Martha Lake

This is a nice spot off I-90. You can stay 3 nights with a Discover Pass. There is no potable water, and one basic vault toilet. It would have been very nice, but it's not well-policed and a caravan of people in derelict RVs moved in while I was there. They had about four cars and two camper trailers parked right near the toilet, and were dumping trash outside of the toilet building - screaming, fighting, letting their dog run around. None of them had a Pass and no one came to check while I was there.

It is a large site with many pullouts, so you can camp closer to the freeway or further away if people are being jerks, but it definitely depends on the weather and luck.

Free camping at Martha Lake is administered by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. No matter what camping configuration, free camping at Martha Lake with the Discover Pass offers a variety of camping options. In this video, I provide a walking tour of the Martha Lake free camping area. T-Mobile cellular service clocked in at 38.8 Mbps download speed and 6.99 Mbps upload speed. Verizon and AT&T cellular service were 1 bar LTE, but a speed test failed for both carriers due to poor connectivity.

We stayed overnight during the last week of September. The area is About 3/4 of a mile east of George on the frontage road. The entrance is kind of tricky to see until you are almost on top of it. It is a local fishing hole, according to the sign out front. There is one area at the south end of the lake that was open enough for our pup to get her feet wet. Otherwise, the lake is surrounded by thick reeds and other flora. Some subdued noise from the freeway, but it died down to almost nothing as the evening went on. There were a few places where gnats congregated, but other then that, no bugs to speak of ( at the end of September). One vault toilet building. I didn’t go inside, so can’t comment on the condition. A few places to pull into if you want you own space, otherwise lots of open space. Not many trees, so no shade except maybe out by the road. Lots of birds chirping and whistling late into the evening. Be prepared to level your rig as the ground is fairly uneven, although you can find fairly level places. Overall it’s an overgrown lake in the middle of fields and a huge parking lot. It was clean and adequate for an overnight stay.

We stayed here two nights. Being that it is summer and this is a first come, first served, we were worried that the camping area would be full. We ended up being the only ones there (besides some people that stopped to use the facilities). Since we were the only ones it was easy to park out 35 ft TT and enjoy the views of the lake and the wildlife. There is some highway noise, but the wind cancelled out the noise at night. There are pit toilets but it looks like they were stocked daily with toilet paper.