Best Dog-Friendly Camping near Palisades, WA

Eastern Washington near the water is my favorite type of landscape.  It's a hot, windy, and a true desert climate.  When you get near a body of water like you do along the Yakima River, the diversity of life expands and makes for great wildlife watching.

Umtanum Recreation Site is part of several BLM campgrounds lumped together along the Yakima River known as the Yakima River Canyon Campgrounds.  All can be reserved ahead of time via the reservation.gov website:  https://www.recreation.gov/camping/campgrounds/250985.  Standard for most BLM camping in Washington, sites are very basic.  Gravel parking, pit toilets, and a picnic table.  This place does have a dumpster for trash, not all do.  There are no hook ups, no drinking water, and in our case, very little shade.  Neighbors are close and there is not a lot of privacy.  The day use area is right there too, close to camping and can be loud.  It is heavily patrolled by the wonderful BLM folks to keep everything clean and the people orderly.  They also give out tickets if you don't mind the warnings for correct passes or day use fees.

The campground itself is one little loop with six sites.  The loop is an offshoot of a very large gravel parking area for day use.  Mostly boat launching and hiking access to Umtanum Creek and Umtaum Ridge trails.   You can check the Information Board for rules on day use and camping fees, passes, and how to check to see if a site is reserved. 

We arrived on July 3rd in the afternoon.  The campground was very quiet and all the sites were reserved.  The morning of July 4th, the recreation site turned into a total madhouse.  BLM Rangers, Law Enforcement, making constant rounds to patrol the never ending hoards of people coming to park and float the river. There was a lot of noise, dust, drunk and rowdy folks.  Friday was calm again until afternoon, Saturday was not as bad as the 4th but still pretty crazy.  It was also hot!  No shade to be had in our site.  After hiking in the morning, we spent a lot of time across the bridge, in it's shadow, in the river.  

If you are using this spot as a base to do some hiking, fishing, or floating it's very convenient.  I am sure in Spring and Fall when river floating is not at it's peak, it's gorgeous and peaceful.  The raptors and songbirds are splendid.  We saw Bighorn sheep on the hill, big rock squirrels, wild turkeys with babies, and fish.  No rattlesnakes or ticks, but this is prime territory.  Hiking down the Umtanum Creek trail, over the suspension bridge, is one of my favorite hikes ever.

I was so excited to visit the campground again, but when I showed up I heard the words “we have new ownership” uh oh… the park was still the same with amazing water access, great boat launch area and lots of cabins for those not wanting to commit to a full camper set up. The newest verbiage that they do no encourage pets any more, and the $25 a night pet fee was a little unsettling. Also this was not communicated and we got hit with almost $100 in pet fees when we checked out. Night two resulted in the power to 20% of the campsites going out and would not be fixed. 100 degrees with no A/C was a great way to clear a section of the campground. Overall a good trip, but my rating went down to 3 stars because of the new pet policy. If you don’t have pets then it is a great place to stay. For us we love Blue Lake itself, but will be moving to another resort on the lake.

Within the almost 4 million acres of the Okanogan Wenatchee National Forest, lie countless locations for dispersed camping. This area of the southeast corner of the NF has very little traffic compared to others, we saw only one ATV for the whole time we were there. This area lies along the Washington Backcountry Discovery Route between the Cashmere and Chelan sections along NF-7400. Obviously, this is a 4X4 road and I wouldn't suggest it in anything less. Incredible sunset views of the valley in front of Chumstick Mountain, it gets pretty windy at night but there are treelines you can position against. This particular spot photographed is just up the hill off the roadside in a nice grassy clearing. More spots were just up the hill around the bend as well.

Great little place to camp at if you just want to get away and get your fish on! They also have cabins for rent, but we've never gotten around to trying those out. The campground is fairly well maintained with a decent buffer zone between sites, so your neighbor isn't all up in your business like with most WA state run campgrounds. There are toilets, showers and a well stocked general store if you forgot anything. I mean anything! From danishes, to paper towels, to fishing poles and licenses. You can launch your own boat, rent a boat or fish off their dock (small admission fee) and are almost guaranteed to catch something.The trout are always hungry! They even have a fish cleaning station if you decide to keep your catch. Oh and there are semi-friendly resident raccoons. I wouldn't recommend petting them, but they are very photogenic and may pay you a visit so lock up your camp kitchen stuff!

Quite liked this campground, a few things to note first about the site then the park.

Site: 31 Great distance between tent pad and picnic table with a few well placed trees for hammock/ clothing line Fire ring was great distance from picnic table. Great privacy (granted the people in the site next to us weren’t there) Close walk to bathroom/showers & Trash Short 5 minute walk to the lake.

Park: Showers were actually free Normally it is pretty windy, but there was no wind both days we were present Mosquitos were worse than usual, but a constant cost of DEET and a anti mosquito candle kept them at bay, still got bit up a bit There is a pretty legit store with camping stuff, espresso, and ice cream Playground near beach area By the beach there was a dude selling kayak/ paddle board rentals, he does not come on especially windy days Kind Staff, met camp hosts dog

I’ve also attached some photos of the RV sites from the north campground

Definitely will come back