Alta Lake State Park

Alta Lake State Park

Beautiful park in the mountains. This campground recently went on the reservation system and they are still working on how to deal with this. The park does not put out reservation cards. You check for your reservation on a posted list and then hope nobody took your spot anyway. Even though you have a paid reservation, you are still required to fill out a green and white pay envelope, basically just to say, "I showed up." There are three camping loops. Two of the loops have both tent and RV ( water and electric only) sites, the third loop has tent only, although smaller RV's could fit in some of the tent sites if you don't want hookups. Each site has a picnic table and fire pit. However, at the time I was there, all fires were banned. In the loop closest to the lake, the tent and RV sites are quite close together, with neighbors in your face. The tent sites closest to the lake have lake access, and it appears you are allowed to anchor your boat near your site. The RV slots in this same loop are all "Back-in." There is room for your slides, but you are still close to your neighbor. In the other loops, the RV sites and tent sites get some privacy via separation with lots of vegetation. In these loops, the RV sites are both back-in and pull through. In one loop, try to avoid RV site #1 and RV site #45, as both of those sites are right next to the path to the bathroom. The tent sites in all three loops have different configurations. Some you may like, some you might not. A few of the tent sites are paired for "buddy" camping. Some of the tent sites are very LONG tent sites; i.e., you park your car here and "hike it down" about 500 feet. There are two very nice "Group Camp" areas. One is grassy with some trees for shade, the other is more woodsy and has more shade. From what I heard, the Group Camp sites are hard to get on weekends, as they are booked nine months in advance. The Day Use area has a very nice swimming beach. During summer season, a private vendor sells hot dogs, taquitos, ice cream cones, snow cones, soda pop, suntan lotion, and ice. He also sells used paperback books for $1.50 each, but if you have some to trade, he will let you just "swap." Verizon cellular modem barely works, it fades in and out. Showers are 50 cents for three minutes, typical of Washington State Parks. One bad thing, the park apparently gets wild fluctuations in voltage in the RV (utility) sites.