Best Tent Camping near Viola, ID

We stayed at Chatcolet campground for two nights in late June. The campground is really nice with lovely hosts and clean flushable toilets. We booked site 128 and didn’t realise it was a tent only site with a short walk from where you park to the picnic table, fire ring and tent pad. We have a rooftop tent so we parked and set up our tent and then just carried our chairs, food and wood down to the picnic table. Privacy on these sites isn’t the best, I would recommend booking this site along with 129 as a group site to give yourself good privacy.

Overall this campground was great, the toilets were clean, they are porcelain, flushing toilets inside a hut. There was drinking water and some nice walks to the lake, if you have bicycles there is a really nice cycle that you can do. The reason for rating this 3 out of 5 is that there was very noisy and intrusive maintenance going on from 7am to 5pm in the sites next to us which was very disruptive. No warning had been given about maintenance in the campground, notice was only given regarding roadworks leading into the campground.

I found this free spot on another free campsites app. It’s right next to a National Forest boat launch, where there are 2 pit toilets. The campgrounds themselves are dispersed, with already human made fire rings. Some sites are next to the water (those were taken), I ended up driving to see what’s open and settled on top of a hill. There was another camper who must have been there for a while, set up a little tarp village, he looked like he was moved in there… and then a bear up pickup truck drove by few times - something about it felt sketchy to me. I explored a bit more the next day - there are several walk-in sites which looked great - but you can’t drive into those - some up on a hill, some at the bottom of a hill past big boulders.

We drove in from the Washington side on a narrow unimproved road but only met one vehicle. Our views were into undulating hills of the Palouse farming region of Washington. We camped at the first campground in this Idaho state park close to the Washington border called Iron Mountain. There were two sites with a vault toilet. We chose site number two but both were very spacious. The road was right by our site but only one vehicle drove by, a dirt bike. It was so quiet there. You could see into both the forested hills of Idaho and the Palouse of Washington.

Take a night or two to visit this nearly unused campground. What a wonder. You are on the Ridgeline between two valleys with views of the horizons of 50 miles or more. To the east ot is very much like the views in the Smokey mountains. Not a lot of shade at this campground. Great for solar and Skylink. ATT and Verizon were 3 plus. Make certain the chores are done and the drinks are made before the light show begins at sundown. Vault toilets, picnic tables and fire rings. Sites at this campground are reasonably flat and deep but not a lot of room for pop-ups.

Camping here is free.

My only criticism is the distance between signs on a very small road. A few more signs would be reassuring. For this campground, head generally south on Skyline Drive until you think you should be there, then go 2 more miles.

Central potable water by the privy.

This is an easy 1mi hike from Big Eddy Recreation area on the Big Eddy trail. Ok, correction, challenging out of the gate with a fairly vertical start but levels out quickly and you’re suddenly submerged in the trees and lush ferns. This spot has a long walkway out from the main trail offering tons of privacy. Great shallow ramp for a boat and easy access the a dip is the res or to get your water to filter. Fire ring, picnic table and vault toilets make for a comfortable stay. The closest site to this is another 3ish miles north. Waters are spectacular shades of blue and the trees in the sunset are hard to beat!