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Hike around Umatilla Rock, see the various lakes close up, and then come see where you were from this overlook to put it all in perspective. This oasis is incredible and the views from this visitor's center is wonderful.

During COVID-19 quarantine, the building is closed but the views from the parking lot are just fine.

There is a food truck and an ice cream/shakes/sundaes hut during our stop. The ice cream was delicious.

Last year I tried to camp here on July 4th, but it was closed due to quarantine. I kept it in mind for another time while we enjoyed a day at Baker Lake, which is right down the road.

This year we were going to go to Sun Lakes Dry Falls, but the heat wave made that a very bad idea. We looked for sites at elevation and I remembered this one. The only danger is that these are first come, first serve and we were in the week before July 4th. We took a chance and decided it would just be a day trip if it didn't work out. However, there were maybe 5 other campers in the campground when we arrived; I basically had my pick of the sites.

There is a standard restroom but a bit of a walk compared to most campgrounds we frequent. However, there are port-a-potties surrounding the site, making the trip a little shorter at night. With street lighting on the perimeter too, it makes it a safe-feeling walk at night. We must have lucked out because they were all brand new (or at least newly cleaned and placed) before our visit.

Each site has its own water access, which was great for drowning campfires before bed, and refilling the trailer tank.

Each site also seems to have a picnic table, but you'll want to bring a brush to clean it off of fallen pine needles, and cover it with a table cloth.

The site parking area is ample for several cars and a small trailer. In the back of the site you can find room for tents, but most sites don't have ideal ground cover for tents IMO. I prefer grass or needles, and we found 2 in the middle that matched that criteria, but most have gravel.

Most of the other campers were in RVs and ran generators all day long. We were far enough away from the nearest that we didn't hear it much, and they did observe the 10pm quiet hours.

The perimeter road is gravel and worked well for the kids to ride bikes. We could see them all the time, and that gave them a lot of freedom to roam within the campground.

The fire rings vary per site. Some are larger and some are smaller. Ours was 2 sides joined at a 90 degree angle, with a grate on top. Another next to us was an acute triangle that wouldn't have served a group as large as ours as well.

The camp host is nearby but didn't get in our business. He sells firewood if you need it. I talked with him last year when the campground was closed; he was friendly enough.

The best part about this campground is it is walking distance to Baker Lake. You can also visit the dam (mainly drive over) nearby, and use it as a basecamp to day trip the North Cascade National Park.

The worst part about this campground was the mosquitos. So many mosquitos! We got by but the early evening was a struggle. Even with bug spray, which would mostly keep them at bay, and a smoky campfire to discourage them from hanging around, almost all of us got several sore sites from bites. It wasn't intolerable, but one had better come prepared.

This campground is split across Nason Creek with 2 loops south of it, and 2 loops north of it. Much of it is by reservation, but a few sites are kept as first come-first serve. The sites must be vacated by noon, so if you are looking to drive by and pick one up without a reservation, it would be best to show up in the morning to see which sites are opening up, and be ready to swoop in when the campsite is vacated.

Once taking a first come-first serve site, you have 30 minutes to register at the entrance with an envelope and check or cash, leaving it in a drop box. There were no pencils here so bring your own.

The sites have toilets stocked with toilet paper, and a sink with a hand dryer. Ours did not have any soap in it, so bring your own. The restrooms I saw were more or less single occupancy, but no locks on the doors. The toilet is in a stall for privacy, but the sink is available for someone else to use.

On the northern most loop, there is a nice little hiking trail that splits off several times, leading to different areas of Lake Wenatchee State Park, including a trail following the Wenatchee River to the boat launch, or towards the lake, or to a nearby horse riding stable (http://www.icicleoutfitters.com/daytrips.html). The trail is shaded by trees, but they are sparse enough to give good visibility in all directions and to let enough sunlight in.

If hiking isn't your thing, you can drive to Lake Wenatchee State Park instead. Parking requires a Discover Pass, and is limited so don't expect to get a parking spot in the middle of the day.

