Wallowa Lake campround has activities for everyone in the family.  If you're interested in a campground surrounded on three sides by 9,000' tall snow-capped mountains and a large clear lake, this is the area for you.  To fully enjoy this popular fishing and boating site, check out the Wallowa Lake Marina

Campground Info:

-121 Full-hookup sites (36 pull-through)

-88 tent sites with water nearby

-Two yurts (Both ADA; one pet friendly, see our Pets in Parks FAQ for more info)

-Group Tent camping

-Group Picnic areas

-Hot showers and flush toilets (ADA available)

-RV dump station

Wallowa Lake State Park Campground

We spend a week each summer with a group of friends camping at Wallowa Lake. We swim, paddle board, float, fish, and hike. The little rides a horse and drives a go cart then enjoys ice cream an putt putt golf. Definitely a little something for everyone. 

best week of the summer

We spent Memorial Day weekend at this park. It was fun, the kids rode bikes, we rented a row boat (they have kayaks, SUP's, etc). The town of Joseph is about 10 minutes with a cute main street area. We stayed in A25 and I think it is the smallest tent site in the whole park (the reason it got 3 of 5 stars). We had a small creek that backed the spot that limited tent placement to one slightly sloped spot squeezed between the road and the picnic table. It was nicely treed by the picnic table which was nice. If we go back, the spot to the right of us (A26) was a really good one (would've been a five star for sure) - spacious, multi tents, etc. This end of the campground was the closest to the lake access, store and docks. 

Fun place for the fam, but our site was small and only one tent option

I grew up near Wallowa Lake and I still go up to camp every year! Such a beautiful lake with not an overwhelming amount of people.  The campsites are nice and it is generally full of friendly people.

Favorite place in Oregon

I loved my visit to this State park. While the park is very crowded, there are plenty of places to hide away to enjoy the lake, the river, or the mountains. There is a gentle nature path that runs above the campsites that also hooks into the more challenging Chief Joseph trail, so it has something to offer all activity and ability levels.

Cons: I wish that campground/hiking maps were more readily available.

Side note: As you drive around the lake to get to the park, make sure to stop at Old Chief Joseph's burial site. Honor those whose land this was.

Great for Day Use

We stayed here for two nights while hiking in the Wallowas. Campgrounds are pretty crowded, mostly with RVs, but not crowded enough that there were lines for the bathrooms/showers. The staff kept the bathrooms/shower areas spotless, water was hot (excellent after a 20 mile hike to Ice Lake and back), and it was nice to lay out on the docks after sunset to watch the stars and feel connected to nature. Only issue with the camp is that there are so many people that it gets really smokey with all the fires, and my allergies were definitely kicking in in the morning.

Comforts of home in a beautiful location

Crowded state park with decent facilities. beautiful lake access. take the time to visit chief Joseph. 

As Advertised 

What a great part of NE Oregon and a must see if near Hell"s Canyon!

The campground had tight spots and little room between each spot. Kinda felt like we were on display and got a lot of comments on our little guy silver shadow teardrop trailer...one lady said our set up was "Fascinating!"

Fascinating!

Good views of the mountains. Beautiful lake. Impressive marina for those who are trailing boats. Emphasis on RV camping rather than secluded tent camping and I prefer tent camping. Bathrooms clean.

Emphasis on RV camping

Very beautiful campground with a lot of amenities. To get a good view of the mountains you have to be right on the lake or hiking through the back country but it would be a great group camping spot. Heard a whole lotta rattle snakes

Very beautiful 

We come back to this place every year! The most amazing views and so many things to do for people of all ages. It fills up quickly though so prepare. 

Favorite 

There is nothing too amazing about this campground except it's location.  It's large and busy and full of people. There aren't many trees, and you're pretty much next to your neighbors. If you don't mind this type of camping, you will love the area.

  

You can practically walk to the alpine tram, you're right on Wallowa lake, there's a great marina and lake access for your boat or SUP, and you're just a few minutes drive to Joseph. 

  

Also, the sunsets are incredible. 

  

This is a busy location. Sites fill up fast.

Busy Campground- Great Location for Visiting the Area

This campground is a nice well maintained place with clean facilities and well dispersed sites. It was a bad fire season when we were there so it’s pretty smoky in my picture.

Clean bathrooms scattered throughout, water available. Nice tree cover and a River right at the edge of where we were. There’s trails and the lake close by too. Picnic tables and nice fire pits. 

It was a very quiet place and has several loops in the campground.



