visitor to give everyone a chance to enjoy the facility.' Stop at the registration kiosk on the way in, fill out the form, and take a marked site. Fires ONLY in the provided rings. Two hard limits to plan around: the season runs April 22 to October 31 and the gate is locked the rest of the year, and the entry gate closes each night at 10 pm -- roll in late and you are sleeping somewhere else, so get up the hill before dark. Do not trust listings that say 'temporarily closed'; that is just the winter shutdown, when the restrooms and lake access close and camping and fires are prohibited outright. We are not claiming drinking water here -- the city does not say there is any, so haul your own. Confidence is HIGH because the free camping, the three-night limit, the season and the gate hours all come from the City of La Grande's own website, the operator itself. Note the word 'currently' in the city's wording, though: that is a town telling you the deal could change. Confirm with the City of La Grande before you go, buy your groceries and your dinner down in town on the way through -- La Grande is a real working town on I-84 with a good main street -- pack out everything you brought, and leave the lake better than you found it.
Can I go now? — Morgan Lake Park · public land · OR
Open todaySeason Apr 22 – Oct 31. Closes after Oct 31.
public land record: “April 22 - October 31” Read against the calendar on 2026-09-17; with JavaScript your browser re-checks it against today.
Nearby & resupply — around Morgan Lake Park · public land · OR(OpenStreetMap)
Water featureMorgan Lake (water) · nearby
Nearest townLa Grande · ~3.0 mi
Drinking waternone within 10 mi
FuelSinclair · ~2.6 mi
Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
Dump station~27.7 mi · free
GroceriesFood Mart · ~2.6 mi
PharmacyRite Aid · ~3.5 mi
Hospital / clinicGrande Ronde Hospital · ~2.1 mi
HardwareAce Hardware · ~3.5 mi
EV charging — from Morgan Lake Park · public land · OR— nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)
Nearest public DC fast charger4.1 mi straight-line NE — VOLVO CAR USA LA GRANDE DC4 · ChargePoint Network · CHAdeMO, CCS · 1 fast port listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily · directions
Public DC fast stations within reach5 within 25 mi · 12 within 50 · 55 within 100 · 131 within 150
Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)4.1 mi — Hampton Inn & Suites La Grande - Tesla Destination · Tesla Destination · J1772, NACS (Tesla) · 4 Level 2 ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-08-27 · hours: 24 hours daily. Open to all vehicles.
Pricing at the fast chargernot listed
Power (kW)not listed by AFDC — “DC fast” spans roughly 24 to 350 kW, so ask the network.
Read this honestlyStraight-line miles, like every distance on this site. Roads run longer than this, and you have to get back. We know where a charger is listed. We don’t know if it works today, how fast it is, or the road miles. Check the network before you commit. Snapshot 2026-09-16 · AFDC record 256977 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center
Nearby restrooms — around Morgan Lake Park · public land · OR— pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)
All sites include picnic tables and fire rings. Fires are only allowed in those rings.
Open season
April 22 - October 31
Stay limit
3 nights (limitation of 3 nights per visitor)
Source
municipal park records
Confidence
Researched — The record is detailed and internally consistent, and the coordinates land where the managing agency says this site is.
