Frenchman Coulee Dispersed Camping

We arrived around 1730 to the area. Thankfully we read reviews about the steep entrance to the first site, so we stopped and looked and decided our rig (truck with 30' trailer) wasn't going down that way. We carried on down the road about two minutes to the other section on the left side of the road. There were already four or five people set up and I would confidently say this area isn't big rig friendly. We decided to try it but barely made it out due to the layout and the terrain. This area had a lot of rocks in the middle of the "road" and jagged rocks everywhere. Thankfully, we made it out without any damage, and we ended up parking on the right side of the road right across from the first entrance. It was very very private and an easy set up. We realized later that there was another entrance down the road from the first steep one that we would have been able to get down, no problem. Beautiful, quite spot with plenty of cell service.

As you drive down the road, you will see the first possible camping area on your right with a steep entrance. There's a big spot across the road from this where you can park most any size rig (and camp) to go check out this first camping area. It's free. You don't need the Discover Pass here. There's a less steep entrance about 100 feet further on. You can camp right next to the edge of the cliff but I don't advise this if there's going to be any wind. We had one VERY windy day in seven, and were glad we were back from the edge a bit. Good luck getting any tent stakes in here. We got our 30 ft fifth wheel in OK and another 35 footer stayed one night. You can hike to the waterfall from here and also the first climbing area, The Feathers. This area is the first area on the left with some possible van and tent camping. You need the Discover Pass here. The next area with the two disgusting vault toilets is appropriate for small campers and tents. You also need the Discover Pass here. There is another cleaner vault toilet down at the river, where you could go swimming if it were warm enough. There's plenty of room to get yourself turned around down at the river if you made the mistake of taking your big rig past the first area. This is predominantly a rock climbing area in the winter and boating/fishing. I think it gets closed off during concert events at the Gorge, to prevent it getting any more trashed than it is. There's a hill with cell towers close by, so pretty good cell service.

Free camping at Frenchman Coulee Dispersed Camping Area is administered by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. A Washington Discover Pass is required to camp at the Frenchman Coulee Dispersed Camping Area. In this video, I provide you a walking tour of the Frenchman Coulee Dispersed Camping Area. It is an exceptional location for tents and off-road rigs. Verizon cellular service clocked in at 33.1 Mbps download speed and 0.92 Mbps upload speed. AT&T cellular service clocked in at 9.24 Mbps download speed and 0.17 Mbps upload speed. T-Mobile cellular service clocked in at 8.58 Mbps download speed and 0.06 Mbps upload speed.

Like others have noted this is a cool spot. Definitely not for large vehicles though. I pulled my 17 ft travel trailer up to a cool spot but was horrified by the amount of old nails that were scattered everywhere. I took awhile to pick up as many as I could. Hopefully I won’t leave with one in a tire. Besides that, broken glass and some other bits of trash. I love boondocking but some people are just plain jerks to leave a place this nice without packing out. Leave no trace!!

This site is free, with a Discover Pass ($30 for an annual pass to all Washington State Parks).

Pros: This park is absolutely gorgeous, with views of a waterfall cascading into a canyon and really cool rock formations.
Great mobile connectivity- in certain areas of the park, I was getting 200 Mpbs down!
Some really cool hiking and climbing options in the park and nearby
The park feels quite remote but you’re a relatively quick drive to Ellensburg and other cities.

Cons: Fires are not permitted in the majority of the designated camping areas.
It was surprisingly busy when we visited in March and with only two vault toilets, there was quite a line during most parts of the day. On a similar note, the campsites are more primitive than other similar sites (no fire rings, picnic tables, etc.).
I visited in March so I didn’t see any during my visit, but apparently, this is a hotbed of rattlesnake activity!

Verdict: I can’t WAIT to return to camp here again!

We enjoyed a week of boondocking here. The price and scenery is hard to beat - free views of absolutely stunning sunsets, great hiking, beautiful high desert surroundings, and endless stars. The cons are the incredibly high winds (we saw more than one group of would-be tent campers give up), the poorly maintained pit toilets, trash left by previous campers, and the occasional rattlesnake. To be fair, we only saw one snake the entire time we were here. You need a WA state Discover Pass to camp here ($33/year).

Where to park:
There are three main areas to camp in: as you drive down, you'll first notice a cliffside spot to your left with room for 8 or so RV's and vans, though you might need AWD as the "entrance" to this area is a bit uneven. The second is to you right opposite the canyon, just before The Feathers. There are several spots here an RV can easily get into. The third and largest area is past The Feathers and boasts about 15-20 makeshift camping areas people have setup over the years. We don't have AWD but managed to find a nice, flat-ish spot for our 21' class B. If you go all the way to the end of the road, you'll come to a boat launch, hiking trail, and nicely maintained pit toilet, but no overnight camping is permitted here.

Good to know:
- Verizon signal varied between 2-3 bars of LTE. With our booster, we were able to work, including some video conferencing. Voice calls were great.
- 28 minutes east on I-90 is a rest area with free dump and potable water, which we used during our stay.

We are in a 20 ft mini bus, and this place was very hard to navigate. There are a couple places to pull off and park. Each parking area is full of sharp, rigid rocks for a road. We were stressed driving through here! I really wouldn't recommend for larger rigs or to anyone who doesn't carry a spare tire lol.

Its also very busy with rock climbers. You're lucky if you find a parking spot. There's a line just for the pit toilet. I've never seen a pit toilet that full. There wasn't any toilet paper when we used the bathroom, so I brought a roll from our bus. Not sure how long that will last though.

Its a bit busy and a bit to hard to navigate for us, so we probably won't be back. Verizon was strong though! 15 down, 3 up, ping in the 30s.

The smoke is thick 9/15/2020 but this may be one of the coolest places we've stayed. You can camp directly along the cliff just before the public use/discover pass required area but the entrances are steep- i would suggest the West-most/second entrance if you have an RV- we didn't attempt bc We have kids & a dog and that cliff is straight down. We camped at the "feathers" and my kids loved running around at the base of the climbing rocks. Further down is another camping area which an RV could park in if you're careful- i would suggest scouting ahead. Beyond that, we were told there is no camping but the road goes down into the valley below the cliffs- plan to explore that in our Jeep today. We backed in at the feathers area with no problem- it's pretty flat. No one else was here- I attribute that to the thick smoke. It would be way prettier without the smoke but the smoke does give it a cool apocalyptic feel. I bought our discover pass online (good cell signal), wrote the pass # on a piece of paper & put it in our window.