This May, visitors to the Columbia River Gorge will have a new, luxurious glamping experience to try.
Skamania Lodge, the 175-acre Washington resort near Stevenson, offered a sneak peak this week into its new glamping tents, which will open to the public May 1 and are available to book now through the end of the season.
The wood-framed safari-style tents, which come with king beds and private bathrooms, are built on a hillside surrounded by trees, giving visitors the chance to sleep, relax and even bathe in the comfort of nature. While perhaps a step down from the lodge’s luxury treehouses or cabins, the glamping tents are certainly a step up from your basic hotel room, while barely resembling camping at all.
Jack Hansen, director of sales and marketing for Skamania Lodge, said the glamping tents are expected to be available from May through October, though the full extent of the season won’t be clear until after this first year.
“I do think that it’s a bit of an experiment,” Hansen said. “We’re going to see what the appetite for them is.”
Glamping at Skamania Lodge starts at $519 per night on offseason weekdays, rising through the summer and peaking at $1,069 per night over the Fourth of July weekend. Visitors can find slightly discounted prices in October, when the nightly rate dips down to $499 for a stay in what could be colder and wetter conditions.
“We’ll probably test them a bit this fall and see how it is to stay in there in October,” Hansen said of the new tents. “You don’t know until you know.”
Unlike traditional camping, the glamping tents all come with running water and electricity. Each comes with a small space heater and fan, though that is the extent of the climate control. The front flaps zip up and down, allowing guests to seal themselves in or be open to the fresh air. There is furniture inside, as well as an outdoor couch and chairs by a gas fire feature.
Guests can still enjoy the many amenities at the main lodge nearby, including yoga classes, a golf course and putting course, disc golf, an adventure park, ziplining and axe throwing, as well as meals at one of two dining rooms – a necessary amenity for glamping guests, who will only find a microwave and mini fridge in their tents.
Hansen said the new glamping experience will be part of “Treehouse Village,” where the new tents join the luxury treehouses, cabins and a villa. More of each type of accommodation may be built there in the future, depending on popularity, he said.
The new glamping tents have already been booked up through most of May, but a lot of availability remains through the summer. Hansen said the lodge has been excited about the new offerings, and is looking forward to seeing how popular they become.
“There’s a lot of buzz about them,” he said. “Glamping over the last decade has really come into more peoples’ vocabularies, everybody knows what it is, so it’s really nice to see our owners put their spin on it – you know, glamping Skamania style.”
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