South Campground

Once again, I find myself reluctant to write a review. The North campground - no hookups. The South campground has no sewer in any site, but a dump site obviously. Water and 50 amp power are in the outer circle of the the two loops, and typically the outers are pull throughs. Excellent design with the non utility sites and bathrooms in the center. A word on the showers, excellent. I used them every day to avoid filling the gray tanks and they are clean, the water is hot and 75 cents buys you a Hollywood shower. The team taking care of this place is simply outstanding. They are not intrusive, the sites are raked and spotless and as mentioned the bathrooms are clean. I will mention the pull through sites require a little maneuvering for the bigger rigs. I watched a 5th wheel parking for about 45 minutes until "just right". There is more than adequate separation, we backed up to nothing and while you can see the other campers, you still have a nice feeling of privacy. The quality of campers is also nice. All smiles and waves, little ones having funs on the scooters and such but not noisy at all. At night dead quiet, but we camped during the work week. Amazing cell reception, I had crystal clear Teams calls and all computer bits worked perfectly on Verizon hotspot. Then of course there is the lake, simply stunning with wood chip covered paths from the camp sites. Our fat tire bikes loved them. There are some funky stores close by, we avoided due to Covid. Towards the North Camp guess what a riding stable that rents horse rides at a reasonable rate. Sad note, one of the owners of the Horse business passed from Covid. Then, there is of course - Leavenworth. The streets are all closed down for seating outside and parking is tough now. We took a quick look and bailed due to Covid again. Most folks wore masks but some...well anyway. Iceclimber will be back to this diamond of a campsite.

Lake Wenatchee is where Lake Tahoe goes on vacation. Great sandy beach with a play structure, bathrooms and rental shop for floatie things. The sites are big, spacious and in the trees. If you're feeling froggy, the Wenatchee river entrance is just N of the beach - you can paddleboard or float a few miles down to a nice pull-out spot in nearby Plain (3-5hr pending water conditions).

We arrived on Monday to the entrance of South Campground and the first sign we see is, "No recreational vehicles over 32 feet", OOPS. When we made the reservation online, we only remembered the length of our site was 57' and long enough to accommodate us. We then were concern about a narrow road in and tight turns. But no worries...just made one loop, no tight turns and the one way road in was wide enough to our site.

Our site was more than long enough for our rig and toad and very easy to back in to. It was very private and protected on both sides by pines and vine maples. If we ever return though, we would probably reserve in the North Campground as it is set up for larger rigs.

We were shocked to experience an empty campground though during the second week in June. We know the sites on the weekend were all taken, but for the first four days of the week there were but a handful of campers... quite perfect and surreal. The campground is set up well for family gatherings though. Large beach with grills and tables, children's playground, kayak rentals, boat launch and horseback rides make this park reek of wall to wall crowds during the summer, noise and roads full of children bike riding. Yikes! We would recommend stays mid week, early or late summer.

The campground was very clean, the bathrooms immaculate and with the daily breeze, mosquito free. We only saw 3 restroom/shower facilities and in our opinion is not enough for the size of the campground. Campers in the outlying sites had a long distance to walk to the facilities. Firewood was available from host and campground store. There are many hiking/biking trails within the park and surrounding areas.

The Bavarian styled village of Leavenworth is 22 miles away offering groceries, fuel and shopping.

We stayed four nights (13-16 May 21) at the south campground, the campground being fully booked for Fri and Sat, but sites 89-100 were first come first serve. There was a list of reserved sites at the check in station, reserved sites were marked on the site number stake. This is the second time we have stayed here, last time was in the north campground (site 107). I would not recommend the south campground for anything over 20 feet as the roads are narrow and many tight turns for the most part, there were some larger rigs but they took some maneuvering. I had to be very careful maneuvering our 24 foot TT through some of the turns due to tree locations. When paying for the sight the envelope stated 20 foot max but there was no other indication of a length limit.