How quiet a campground is often depends on your neighbors, and that is mostly luck of the draw. However some campgrounds are built near noisy things, or don't have enough tree barrier to insulate. The northern-most loop is right on Cedar Brae road. For the most part, I didn't notice the cars going by - it was background noise - and the traffic was much lower during the night. There were a few big rig trucks driving by, seemingly intentionally, causing as much noise as possible, as well as some motorcycle riders also not being respectful with their noise.

Compared to Lake Wenatchee State Park, I got better cell reception here. On TMobile with an iPhone X, I would consistently get 1 bar of LTE which was enough to stay in touch, upload photos, and browse websites, albeit a little slowly. In LWSP, I could only get 1 bar 4G and occasionally no reception.

I've been taking my son to Fort Flagler for several years now. We go once or twice a year. It is the perfect campground for kids.

It has 2 main camping areas, lower and upper. Lower campground is better suited in general for RVs. It has little tree cover and there is more wind down there. Upper campground has heavy tree cover which keeps your site and tent cool during the day.

There is a general store on site that sells firewood, ice cream, burgers/hotdogs/etc, kites, canned food, drinks, and lots more. It is a great resource. Nearby is a kids playground too. Around this area is plenty of open space which is perfect for kite flying.

There is plenty of beach to comb, some on the Kilisut Harbor side, and some in the Admiralty Inlet. Kilisut Harbor is cold, but protected and is a pretty good option for boating/kayaking.

One of this campgrounds best features are the trails, suitable for hiking and bicycling. On these trails you'll see deer, and they lead to amazing views of the surrounding areas. What's more, there are WW1 and WW2 bunkers and batteries to check out, which my kid just loves. Bicycling is probably our favorite activity when camping here.

A day trip to Port Townsend is nice. Be sure to stop by for ice cream at Elevated Ice Cream Co & Candy Shop. I highly recommend the orange and swiss chocolate flavor.

For many people, driving to Fort Flagler involves a ferry ride, which is a nice part of the trip too.

The only downside I've ever experienced is loud noises at night from something outside the campground. We're not sure if it is wind on the cliffs or planes from military exercises. We don't hear it every stay, and never two nights in a row.

We chose this campground because we could not get into Steamboat Rock, and honestly we'd still prefer Steamboat over SLDF, but our experience here wasn't bad overall.

To start, the campsites are pretty big. You get a lot of horizontal space on the road, providing more than enough space for a vehicle and 2 medium-sized tents. We occupied 2 spots, where one was a car + RTT and a boat + trailer, and the other was a car and a camping trailer. We were swimming in room. The downside is that tents must be in the parking area, which is crushed gravel. Most campgrounds are like that, so that is to be expected. Behind the campsite is a fairly wide strip of grass with big trees providing lots of shade. This is a great area for the provided picnic table, camp chairs, and recreation.

The fire pits are quite shallow, which made cooking over the fire using the attached metal grate challenging.

There is no local store, like one you'd find at Fort Flagler, so expect to make a day trip to Coulee City or further for ice or other provisions. I didn't see firewood for sale nearby.

Bathrooms are not far from the campsites and are kept fairly clean. There are showers, and a gender neutral bathroom also equipped with a shower.

Adjacent to the campground is a lake with a swimming area. The water is nice and the lake bottom is not too dirty, but I'd still wear water shoes when wading in it. There is not a boat launch at that spot, but there is one up the road at a nearby campground for a fee. There is also one to the other side that is free, but narrow.

Rising above the campground on one side are the rocky cliffs of the coulee. It makes the campground quite picturesque. On the other side is a golf course.

At night with a clear sky, the stars are wonderful. There is not too much light pollution, and you can make out the milky way.

We didn't experience many mosquitos or other bugs. In the late evening we'd see tons of bats flying overhead, which is probably why. Over by the upper campground there are several bat boxes, and we read somewhere they live in the coulee rocks too.

The area can be quite windy in the evening. That made for great kite flying one night. Many campers were up at 2am staking their tents down and attaching guy lines. The rangers told us after every weekend there are broken tents in the dumpsters, so be smart and secure you tent when you first set it up. Guy lines are a must in the heavy winds too. A cheap tent with weak poles might not stand up to those winds either. We saw several broken tents/shelters.

