Alta Lake State Park — Attraction in Okanogan

We were there as a large group to camp together, and bought 5+ campsites on the same side of the camping loop so as not to be a bother to anyone else. Everyone set up camp, and later in the evening were promptly told that "camping doesn't include anything outside of the rocky areas." Great. There were no rules stating that, and it wasn't told to us at check in, but sure we can work with that. 4 out of 5 spots needed to rearrange their whole spot. Later that night we had turned on music, a ranger told us that it would need to be down by 10pm as per noise ordinance. No problem. That was at 8pm. We were told 2 other times before 10pm. We turned the music down and hung around by the portable fire. The same ranger came back around 10:30 to say "That she said OFF, not DOWN, and that she was done messing around and wouldn't tell us again. We needed to separate to our respective camps, and couldn't hang out anymore." She then proceeded to go to a camp further down the road and tell them "if that group bothers you to let me know" so she could take the initiative to kick us out. Our friend had followed her to ask her questions about the other noisy camps near the bathroom, where you could obviously hear voices, and heard her say that. The next day it was a similar story. We had music on, except this time a woman (not sure if it was the same one) came around to tell us that "the noise ordinance is 10pm but we should shut it off now because the bass is annoying and could be heard a few camps down." Yeah, we could hear everyone's kids screaming and being crazy too and it was absolutely annoying to listen to that too. Why not have everyone making loud noises stop? Why just us? People were hooting and hollering about who knows what, but she decided that we were the ones to target all weekend. The only reprieve was the lake. I honestly doubt that anyone from our group will come back to this place, and we will definitely warn others that they should camp somewhere else.

Bad Things: Many spots have little to no shade, very dusty area in general, the staff are absolutely the worst people at any campground probably ever (except the guy who cleans the spots, he was a super nice person!)

Good things: Clean Restrooms, the lake is beautiful (if you can camp somewhere else to enjoy the lake I highly recommend doing that and skipping the...

Worst camping site I’ve ever been to. First off when we first called to make the reservations they told us first come, first serve. And no same day reservations. We got to the site and set up around 4/5pm ( front desk was already closed) around 9/10 that night a ranger came by and asked why we were there and told us we should’ve paid up front at the front desk if we wanted to stay and it’s reservations only. Lol. The opposite of what we were told on the phone. All the sites are so close together, you can see into everyone’s site just from sitting at your own. Oh and no trees. Be ready to wake up the second the sun starts to rise because you can hear everything from everyone since you’re so close, you’ll get no sleep. I know when you go camping outdoors to expect bugs, and a lot.. but the amount of bees at this park is insane. Even with food put away and bee traps all around, you will be surrounded by bees. No matter where you go. The employees could use some work. Every night we had two different rangers at two different times come up to us as if we were too loud or did something wrong. It was weird. So many better places to pick from. I do...

The park service people seem very friendly and polite but there was another group of campers who asked us to let them park in one of our spare spots because they had an extra car and were told they cannot park anywhere at the park and needed to go park their car in the city which is few miles away. It is probably their policy but there are spare parking spots around and I thought perhaps they can be a little more flexible?

Anyways, our family and friends love camping. In the past few years we have camped in 13 camping places in the state of WA and Alta Lake is no doubt our least favorite. It is so hot (August 15th), dry and there is no trees or shade to cool it off a little. Also if you are scare of snakes (like us lol), you might want to think twice before going here. My friend saw a snake lying right at the entry of the bathroom. The park rangers quickly caught it. He told us to be careful at night because snakes love to come out to the paver road (because the like the heat).

All in all, if you don't mind the heat, snakes and the dry terrain, give it a try but this is not one of our favorite places. We are not coming back any...