Best Tent Camping near Medical Lake, WA

What a gem! Small state park campground at about a 3000 ft elevation with only 8 sites. Dry Camping only, no dump station, but clean flushable toilets(no showers) and potable water available. Two beautiful trails are accessible from the campground and lots more are within a 10 minute drive with plenty of parking at trailheads. Local foliage is wonderful, views are fantastic from the trails. Quiet hours are enforced and observed- very quiet and relaxing. The camp host, Linda, does such a wonderful job of keeping everything neat and tidy and checking in with campers to see if they have what they need. Sites are small- only one was a pull through. I wouldn't attempt with anything longer than 23 feet. Each site has a bear box, really nice and large picnic table, firepit and tent pads that are nicely cushioned with pea gravel. Our site,#3, was centrally located without a ton of privacy, but it was still a nice site and folks were respectful and quiet. Decent cell service in the campground. I am absolutely coming back.

We had this place completely to ourselves when we stayed there...it was amazing! There is lake access with a small dock and boat launch, a common area consisting of covered picnic area with picnic tables, and a public vault toilet. We were camping in a tent trailer; easy access and ample space to turn around. Sites are fairly level and are back-in only...though there appeared to be a spot for RV parking (no hook-ups). There is a line of trees near the camp sites offering partial shade (depending on where the sun is), but the sun gets pretty brutal; other than the covered picnic area, shade is limited.

Note: There was no water available when we visited (locks on pipes & faucet handles removed), so be sure to bring your own!

Wildlife: We witnessed a confrontation between a giant heron and an osprey...it was pretty impressive! The heron made a noise that sounded a lot like what I'd imagine a pterodactyl would have sounded like. Also, we heard what must have been a pack of at least 6 or 7 coyotes a little after 11pm...and then heard wolves howling in the wee hours of the morning. Super cool!

Lake: We didn't have a boat or fishing poles...but I'd imagine that the lake would be great for both. It had a fair bit of algae...so probably not a lake you'd necessarily want to swim in. My husband, however, found the lake to be great for flying his RC float plane. Oh! And there was an old abandoned cabin on the opposite side of the lake...creepy cool.

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.

This is a great little private campground in the Wolf Lodge Bay, and their added free amenities made this campground a really fun alternative to the usual state park/national forest campsites I go to more often. The swimming pool was well kept, and we really enjoyed using the free canoes. They had a lot of decent looking free firewood, but we were camping during a fire ban and weren't able to use it. (This, of course, is no fault of the campground. But if we camp there again it will be nice to have free firewood!)

We originally booked tent site 3, which I cannot recommend as it had no shade or privacy, but the attendant was very kind and let us switch to a shadier site for free. I think this was tent site 4 or 5, which were much better. Tent site seven looked really nice as well and I would recommend that one. But if we go back we will definitely be booking the island tent site 201, it looked to be the best one of all.

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.

Campground Review:

This is a great mid-week spot. We camped on a Wednesday in late June and there were only two other spots occupied and it was fantastic. We did notice that almost every spot was reserved for the coming weekend. Even if there were lots of other campers the sites around the outside of the loop have lots of trees and brush separating them offering decent privacy. The spots are quite sizeable with multiple options for tent location. We selected site 12 because the trail to the overlook and down to Hayden Lake runs right next to it. The trees are fantastic and their interwoven canopy offer near constant shade. One nice feature we had never experienced was the gigantic picnic table – you can really spread out on this thing!

Access to the lake is super easy, although it does involve a steep section of trail. We took the paddleboard down to the water and had fun watching all the fish dart away from us. If you are into to fishing there are plenty of good spots accessible from the campground.

Overall this is a very nice spot, especially if you are going to utilize the lake for recreation of any sort.

Product Review: Primus Firehole 100 Camp Stove

As a Ranger for The Dyrt, I get products to test from time to time – on this trip I tested the Primus Firehole 100 Camp Stove.

This stove has some nice features – namely it’s super easy set up and compact shape and size for transport. The recessed knobs help with it’s packability for sure.

The key feature I enjoy is the integrated flexible fuel line that stores compactly under the stove and pops out easily for super quick set up. The little magnets on the side panels used to hold up the wind screen are great and add to the intuitive and fast set up.

Most importantly – the flame is even and has quite a range from super low for simmering all the way to high output for fast boiling. The only real drawback was that the twist-click igniter did not work every single time, but I’ve never run into one that does and this one always caught eventually.

I am overall very pleased with this stove’s performance.