Our kids & dogs love this campground because of easy access to the beach. Great place to play boogie boards, skimboards, just playing in the waves, kites flying, building sand castles or just laying on the sand.
Every time we goes there it always show as it'll rain, but we usually get at least 1 day of great sun and when it's sunny, it's the best place to be.
This is one of the State Park that does not have the list of long rules. The park rangers are usually friendly and not too strict and your tent does not have to be on the pad.
Loop 3 & Loop 4 have closer access to the beach and better sites.
Usually clean facilities and showers. Each loop has 1 shower within the men and women bathrooms.
Cons:
When it's raining for more than a day, lots of sites can be muddy and swampy especially in loop 2.
Ocean is always cold no matter what time of the year.
It's been our favorite campground for years, but recently last year, the park removed all the flushing toilets, and replaced with vaulted toilets!
Pros
- Close to Seattle about 1.5 hr - 2 hrs away depending on traffic.
- It has numbers of walk-in sites with great access to the lake.
- Lots of loop for kids to ride bike and explore.
- Great access to many hiking trail near by like Pacific Crest Trail(PCT) can be accessed near the campground and Racheal Lake trail head is only 15 mins drive away.
- Great for kayak, canoe, paddle board, or just chill and swim in the lake.
- Friendly rangers and comp hosts.
- Campground is always clean.
- Most campsites have great privacy, you are not right on top of your neighbor.
- Most loops within a walking distance to lake access except Beargrass loop.
- Hardly cell phone service is a plus for us, unless you are at the beach or boat launches.
Cons
- Vaulted toilets … (we don't mind vaulted toilets, but it used to have flushing toilets until 2017).
- Very busy, hard to make get a reservation. Most walk-in campsites will be filled up by Friday morning.
- In 2018, camp hosts no longer sell firewood (not sure if this still the case). We used to be able to get firewoods on the way in, but the last 2 times we went there this year, no one is selling firewood outside of the campground either. We had to drive to Easton to get firewood.
- Dogs are not allow at the main beach (most campgrounds now have this rules but there aren't many off to the side area where dogs can hang out and you can watch your kids at the same time). Although some camp hosts do not enforce this rule, until the beach gets really busy.
The campground is very clean and well maintained. I felt like I was in the city. The campsites are small and cramped together, typical state park I guess. There’s playground by the lake and boat launch, but you have to either ride a bike or drive there, there’s no actual trail connect from camp loop to the play area. The ranger was very strict and came around often to Check on dogs, tent on tent pad. The site we got was not near freeway but it was still noisy. Keep in mind, we like camping where we can stretch out and not have to worry about the neighbors.
Most of the campsites here are on top of each other. Not much privacy. With that being said the walk in sites along the lake are amazing. The walk in on most of them is not much more than a normal site (down a few steps). Clean bathrooms with flushing toilets and showers. Campsites were clean as well
Campsites were big and clean with lots of privacy. Mostly new vault toilets as well. Only downside is parking is a bit of a challenge. Most of the sites look like they will barely fit one car. We got a multi site (e1) and it had space for 3 vehicles with no overflow parking. We were there in beginning of June 2019, the campground already changed all toilets to vault toilets, they are kept clean. We took a short walk to Blue hole trail, the river is freezing cold but still beautiful. This is one the best campground around. It became our favorite.