Charbonneau Park Campground

Nice Corps of Engineers campground with mature trees along Lake Sacajawea. Our site had 30 and 50 amp power. Several water spigots are around and a free dump station is at the campground exit. Lots of grass around, but also a lot of tack weeds along the areas leading to the lake. Not good for the dogs. Train runs nearby but not too often.

We decided to stay here based on other reviews and the location to our final destination, yet our experience was a bit different than most.
When we were about to enter the park, we crossed a train track crossing and just knew that trains would be coming by at some point.

We arrived at our spot which was large and clean and we had an excellent view of the water and marina. The grass around our campsite was not being watered
so it was pretty dried up around our spot. Other campsites had lush green grass all around them.

As we walked around our campsite getting set up, we noticed something sticking to the bottom of our flip-flops. We’d walk and hear clicking sounds. As we found out, those are goat head burs and they are tough and incredibly sharp! We had to stand outside the trailer and pick them out of our shoes so they would not poke holes in our trailer flooring. I could not imagine anyone wanting to run around the campsite with bare feet! Those babies would hurt!

As we started to make dinner the first of many, many trains went by. You could see them quite clearly from out campsite. The train horns blew loudly and we both just cringed.
From then on there was a train every 10-15 minutes that went by all through the night. We didn’t get much sleep. About 6:00am, the camp hosts had set up some sprinklers next to our trailer, unfortunately it wasn’t the dried up area around our spot. These sprinklers are pushing out a ton of water, so hearing that loud click, click, click over and over early in the morning after a sleepless night wasn’t great.

Once we got out of bed we decided to walk around the campsite. We noticed that if you were camping on the backside of the campground and by the water, the trains were not nearly as annoying as being in our spot. I guess we know for next time. We’d probably stay here again only if we were able to get one of the spots away from the trains and in a grassy area away from the burs.

Charbonneau Park is a popular Corps of Engineers Park on the south bank of the Snake River near Pasco, Washington. Most sites have at least some view of the river. The prime waterfront sites are often booked well in advance. Camping sites are well spaced out. Park landscaping is very well kept up. Good place to kayak. The park is firm about the 2 pm check in time. If you arrive before 2 pm, you can hang out in the very nice and large day use area which includes a marina and swimming areas. The visitor center and overlook at nearby Ice Harbor Dam are worth a visit. There is some train noise from the nearby tracks. Relatively short camping season (less than 4 months) for such a nice park. I wish it were open for a longer season.