As the campsites are very close together, it can feel more like a music festival. There is little privacy, and you'll see tents in every direction. Even though "quiet hours" are after 10:30pm, many campers disregarded that rule and we saw no evidence of rangers enforcing it. Some people were quite loud. Heavy winds seems to put an end to that, so there is an upside to windy evenings.

We stayed Friday to Monday, and on Sunday afternoon most campers were gone. Our stay from Sunday to Monday was quite nice.

Some rangers stopped by to chat and recommended we check out Deep Lake. We nearly kept our original plans of boating on Banks Lake, but decided to trust the rangers and save 40 minutes of extra driving. We sailed our little 16 foot catamaran down the length of Deep Lake and reveled in every minute of it. The lake is surrounded by coulees and was breathtaking. The wind kept changing direction, which made sailing pretty challenging. We saw others on inner tubes, standup paddleboards, rafts, and kayaks. There is also a cliff people were jumping off of. This ended up being the highlight of our trip. The parking lot was nice, the boat launch was perfect, and there is a little dock next to it which made trailering easy, when people didn't leave floaty things attached to it and be in the way.

We also did 2 local hikes: Umatilla Rock and Lake Lenore Caves. Both were good, and I'd recommend them. If I were to return, I'd definitely do Umatilla again. Next time we'll save time to do the hikes over at Steamboat.

TMobile coverage varied. An Android phone at 0-2 bars at our campsite. iPhones had no bars, unless we went to the upper campground.

All in all, we'd come back if we couldn't get a site at Steamboat Rock, but I'd try to stay on a weekday.

This is a great camping area, with the only major downside I experienced being the dusty ground - when other vehicles drive by, it will kick up a bunch of dust and cover your tent/vehicle/camper. The saving grace is that each "campsite" is separated from each other, usually by quite a distance. While driving up here, be a good fellow camper and keep your speed to a crawl.

As you drive up the dirt road, you'll see several spurs to the left (mainly), e.g. 47.976074, -120.157060. Each of these are early campsites. The road continues circling around the lake to the left.

When you see the first vault toilet (47.978068, -120.162558) there are 2 big campsites. There is a steep road that leads to more campsites, but there is no reason to take it because if from just before the vault toilet you turn right, the road it drops to the same lower area closer to water level that has a bunch of sites and another vault toilet.

Grade Creek Road also continues around, apparently to more campsites, which I didn't checkout.

Besides the lake view, there is also at least 1 access point via a narrow path that continues with a small separation of lake grasses. It is wide enough for a person with a kayak or SUP. Fishing is also allowed at the lake, with a sign asking for voluntary reporting.

There are several vault toilets in the area. Right before I arrived, a park attendant just finished cleaning one, and had several bags of garbage in the back of the truck. The folks I camped next to said when they arrived there was garbage all over the place. Lucky for me, it was clean by the time I showed up. What a shame some people feel this campground is their garbage dump.

We were told by a fellow camper that there is a hiking path that goes around the north side of the mountain to the SW of the campsite that leads to Lake Chelan. You can see a path on satellite pictures clearly showing up at around 47.978068, -120.162558.

We had no T-Mobile service at this location.

The sites are clean and good looking. For tent sites, parking and tent areas are separated by big rocks, both filled in with gravel that is raked flat by staff between camper visits.

There is little cover in many of the sites, but some are lucky enough to have some Pondarosa pines; ours had 2 that gave us a modicum of shade during the day.

Sites down by the water look very nice and have a lot more tree cover. We have an adventure trailer (13') which would not work there, though. Above them are RV spots. If I were to visit again, I'd choose the same site I had. It had a view of the lake, and was not very near other sites like some campgrounds can be.

Bathrooms are about the same as most state parks. They are older, but kept very clean.

The beach park is nice. A wide and lush lawn hosts picnics, and down the stairs to the sandy beach has access to the lake.

The hike up the mountain to the north is a nice one with amazing views. Find the trailhead at the group camp, just down the road a bit to the SW. It is about a mile long up (and then back) with ~751 foot elevation gain, with lots of switchbacks and varied terrain. The view from up top is well worth it.

We stayed here one night on the way through to another destination. There were approximately 5 official sites, each with a campfire ring and a picnic table. The campground loop circles a vault toilet.

If the campground is full, there is plenty of dispersed camping elsewhere on Forest Road 21.