At first glance, Cow Lake is a beautiful and secluded oasis tucked away in the scablands of Eastern Washington.

However, the area is a very popular local fishing and recreation spot and gets crowded on the weekends.

Cow Lake is about 10 miles east of Ritzville and is a free, dispersed camping area.

The road here is dirt and the last mile or so is pretty rough. But, most vehicles shouldn’t have any problems.

There are no services, facilities or potable water but cell service was good.

We arrived early Friday afternoon and there were just 2 other vehicles here. But, by evening there were over a dozen boisterous people fishing along the shore. Sound travels well over water and it was very noisy.

Luckily, the people fishing left and we basically had the area to ourselves until Saturday morning when family groups arrived for a day of fishing and fun.

By far the worst of it was the yahoos who came in later that evening to drink and shoot their guns. It was like we were camping in the middle of a shooting range.

We would not camp here again. Too crowded, too noisy & too many guns.