How it was placed
Source (AUTHORITATIVE -- THE OPERATOR'S OWN OFFICIAL MUNICIPAL SITE, free stated): CITY OF LA GRANDE facility page, cityoflagrande.org/Facilities/Facility/Details/Morgan-Lake-15 (read 2026-07-28), verbatim -- 'Currently, there is no fee for camping at the Lake, although there is a limitation of 3 nights per visitor to give everyone a chance to enjoy the facility'; 'The campground is open April 22 - October 31'; 'The entry gate closes each night at 10 pm'; 'Please stop at the registration kiosk and complete a registration form, and proceed to a marked campsite'; 'All sites include picnic tables and fire rings. Fires are only allowed in those rings.' CORROBORATION (same operator, second page): the City of La Grande Parks index, cityoflagrande.org/766/Parks, lists Morgan Lake Park among the CITY's parks and repeats 'Camping is FREE, although there is a limitation of 3 nights per visitor. The park is open April 22 - October 31.' City FAQ #100 ('When is Morgan Lake Open and Closed?') confirms: 'Morgan Lake Park is open from April 22 to October 31st every year for camping, fishing, and day use. It is closed and the gate is locked the rest of the year.' SEASONAL-CLOSURE FLAG CHASED AND CLEARED: The Dyrt titles its listing 'Morgan Lake - TEMPORARILY CLOSED'; that is the routine WINTER closure, not a shutdown -- the city's own notice dated 2025-12-08 reads 'Restrooms and direct lake access at Morgan Lake remain closed for the winter season. The park will be open for walk-in day use only. Fishing, camping, and fires remain strictly prohibited.' Ingest date 2026-07-28 falls inside the open season. COORDINATE -- BUILT CAREFULLY, THE GNIS POINT IS IN THE WATER: OSM has NO camp object of any kind at Morgan Lake (verified by an exhaustive around:1200m Overpass pull, 291 elements: only the lake polygon, the dam, two service roads, a meadow, a wetland and one GNIS park point). The obvious pin, GNIS node/357356641 'Morgan Lake Park' (45.2984647,-118.1357758), was REJECTED because a ray-cast point-in-polygon test against the Morgan Lake water polygon (way/649775511, full geometry via api.openstreetmap.org, 32-node ring) returns inside=True -- it is centred on the LAKE and would have pinned a campsite in open water (the Colorado 'out center' trap sprung by a GNIS point instead of a bbox). Instead: pulled full geometry for both lakeshore service ways (way/5103177, 34 nodes, south+west shore; way/649775512, 30 nodes, north+east shore) and tested all 64 nodes against the lake polygon -- every one inside=False, i.e. on land. Which shore holds the sites was fixed by an INDEPENDENT traveller GPS (Campendium listing 45.296645,-118.134086; reviews 'right at the waters edge'), which falls 65 ft from OSM node/34805819 (45.296640,-118.134339) on the south-shore loop road -- the nearest surveyed node by a wide margin (next nearest 257 ft). BANKED node/34805819: a real surveyed OSM node, on land, on the correct shore, corroborated to ~65 ft independently. Note OSM's ways here carry tiger:county='Sherman, OR', a known bad TIGER artefact -- Morgan Lake is in UNION County. LEGAL: ORS 195.530 (2021 HB 3115) was read to its last subsection (7) and is NEUTRAL for this category -- it constrains local camping rules only 'with regards to persons experiencing homelessness' and creates no traveller right and no prohibition. GUARDRAILS: camping is expressly ALLOWED (city's own words) and there is NO entry fee, day-use fee or access pass of any kind on the city's pages. land_manager='City of La Grande'; dispersed=0; camp_type NULL; water NULL (NO official source states potable water -- not claimed); restrooms exist in season (implied by the city's own winter-closure notice naming them). Site count deliberately not stated as a number: sources disagree (13 / ~15 / 12) and the city publishes none. Nearest existing OR lead 8.43 mi (checked against all 991). Ingest 2026-07-28.
Season
Read from the agency's own season / closure text in this record (data/conditions.py) and checked against the calendar. The words we read are printed under the verdict at the top of the page.
EV chargers
US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center station locator, snapshot 2026-09-16. Straight-line miles to the nearest public, open, unrestricted station; restricted and planned units are shown but never counted.
Field check
On the agency's books. The land manager inventoried this site, so its existence is not in question — current conditions are. Nobody from here has camped it recently.
What we don’t know about Morgan Lake Park
A land record can put you within a few meters of a spot. It cannot tell you any of this — so check it yourself, and treat anything below as the open question it is.
Road surface & last-mile access
How many rigs actually fit
Cell coverage by carrier
Current fire restrictions
Whether any water here is drinkable
Shade & wind exposure
Noise and who else shows up
Whether a listed EV charger works today, or the road miles to it
Been here? Tell us what changed. This page is built from public records, so the fastest way it gets better is somebody who has actually pulled in. Road washed out, site gone, gate locked, or it is exactly as described — all of it useful. Send a report →
