Flowing Lake, Snohomish, WA, site #4 Campground||Snohomish and Skykomish (Coast Salish) land
It’s been a while! We’ve still been going camping every month, but I haven’t done write-ups for the past two camping trips because they were sort of more of the same at Kanaskat-Palmer. Our February trip was actually quite snowy (without much accumulation), so that was cool, very aesthetic, and our March trip had some snow mixed in with rain. More excitingly, we got a spot in March that had a really great forested spot attached to it that got Leeloo out of her camping funk.
Now in April we’re trying something different at Flowing Lake campground. It’s a Snohomish county campground near…Snohomish. That sounds a bit repetitive.
I actually didn’t think we’d be able to spend spring break here, because I was waiting on some paperwork to go through. For state parks, I can use my blue permanent accessible parking placard and card to get half off of campsites, but for county campgrounds there’s a different pass that you have to be issued. The funny thing is that I was able to use my accessible parking card as evidence of disability to get the card, haha. Like, you guys, cut out the middleman and just let us use our placards. Thankfully, the card arrived sooner than I’d anticipated, and we were able to book a spot for 3 nights.
I got the kids and our gear all loaded up (with help from the kids’ grandma) and we headed off to Snohomish. It’s a nice drive past lots of older homes and shops and woods. I feel like I can breathe out there. New buildings really stress me out. 1960s and earlier is my happy space.
We got to the park and followed arrows to take us into the camground, and found our campsite. It was…a little bit different than what I thought I’d booked. I’d been like “cool, cool, even though there’s a house nearby (visible on the layout map of the campground,) so long as they’re not noisy it shouldn’t be an issue.”
Uhhh, this is what we got. We have the ugliest site, lol. That’s not hyperbole, it’s legitimately the worse one by a fair margin.
When I book, I try not to take sites that larger vehicles might require. I’m driving a little 2003 Toyota Highlander, I only need 15 feet for parking. I also try not to take drive-through spots, for the same reason, and because those are probably really great for people pulling trailers. But damn, I guess I’m just gonna have to take the nicer spots as I can get them regardless of driveway length, because this is pretty ridiculous, haha.
[As I am typing this a small child on a bike just stopped, looked at our spot, and said “I feel bad for them, their campsite is really ugly,” hahaha.]
When we got home, I actually emailed the parks system asking them if they could please update the picture that they have for this site on the booking app so that this doesn’t happen to anyone else. I included a screenshot of the booking page and a photo that I took of the campsite so they could see the difference. The very next day they emailed me back that they’d not only opened a work order to clean the site up (apparently no one had thought to inform them of the storm damage and logging), listed the site as “full sun”, and designated it as drop-in only, they also updated the listing using my photo! I couldn’t stop laughing. Majel is famous, you guys.
But, while we definitely had the ugliest campsite, the campground itself is lovely. There’s lots and lots of trees, a dock for people to fish off of, a playground, covered picnic table area, a huge gazebo that you can reserve, a beach volleyball court, and a swimming area! There’s definitely something for everyone here.
Also, everyone we interacted with was super friendly. All the kids wanted to pet Leeloo and Sieh, which Sieh tolerated for the sake of his sister.
We met three 8 year olds (they thought it was hilarious when I pointed out that if Leeloo and Sieh were human children they could all be in the same class together, haha). Very sweet, polite kids, who made sure to stop any scary noises (rc cars, electric dirt bikes) they were making when I’d walk by with the kids.
We also met a little girl who was very excitedly telling her family that there was a kitty who looked just like their kitty. I asked her if she had a brown tabby but she didn’t seem to know what that was so I asked her her cat’s name. Muffin! How cute. We had a Muffin when I was very little, back in the ‘80s.
We met a little boy who was super cat crazy (relatable, lol), and he even gave me a stick of gum! We had a good chat about the merits and availability of different gum flavours. Overall, the whole trip was really good socialization for my kids.
We even saw another adventure cat while we were there! Yogi was hanging out on the dock with their humans, so we rolled over to say hi. Super chill kid.
The kids, especially Leeloo, also got to do some vehicle exposure therapy. Every so often a car or truck would pass us while we were walking on the road. They did so well, they even stopped ducking and hiding almost immediately. I think it helped that even when they were noisier v8s, they were all driving so slowly.
We had our wander, checked things out, then I hauled us all back up onto the hill and returned to our aesthetically-challenged campsite.
