We're updating our camping and moorage fees to continue providing great experiences for visitors amid inflation and rising costs. You will see a rate increase for camping stays booked for May 15 and beyond. Moorage fees will increase Jan. 1. Learn more here.
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This day use park sits at the end of Ebey Road and is one of the trailheads for the popular Bluff Loop Trail. Featuring dramatic, sweeping views of the Olympic Mountains, visitors can begin the 3.5 mile hike up to the top of the bluff and along the beach – one of the most popular hikes in the state.
Brooks Memorial sits between the pine forests of the Simcoe Mountains and the Columbia River Gorge. This environmental diversity makes for a stunning park site. The miles of hiking, biking and equestrian trails lead along the Little Klickitat River and up through Ponderosa pine and stands of Oregon white oak.
Join Garden of the Salish Sea Curriculum for Family Field Day! Explore Birch Bay State Park's intertidal zone with Beach Naturalists.
The story of Mount Pilchuck State Park goes deep. The distinctive blocks of light-colored quartz monzonite (a rock like granite but with a smaller proportion of quartz crystals) that a hiker must scramble over to reach the historic fire lookout were once molten magma slowly cooling thousands of feet below the earth’s surface. The mechanisms of plate tectonic subduction elevated the rocks to 5,324 feet above sea level to put Mount Pilchuck’s prominent alpine summit barely 18 miles from salt water at the Snohomish River estuary.
Fort Worden Historical State Park preserves an example of a US Army defense project from the beginning of the 20th century. Its strategic location on a high bluff at the entrance to Puget Sound also features sweeping vistas of the islands, waterways and mountain ranges that have attracted people here for millennia.
Enjoy a hike out to Cranberry Lake with Parks' staff on Jan. 1.
Join the fun and run at Steamboat Rock State Park this Jan. 1.
Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission is beginning a process to update the long-term boundary for Pearrygin Lake State Park to include properties on the north shore of the lake. This change would result in all of Pearrygin Lake’s shoreline being within the long-term park boundary, allowing for future connection of a loop trail around the lake.
Jackson House State Park Heritage Site is a 1.4-acre day-use park in Chehalis on the Jackson Highway. The park was the setting of a homestead cabin built in 1850 by John R. Jackson, one of the first Euro-Americans to settle north of the Columbia River and an important figure in early Washington territorial history.
Hidden gun emplacements, expansive parade lawns and restored Victorian-era Officers homes place history front and center at Fort Worden Historical State Park.
OLYMPIA — The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission will hold in-person-only planning meetings on Dec. 10 and 11 at its headquarters in Tumwater.
Commission planning meeting agenda items for Dec. 10 include a 2024 review presented by Commission Chair Sophia Danenberg, highlights from each Parks division presented by the agency’s Executive Leadership team and budget and priorities planning.
OLYMPIA – The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission will hold a virtual work session on March 19.
Commission meeting agenda items include an update on the agency’s Climate and Sustainability Program activities, an update on State-Tribal Recreation Impacts Initiative and efforts to adopt a charter for the initiative in June 2025, a legislative update, a financial update and general updates from State Parks staff.
The Klickitat Trail follows an old railroad corridor that at one time linked the towns of Lyle and Goldendale. The trail runs along the Klickitat River to Swale Creek and through Swale Canyon. The canyons lined with oak and pine forests, and in the springtime covered in a variety of beautiful wildflowers. East of Swale Canyon visitors can see rustic farms, open fields and occasional grazing cows. In the winter, the trail is open for ungroomed snowshoeing and cross-country skiing adventures.
Fort Casey Historical State Park preserves an example of a US Army defense project from the beginning of the 20th century. Its strategic location on a high bluff at the entrance to Puget Sound also features an historic lighthouse and sweeping vistas of the islands, waterways and mountain ranges that have attracted people here for millennia.
Bottle Beach State Park’s sweeping shoreline provides a window into one of the most important shorebird feeding area on the Pacific Coast. Grays Harbor attracts more than a million birds each spring and up to 20 percent of these migrating birds use the area just off Bottle Beach, peaking in late April and early May. Shorebirds are attracted to this spot because the mudflats just offshore host abundant shrimp-like Corophium amphipods for them to eat. The rich supply of amphipods, up to 55,000 per square meter, is unique along the Pacific Coast.
Sequim Bay State Park hugs the western shore of Sequim Bay, which takes its name from an Indigenous village located near its mouth. The bay is protected at its entrance by two spits that have developed over centuries atop a flat section of underwater land. The spits, which nearly enclose the bay, are made up of glacial debris from the last Ice Age—mostly sand and gravel—that eroded into the water from nearby bluffs and was carried by ocean currents. An 800-foot gap between the spits leads into the seven-mile-long bay.
Celebrate the New Year hiking Wallace Falls State Park's Woody Trail.
Enjoy hikes, scavenger hunts and more this Jan. 1 at Obstruction Pass State Park
Beginning June 3, 2024, Kopachuck State Park will close for major construction of roads and buildings, primarily in its upper day-use area. The project is expected to reach completion in mid-summer of 2025.
Considered one of the most diverse fossil forests in North America, Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park is famous for its rare specimens of petrified Ginkgo tree discovered there in 1932.
A quick paddle or boat ride will get you to Hope Island State Park between La Conner and Whidbey Island on Skagit Bay. Most of the island is a nature preserve that supports a delicate and diverse ecosystem.
OLYMPIA – The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission is asking campers to weigh in on proposed changes to its camping stay limits.
The proposed update limits maximum stay lengths to no more than 10 nights in one park within a 30-day period. Total nights stayed cannot exceed 90 days per calendar year in all state parks.
The Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail weaves together a diverse parade of landscapes filled with stories of land and people. The trail stretches much of the way across today’s Washington, from shrub-steppe and farmlands of the Palouse country on the eastern edge of the state, across the Columbia River, and up and through the Cascade Mountains to the lowlands surrounding Puget Sound.
“The wife of Shabono our interpretr we find reconsiles all the Indians, as to our friendly intentions… a woman with a party of men is a token of peace.” --William Clark, on the Snake River, October 13, 1805
“…they topped the last hill and saw the abundance nature had spread before them.