Clean and quiet

This was our first stop in Oregon we were in Site C9 which is a pull thru with Full hook up. Big tall pines, the lake &amp; mountains. We had a good site other than some neighbors with 10 kids kept walking through our site to get to theirs instead of walking around the circle. We finally said something after the 3rd day. 

  

I love they have a grey water dump every 3 or 4 sites we have a fish cleaning table we set up it has a hook up for a hose to have direct water to it. We do dishes and prep food on it and we use a bucket under the sink in it to catch the water so walking over 2 sites to dump it is nice. 

  

We launched the kayak &amp; went out in the lake what a nice view of Mt. Howard. My husband caught some nice size Kokanee &amp; trout.  There are some floating docks you can climb out on &amp; have lunch the park has 5 I believe. 

  

We took the cable cars up to Mt. Howard &amp; hiked it was beautiful. Still had a good amount of snow on the ground up there. We had a drink &amp; lunch at the Summit Grill. 

  

The small town of Joseph is close by, small grocery store had to go a little further to get to a safeway. 

  

The first few nights were so quiet, a nice bonfire &amp; a glass of wine. 

  

Some of the sites are small in the loop we were in there were some bigger ones.

Beautiful area

This is a beautiful campground walking distance to Wallowa lake. This is the perfect spot for those who like to camp, but like to have their home comforts readily available as well. There’s a Thai food cart, putt putt golf, and an assortment of other activities within walking distance of camp.



Beautiful, Large Campground

This has the typical state/federal issue of older campground when trailers were 20 feet long with no slides so it can be a little tight, but the location is incredible.   There's a marina with rental boats,the fish is good,  the town of Joseph is a couple miles away,  The tram and mini golf is a 1/2 walk up the road.  Be advised in Eastern Oregon each town has a max of 1or 2 gas stations. Don't miss the tram.

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Amazing scenery 

I should start with a few prefaces. I was at a state park on a holiday weekend. I don't rv camp. I usually camp during shoulder seasons.

Wallowa Lake is gorgeous. I regularly forgot that I was in Oregon. The snow capped peaks around the lake made me feel like I was in the Rockies. 

The park was well equipped with showers, floral toilets, and dish washing sinks. The sites were reasonably well spaced. 

The day use area was very crowded, but to be expected on a holiday weekend. The cottonwoods were snowing and it was magical.

This campground has about 200 sites. When each one of those sites is having a campfire, it creates a mini inversion and the smoke just hangs close to the ground, making it extremely difficult to breathe. I also noted that every night, at least one fire was left unattended, which was concerning. 

The Chief Joseph trailhead is just at the edge of the park with an extremely steep first mile or so, but easing out into a lovely walk through the Eagle Cap Wilderness. Even on the holiday, I didn't see a single other person.

The smoke of 200 campfires

Beautiful!! Lake activities, hiking trails, campsites are large but not very private.

Beautiful

Beautiful campground and location! 
The campground is big and has lots of room. Campsites have plenty of room however and you don't feel like you are right next to your neighbor. 
You can buy wheelbarrows of firewood from the camp hosts, but only for a short time in the evening so don't miss it! 
There is so much to do there from hiking, renting a boat, and taking the gondola/tram up the mountain. 

Beautiful location 

We enjoyed our off season stay!

Easy back in to our fairly level site.

Unfortunately they had water hookups shut off for winter (after we made our reservation, but before we arrived). So we had to venture back out to the design acted water fill campsite our first morning.

Sites were nice, but very much on top of each other, IMHO. I prefer more privacy for longer stays. Wouldn't want to be there in peak season.

They ask that you don't offload a full black/grey tank at your site, as the septic system can't handle it... in my experience, the dump site may not be able to handle it either. We were after another camper, and it began to overflow as we finished emptying our grey... neither having been completely full.

The picnic table and firepit were at the end of the site, not next to the RV pad/door, as I would've preferred.

A nice nature trail to the lake.

Great Fall Retreat

This park is enchanting - a little oasis in the dry eastern Oregon landscape, huge trees, imposing mountains. It gets packed at the lake shore, but there are lots of places to hang out in the day use area further from the beach that are near-empty. Good facilities. As a plus, the hike at the top of the tram is lovely (great views, fragrant flora).

