Curlew Lake State Park – state parks quest #67

Five things

#1. Curlew Lake offers something I’d never seen before: random lawn camping. I dislike tent camping next to RVs because of the lack of privacy and generator noise. When we arrived, a long green lawn, dotted with fire pits and picnic tables, curved across the parking lot from the RV loop, where most sites were already taken. Parking spaces in front had painted numbers on the curb, which indicated the general area of the campsite. The friendly camp host told us to just pick a spot on the lawn nearish the parking space and set up. That’s what we did and we were one of only a few tent campers on a relentlessly rainy night.

#2. At more than 900 acres and 5.5 miles long, Curlew Lake is popular with fishers, several of whom were already backing their boats into the water at the boat launch when we walked by early in the morning. The lake is natural, but a three-foot-tall dam built in 1926 stabilized the lake level and stores water for irrigation. It’s stocked with tiger muskie (the state-record fish was caught here), largemouth bass, and brook, rainbow, and brown trout.

#3. Two critically imperiled snail species live only here and in one other lake, about 50 miles away in Okanogan County. And it’s apparently osprey central, because we saw multiple nests on platforms throughout the park and at least a dozen sea eagles soaring above the water, also starting their fishing early in the day.

#4. Merritt Field, the Ferry County Airport named for the chair of the county commission when the airport was built in 1974, lies partially within the park, its one runway always ready for recreational visitors.

#5. I suspect most people focus on the lake, but the park’s perimeter trail is a delight. Over rolling grassy hills, around a wetland, and through a Ponderosa-lodgepole pine forest, it’s well worth exploring. You’ll likely spot deer and birds of prey.

Fast Facts about Curlew Lake State Park

• 123-acre camping park, open year-round
• shoreline
• 82 campsites, mix of full hookup, partial utility, standard, and walk-in, max length 45’, dump out
• restrooms, showers
• picnic tables, grills, horseshoe pits, fire pit, amphitheater
• hiking, mountain biking, road biking, birding, wildlife viewing, winter sports
• freshwater fishing, swimming, boating, paddleboarding
• 80’ dock and boat launch
• Discover Pass required, $10 daily or, for a very reasonable $30, purchase an annual pass
• camping and roofed accommodations, hookups, reservable online or by calling 888-CAMPOUT
• park brochure
• park map

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Land Acknowledgment

Curlew State State Park occupies the traditional and unceded lands of the Syilx Okanogan people and Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, who have lived and travelled here since time immemorial. 

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