Labor Day Weekend Camping Trip at Kanaskat-Palmer State Park

I don’t know why but I have been procrastinating on writing this blog post, but so much has been going on with me lately and I will blog about that soon. This is kind of lengthy but I wanted to give you an idea of what we did and what you can do if you’ve never gone camping before and would like to.

During My Half Day Hike at Tolmie Peak Lookout I thought it would be a great idea to take the kids camping Labor Day weekend, I got lucky by being able to book a yurt a week or two beforehand. I initially looked for a place weeks in advance but everything was booked. I knew I wanted a yurt or a cabin; I didn’t want the hassle and added expense of a tent. So I decided I would check again because I knew that there was a chance that someone would cancel their reservation, I was in luck, two locations opened up, the first one was Kanaskat-Palmer State Park and the second was Twin Harbors Beach State Park, after some careful thought and a few comparisons I decided on Kanaskat-Palmer, I’m glad I did, it was perfect for us.

We left around 1-1:30pm since check in time is 2:30pm, but we needed to make a few runs first and I wanted to get the Discover park pass before we got there to speed up the process, I decided on a year pass since I’ve already paid for three this year and we will be visiting the parks a few times in the upcoming year so the pass pays for itself.

We arrived around 4pm, the yurt was great, it had electric outlets, lights, windows, a heater, hardwood floors, a broom and dustpan, and a locking door. It sleeps five people in total. I immediately went to disinfecting the beds with Lysol wipes and spray, we then swept the yurt and the porch area. After that we began to set everything up, we realized we had forgotten the ice so we had to leave the campsite and head over to Fred Meyer to pick up a huge bag of ice to keep the food cold and fresh in the cooler, which it did the whole time.

We decided to walk around the campground a little and headed down to the Green River, there were people fishing in the river for trout, we even saw a man bathing in the river (gross). The kids jumped rocks down the river; I decided to just walk along the side because I didn’t want to risk getting wet. Once we couldn’t go any further  we stopped and I meditated for a few moments while the kids continued to jump rocks and of course they fell in the water a few times, at one point getting me soaking wet, I was far from happy but I dried off pretty quickly. We skipped rocks for a little while then had a rock throwing contest.

Once we got back to our campsite I cooked dinner on my gas cooktop, we had pan seared fish and sautéed spinach. After dinner the kids played checkers until we all decided to go to bed.

The next day I made green tea, eggs, spinach and smoked turkey sausage for breakfast then we all headed to the bathrooms for showers. After everyone was dressed we began to pack up our backpacks and lunches for a hike. We walked to the main station and got a map and some information for a hike, we found out in order to get in a good hike we had to drive about 30 minutes to Federation Forest; so we decided to use the trails and hike back to the campsite 1.5 miles to get the truck. On the way to Federation Forest we stopped by a little convenience store and got more sandwiches and drinks then we were back on the road.

Once we got to Federation Forest we decided to just explore the forest and walk alongside the White River. We were there for a few hours and it was a lot of fun watching the kids explore the wilderness, I even encountered a gardener snake that had me running in the opposite direction, but it was just as scared as I was so we pressed on.

On our way back to the campground we stopped by the store again and decided to pick up some firewood and food for Smores, we then decided to drive to Walmart and pick up some fire starters, Connect Four, LED lamp and some more snack food. When we got back to the campsite I made chicken and veggie flatbread sandwiches then we all played a few rounds of Connect Four and walked around the entire campsite a few times just to get a feel for the other campers and to see what they had and what we could bring with us next time. 

We then made Smores by the campfire, I popped some Jiffy Pop and we just chilled out playing more games and enjoyed the campfire; that is until a family of raccoons came and I yelled and they ran but we decided it was time to take the party inside the yurt for the rest of the night where we played Chess, Checkers and more games of Connect Four until we got tired.
The next and final morning was Labor Day we started another campfire to use up the last of our wood and then I made green tea, eggs, spinach and turkey links for breakfast.  After breakfast we began to pack and clean the yurt once the yurt was clean and most of our stuff was packed in the truck we took showers and then packed the rest of our belongings and headed out around 12:45pm, check out time was 1pm.

This trip was exactly what we needed and we are excited to go again next year we have a good idea of what we need to make sure we bring with us and what we can keep at home, we plan on going twice next summer. We will definitely go back to Kanaskat-Palmer and we will also try a different location as well. Kanaskat-Palmer is perfect for a first time camper because its only 15-30 minutes outside of civilization with restrooms and showers on-site.

And…It Is What It Is!