With the above caution this is a very nice campground with hot showers ($0.50/3 minutes), clean toilets and water at different locations, only the north campground has water at some sites (no sewer); you need a reservation for the sites with water and they are pull through type of site. There were only a coupe of pull through sites at the south campground, all were reserved. The beach is great for swimming and picnicking. There is a boat ramp at the south campground and a very small store. Very quiet at night. Well spaced sites. May/June is mosquito time so be prepared for them, they are mostly gone by July.

When we come again and we will we will likely stay at the north campground as it is a little easier to get in and out of sites. There is a dump station at the north campground that is free for registered campers.

We arrived on a Monday and stayed two quiet and blissful nights. At the south campground there were very few campers compared to other nearby sites. There’s easily 100 camping spots here but maybe less than 10 were taken, and the layout is great. Lots of dense tree cover between spots so even if it was crowded you’d feel you had some privacy.
Good trails nearby, horseback riding available and a nice “beach“ by the lake. Some campsites have a not-so great water view (Just look past the bathrooms, etc) but we opted for the woods instead.
Paid $25 for a “basic” site, looks like some are $30 on crowded days. Economy sites for $20. Our ATT service worked great and we were able to get plenty of work done between hikes.

We've camped in both the north campground and the south campground. There's a noticeable difference between the two. The north campground seems more oriented toward folks in RVs; what makes for a good campsite when you're tent camping is often different than what makes for a good site when you're in an RV. In both cases, we camped in mid-late September; there are almost always less campers once the school year starts.

Most recently, we stayed in a site in the south campground. Be forewarned: some of the sites in the south campground have zero privacy and they're exposed to the wind coming off the lake. I noticed those are listed as "economy" sites, meaning they're the least expensive sites.

We tent camped in site #87. This area of the campground has a large number of vine maples, providing privacy and protection from the wind. We could hear the wind, and the large trees were swaying enthusiastically, but we couldn't feel the wind in our site. (Ten feet down the road from our campsite, I could feel the wind.) If you're a hammock-user, skip this site: there aren't two trees stout enough to hold up a hammock. Also, one of the trade-offs with the vine maples blocking the wind is that there's nothing to blow the mosquitos away. Our Off bug repellant lamp did a fine job, but be prepared to deal with bugs unless you're here later in the year. (The bugs weren't bad when we were here in mid-September.)

Sadly, the vine maples can do nothing to stop the noise of partiers, barking dogs, or crying toddlers. I suspect someone complained to the camp host, as on our second night he made a trip through the campground shortly after the start of quiet hours at 10 p.m.

I'm a trail runner, and there's a fair number of trails in & around the campground, as well as access to longer hiking trails. The trails in & around the campground are kind of a jumble on the south side of the Wenatchee River, so don't expect to be able to follow a planned route exactly. (The trails in the north campground are better defined, but there's only one trail.) Some of the trails are used by the horseback tours, so expect those to be very soft dirt (slow running).

As mentioned above, horseback rides are available. There are paddle-powered craft available to rent. There are playgrounds for kids. There's a beach. There's a boat launch. There are catchable fish in the lake. The snow park trails are AMAZING, so come up during winter, too. You're not far from a variety of other outdoor activities - rafting, climbing, rock hounding - so if you're staying here for a few days, check out the surrounding area.

Expect it to be windy. The area sits at the far end of long lake in the foothills of a mountain range: that's pretty much a guarantee for wind.

Perhaps it's because the wildlife knows winter is not too far away, but in September the chipmunks and squirrels showed zero fear of us. The yellow jackets (wasps) were pretty aggressive any time we had meat out of the cooler.

Cell coverage varies around the campground.

We both thought the coffee - both drip and espresso drinks - in the camp store was dreadful. The folks are friendly and the ice cream is great, though. Expect the store to be very crowded at peak times when the weather is good. Also expect to be amazed by the variety of things they sell in that tiny store. It's like a retail Tardis.