We took strolls the first two days that we were there. I waited until it started getting hot in Majel, because I had to manage the need to not be in her in direct sunlight when the temperature was in the upper 60s with my need to be in her to rest. Didn’t want to set out too early and then need to stay out longer than I could manage just to escape being roasted.
Days 3 and 4 were nice and rainy, so we just hung out inside. I still would have liked to let the kids have a wander around the campsite, but I wasn’t willing to risk it with all of those haphazardly stacked logs all over the place.
I used all that down time to do some pre-ordering that I’ve been meaning to do. In May, the next Murderbot book AND the next Dungeon Crawler Carl book are both being released, so I ordered copies from what used to be my local bookstore when I lived in Seattle (shout out to Elliott Bay Book Company!) My mom and I are both obsessed with these two series (yes, my 71 year old mother is a HUGE Dungeon Crawler Carl fan.) Very excited for both of those.
I also bit the bullet on something I’ve been putting off for way too long. I get super stressed making big purchases, but I finally found a lightweight, foldable, electric wheelchair that is both affordable AND has a safe battery (TSA approved.) Not only is it way cheaper than most of what’s out there (easily half or even a quarter the price), it was also on a spring sale for $410 off. Aaaaaand because I’m cheap and love a good deal, I also found a code for an additional $50 savings, haha.
I’m really hoping that this can help get me back outside on a more regular basis. Right now, I don’t even take a walk around the block because I know it will wipe me out and throw me into a crash. I went from taking my kids hiking every single week to never even going for walks. This powerchair should allow me to go on paved trails (and maybe even some handpicked dirt trails, who knows,) while helping me conserve my energy. It’ll still be tiring, but it’ll be a lot LESS tiring than walking. It won’t be back in stock until the 25th, so I won’t get it until the end of this month or early May. The anticipation is killing me!
I’m also planning on seeing if I can attach the bike trailer that I bought for the kids right before I got whammied with ME/CFS. If not, I can still use an adventure backpack, but the trailer is so cool, I really want to start getting some use out of it.
Anyhow, tangent over, the kids were definitely getting a bit antsy, especially because I’d booked us for 3 nights instead of 2, as the campground has a policy for booking Saturdays and Sundays together. Defo a bit long when we’re all cooped up in Majel. They don’t usually tussle while we’re camping since they’ve got so much interesting stimulation going on, but Saturday evening they were starting to get a little frisky.
We never saw any camp hosts or rangers while we were there, which I thought was a bit strange. The person who responded to my email had even mentioned that in the future I could talk to a ranger about moving to a better campsite if I had any issues, but I couldn’t find one even when I looked. As a result, it also seemed like the campground rules weren’t really being enforced.
The main rules were: no off-leash dogs (I saw one), no repeated barking from dogs, no music being played on speakers (my super nice direct neighbours were blasting classic rock…thank god it was something I could jam out to or that would have driven me up a wall), and no alcohol or fireworks whatsoever. Barking was generally stopped really quickly, and if people were drinking they had the good sense to be hiding the evidence.
Sunday morning we got packed up, and a short while before our noon check out time we headed out on our way home.
Overall, Flowing Lake is a campground that I’m definitely looking forward to visiting again, just staying in a nicer site next time.
ACCESSIBILITY NOTES:
The trails around the campground are not super friendly to mobility aids. We didn’t even try the hiking trails, because even though they were hard packed dirt (usually a win), there were lots of rocks and roots. It would have been slow, exhausting going. Sieh was very disappointed.
Part of the trail that goes between the day use picnicking, play, and swim area and the dock is paved, but has been left to the tender ministrations of the surrounding trees’ roots for far too long. I could barely get the rollator through there.
The dock has big rotted chunks missing out of the tops of a number of the boards, so I defo wouldn’t recommend taking anything wheeled on it. Probably a tripping hazard, as well. There is apparently a plan to replace the dock, but I didn’t see a timeline for this. Granted, I didn’t look very hard.
Graveled paths are mostly made with small, thin layers of gravel, so not too bad, but also not the best. There is no trail of any sort going down to the swimming area. You’ll have to be able to manage getting across a fairly large grassy field. Beware the sandy beach volley ball court.
There are also two steep hills in the campground. I’m not sure of the grade, but if you struggle with inclines like I do, they’re a doozy. Thankfully there are a number of campsites that would allow you to not be up on the hill (though you’d then only have access to the day use bathrooms.)
Until next time!
Camp Like Noodle 