About 23 miles east of downtown Portland, the nude beach at Rooster Rock State Park shares the spotlight with Collins Beach as one of the top two nude beaches in the entire Pacific Northwest. Like Collins Beach, which is 47 miles to the west on the opposite end of Portland, Rooster Rock is located along the Columbia River and has official signage designating it as clothing optional. The most accessible part of the state park is the expanse that abuts the long paved parking lot, which extends nearly a mile along the riverfront. The nude area begins just a few hundred feet east of the parking lot.

Rooster Rock is an especially scenic nude beach. Set in the Columbia River gorge, the views of the wide river and surrounding green hills are magnificent. Overcast skies, waterlogged conditions and chilly winds that come through the gorge often put a damper on crowds at Rooster Rock, but, when the weather is warm and skies are clear, throngs of nude bathers flock to the beach, and practically everyone opts to be nude. Sunbathing is popular, but the river water is so cold that relatively few visitors venture all the way into the water for swimming. The nude zone is roughly a mile long, so there is always plenty of room. (The approximate boundaries of the nude area are lightly shaded in red.)

The nude area has three basic parts. First, there is the sandy beach itself. Second, there is the brush forest behind the beach, which is also within the designated clothing-optional zone, starting just a few hundred feet from where you park. Nudity is common on the trails behind the beach, and there is a volleyball area tucked away in the forest. Some visitors hike nude through the forest almost all the way from the parking lot, although you will have to be clothed for the first few minutes. Finally, there is Sand Island, which is an island in the Columbia River just offshore from the nude beach. The island is over a mile long, and the western end of the island tapers into a spit with a prominent area of sand dunes. This spit is more or less directly opposite the main hub of the nude beach. There are also sandy beach areas along the north side of the island east of the spit, facing the wider channel of the river (looking across to Washington state on the other side). The south side of the island east the spit, which faces the much narrower channel of the river and the interstate on the other side, has very little sand and is difficult to access, so it is unused. The entirety of Sand Island is considered clothing optional, but textile boaters who are unaware that they may encounter nudists often dock on the north side, which can make for some awkward encounters between textiles and nudists. For that reason, nudists are most likely to congregate on the south-facing side of the sand spit.

At most nude beaches throughout the world, straight visitors occupy the main area of the beach, while gay men gravitate to more peripheral areas. Rooster Rock is one of the very rare exceptions where the reverse is true. Rooster Rock is a mostly gay nude beach, and the mainland part of the beach is occupied overwhelmingly by gay men. Straight visitors to the nude beach tend to go to Sand Island, either directly by boat or by wading from the main beach. (Collins Beach, it should be noted, is far more popular with straight nudists.)

The challenge of getting to Sand Island is something that varies, depending on the time of year and on river level variations from year to year. It is always possible to reach the north side of the island by boat or other small watercraft, and many nudist boaters dock on the north side. The south side of the island is separated from the mainland part of the nude beach by a channel of the river several hundred feet wide that is shallow relative to the much wider main channel of the river, but it is not always shallow enough to easily wade across, especially earlier in the year. The channel almost always has at least some water, and there are times when you can wade through the shallowest part of the channel and only get wet up to your ankles. River levels also affect the mainland side of the beach. Sometimes the entire beach is under water, sometimes the beach is reduced to just a narrow sliver or sand, and sometimes the forested area behind the beach is waterlogged. If you visit at a time when the beach and the forest are flooded, you are still likely to encounter nude sunbathers beneath the bluffs on the inland side of the forest. Be sure to wear appropriate footwear should the trails be muddy, and you may want to bring insect repellant as well. There are vending machines next to the restrooms where the hike down to the beach begins.

Oregon Clothing-Optional Beach Alliance website

VISUAL RESOURCES

GPS: 45.5516N, 122.2215W

city, county, state, country  Troutdale, Multnomah, Oregon, U.S.A.

classification  1 (freely nude)

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