Lovely Lake

I have been here several times as a child, but my most recent venture was as an adult with my own children. It was really nice to see that not much has changed in the last ten years since I was here last, and my kids can enjoy the same campground Ive been going to since I was their age. 
The restroom facilities are great. The restrooms have multiple stalls of flushing toilets, running sinks with soap and paper towel dispensers. There are also showers. You can buy firewood for 5$ a bundle and bring it back to your campsite in a rolling cart. There's a nice playground for the kids. The wildlife here is pretty desensitized to humans, deer will just wanted through. We spent a whole day feeding two chipmunks (who we named Jeff and Veronica) peanuts.
The downside is that the campsites are extremely close together with very little in between so there is very little privacy. A positive if that though is that my kids were able to instantly make friends with our neighbors and they played the whole time and had a blast. The lake is nice, there are often Canadian geese down there. There is a swimming area sectioned off, and boat rentals available.
Right down the road is the wallowa lake tramway. It's 38$ per adult, and 28$ per child over 4, but it is definitely a great experience. It's a 15 minute ride to the top of the mountain on a gondola. At the top is a restaurant, restrooms, lots of trails. My personal favorite is the royal purple lookout solely because if the friendly chipmunks that come and harass you for food.
Nearby the town if Joseph has a ton of cool shops to visit. Mad marys is a must if you have kids, there is an old fashioned ice cream parlor in half of it. 
I can't wait to come back here again, because we had a blast!

Great campground, especially for kids!

This is the place summer dreams are made of! Hiking, kayak and SUP rentals. Swimming. Glacial rivers and lakes. Wallowa Lake is in the cute artistic cowboy town of Joseph. Nez Perce territory. 

  

The campground itself can get crowded, with lots of families who return every year, but there is so much to do and see in this area, you could spend a month and still not see it all. There are some touristy things up the road, like mini golf, horse rides and a tram that will take you up top the mountain. (I didn't do that because of Covid, although it was open.) 

  

You can rent a boat or bring your own. In June/July the peaks still have snow on them. A bear sometimes visits the campground. Deer will walk through your site. Be sure to be wildlife safe and keep all your food out of reach.

Lovely Spot

This campground was packed but my particular spot had a decent amount of space between me and the campsites on either side. It backed up to a fence (a neighborhood is on the other side apparently). It was a bit of a walk from the bathhouse but not horrible. This particular bathhouse was different than all the others I have gone to this year. It had a regular bathroom then separate rooms across the hall that had showers. I liked it a lot! Very clean and a bigger shower and changing area which was wonderful. Water pressure was fantastic and it got nice and hot. There was proper ventilation in both the bathroom and the shower rooms and the garbage cans were always being emptied. The soap dispensers were always full. Campground staff did a great job maintaining the bathhouse! The campground was in the perfect location. No traffic noise and right by the marina and a small beach area for water access for families. The marina rents out kayaks and paddle boards. They had picnic areas and plenty of places to sit and enjoy the view of the lake. If it is too crowded try going in the morning before 10am-I did and there were only like 10 people there besides me. They had an outdoor amphitheater, which I didn’t visit but I thought that was pretty cool. The only thing that was kind of disappointing was that they did not sell ice at the campground. It would have been wonderful to have that convenience. The closest place I found that sells ice was 6 miles from the campground. There obviously was a fire ban so they had the firewood they usually sell locked up. People respected the ordinance. They had a large and clean recycle and garbage disposal area that you can pull your car or RV right up to to dispose of your garbage and recycling before leaving the campground which was a nice convenience. The nearby Tram to Mount Howard was an amazing experience! Gorgeous views and nice trails at the top to explore. They even have a restaurant at the top too. The unfortunate thing was that smoke from a fire about 62 miles north had made it to the area so the views weren’t as clear as they could have been. Overall, if you are in the area camping I highly recommend you take a tram ride. It is well worth the $40 a ticket price. Also, a young buck walked through my campsite the morning I left, which was super neat! I would come back to this campground. 

Perfect location, beautiful lake

This campground is close to town and has it all. We walked into town and did the gondola, go karts, restaurants and treats.  We rented a pontoon boat at the campground, swam in the lake, enjoyed the river rapids, went on a hike, scootered around the campground and played at the park. It’s great!  

Wow! OR knows how to do state parks 

My wife and I went camping with another couple and we just had a great time there. A lot of kids were also playing there which to me it is a great sign of being a family camp ground. We will definitely coma back in the feature. 

Family friendly

Amazing location! amazing staff! super clean and calm! Dog friendly! We stayed longer then we actually planned :) Thank u ! 

Super Place! 

amazing place ! amazing staff! very clean ! super dog friendly ! have full hook ups! comfy cosy parking ! we stayed longer than planned :) so it says a lot about the place . we will be back! 

amazing place ! 

Very friendly, helpful staff. We camped in our RV at two different sites. Very clean. We kayaked on the lake and went up Mount Howard on the tram where the views of the Eagle Cap wilderness were breathtaking. We also hiked up to Chief Joseph trail and did a loop back down to the campsite. Definitely somewhere I’d go back to. 