Curlew Lake Campground — Hotel in Republic

We didn't come for the lake. It was an overnight stop on a camping road trip.

The campground was pretty crowded without much privacy. The tent sites are all together in one of several grassy areas and for many sites you have to carry your stuff a ways from your car to the site. Given the rather basic conditions, the $25 charge for a tent site ($35 for an RV site) seemed overpriced, and even after paying that you still had to feed quarters into the shower at 50 cents for three minutes. At least the bathroom was clean. The shower I used was broken and didn't start working until I paid 75 cents and it still only gave me three minutes.

At night a light will attract millions of annoying gnats. We ended up putting a brighter light at the far end of the table to draw them away.

The lake seems good for fishing and boating, and it looked like most park visitors were there to do those things.

Be sure to bring plenty of quarters...

You may bee in a squirrelly situation if you don’t bring hard hats! Lake Curlew Campground has much to offer. Clean bathrooms and accessible water. The lower loop is where it’s at, site 76 was down a slight slope and was far enough away from all the other sites. It has a beautiful view of the lake, and another slop that you can walk down to swim out of. There is a lot of algae but the further you swim out, the clearer it gets. The only caveat is the rambunctious squirrels, or in our case one squirrel, who attempted to drop pinecones on our heads…quite aggressively. And to note passive but hungry bees are present. If cooking meat, and they will want a snack. Be prepared to make friends with...

Travel less than ten miles north of the town of Republic on Highway 21 and watch for the signs after passing the local airstrip. Curlew Lake State Park encompasses 123 acres on the eastern shoreline of Curlew Lake, a popular fishing lake in northeastern Washington. The park offers a number of campsites right off the lake, a couple of easy but nice hiking trails and a bird watching blind in a small wetland tucked back off the lake. Wildlife is abundant whitetail deer wander thru the campground, red tail hawks, osprey and bald eagle soar overhead and spring visitors can observe a very active great blue heron rookery on Wiseman Island, which is less than a ¼ off the state...