Yakima Sportsman State Park — Attraction in Yakima

My family has stayed here numerous times over the past 4-5 years for basketball tournaments held in the Yakima area... maybe 10 different times. For the most part, our stays have been pleasant and uneventful. Sometimes the token machine doesn't work, sometimes the showers are not exactly "hot", there are times of the year when there is no attendant and/or camp host on hand, and the attendant does not stay on sight 24 hours. But, for the most part... it's relatively clean and reasonably maintained, it's mostly quiet, easy to access, centrally located in Yakima, it's reasonably priced, and it's not simply a blacktop parking lot. Do your research, and you will not find another similar campground within 30 miles of Yakima. Yes, there's a KOA and some other RV place near by... but, they are expensive and blacktop excuses for "campgrounds". The only truly critical thing that I would say has to do with the State Camp "Trooper"?? In years past, Yakima Sportsman State Park had a law enforcement officer assigned to it that was friendly and approachable. Durning my last two visits, there's been this guy that we have been referring to as the "mall cop dropout wannabe"! :-) During both of my last two visits, this guy wears near-full-body armor/bullet-proof riot gear with ammo clips strapped to his chest and cuffs, mace, taser, gun and the like attached to his person for all to see. He has no people skills! He puffs his chest I guess in an attempt to intimidate. Evidently, he's been relegated to Yakima Sportsman State Park (the Siberia of Washington State Parks?)... at least, this is the attitude that he exudes. In his eyes, you are a lowly piece of scum wasting his time when he could (I'm sure in his mind... he "should") be protecting the president or standing post on the wall of Guantanamo Bay!! Really!!! Aside from this guy, however, the hosts have normally been really nice and helpful, and our stays have been mostly pleasant and enjoyable. Just one last suggestion... we recently made reservations on-line in advance. When we showed up, someone was in our spot. There was no sign or message to last-minute guests that our spot was already spoken for. Maybe MallCop could go put a sticker on the post indicating that the sight is reserved... as is the practice in 98% of all other state parks where I've reserved and stayed....

I camped at this park 10 years ago with my nephew (was 4) for cherry picking and just revisited the weekend with him (now 14) and my daughter (now 6 and it's her first camping) before July 4th. I was a bit worry after seeing lot of negative reviews about homeless people occupying the park but turned out it's better than I thought.

Sure, I did see couple dusty vehicles parked at there with full loads of their personal belongings within. Probably I was lucky, there was some Asian boy scouts event outside the campground area (S-1D if you look at the site map) for Fri & Sat nights that might scare some homeless people away. But yeah, those kids were very noisy at night...

Site #1-16 were half full and #17-36 are almost fully booked by RV's. For #37-64, I drove by and saw only few tents (and probably where those homeless would stay overnight, idk). If you are booking, consider #1-36 if available.

Not much has been changed compared to 10 years ago. Kids playground are old and not well-maintained. River side trail was closed under construction otherwise it would be nice taking my kid to play some water under the heat. Restrooms are clean, have toilet paper and bottled hand soup. Showers (within the campground area) no longer require tokens for hot water, but no hot water on the one outside - I didn't know on the first night as it's closer to my site. But it was fine with 80+ degrees around 6pm.

The lady at the park office was very friendly and helpful. I feel bad didn't catch her name. I can see the park is trying to gain their reputation back as they have park rangers patrolling frequently, even at late evening.

Walmart is only few minutes away for restocking foods and water. Costco is also not far away for gas (60 cents cheaper than the Seattle area).

I live in the Seattle area and probably won't visit there often but will definitely revisit here 10 years later with my 24 years old nephew and 16 years old...

We stayed here one night in our travels north and didn't have a good stay. We reserved online and were charged an $8 online reservation fee, which some states charge, but in addition to that, we were charged $5 for living out of state! Wow, that screams out, WE WANT TOURISTS TO COME TO WASHINGTON, doesn't it?? Then when we arrived, our $58 RV site had Fox Tails in it, which are very dangerous and potentially deadly to dogs, so we couldn't stay in that site. We ended up parallel parking in a tent site with no hookups so our dogs could have a weed-free place to do their thing. We couldn't find a park employee so we ended up paying for the tent site we were occupying, another $27. About that time, another RV pulled in behind us, they were supposed to be in #14 but the people in 13 had put out so much stuff, the RV couldn't get it's slide out. So we told them to take 15 because we weren't going to use it. They were thrilled. The next morning the park attendant wouldn't refund either of the sites for us, stating they couldn't rent out our RV site, even though 14 and 15 had been paid for in full. 69 didn't have any hookups so we didn't use any of their water or power, just parked there for the night, but still no refund. Terrible experience, will never go back there and probably will not use Washington State parks again. I put in a survey with the parks department and will add a star to my review IF I get any refund but I'm not holding my breath. Some of the RV sites, the even MORE expensive ones, had a little more space in between them but the row, I think it's 1-16 were so close together, terrible surface, hardly a place to sit...