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The Spokane River flows west from its source at Coeur d’Alene Lake through the Spokane Valley. After it tumbles over its namesake waterfalls in its namesake city, it bends to the northwest and meanders through a spectacular canyon described by some as the “Grand Park of the Spokane.”
Seasonal positions will serve parks across Washington.
OLYMPIA – Washington State Parks is recruiting seasonal park aides to work in its beautiful outdoor places this spring, summer and fall.
Parks is looking for more than 300 park aides and senior park aides to work from April through September in such diverse environments as old-growth forests, channeled scabland and shrub steppe, on Pacific Ocean beaches, in the high desert and around Puget Sound and its islands.
Washington’s largest state park envelops the summit and slopes of 5,887-foot Mount Spokane. The park’s roads, trails and ski runs provide access to a wide variety of habitats, from old growth forests to the splintered rock fields and meadows at the mountain’s peak. The summit features the historic Vista House, built as an emergency relief project in 1933 using blocks of the mountain’s native granite.
The 56-mile Willapa Hills State Park Trail weaves together a landscape steeped in stories of the land and the people that have made their lives in the southwest corner of today’s Washington.
OLYMPIA – March 1, 2022 – The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission will host their regularly scheduled work session virtually on March 8.
The public may listen to or watch the meeting through the resources listed below. This is a work session between staff and the Commission. The public is invited to attend, but no public comment will be taken. No decisions will be made by the Commission at the work session.
Saddlebag Island Marine State Park lies on the western side of Padilla Bay in a chain of four small islands extending southeast from the corner of Guemes Island. It shares an unusual geologic history with Hope Island, another Washington Marine State Park about ten miles south, and Cypress Island, a Natural Resources Conservation Area six miles west.
Parks staff offer reminders, tips and rules for fireworks and use of state parks
OLYMPIA – June 22, 2022 – The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission encourages safe and responsible gatherings in state parks during the upcoming Fourth of July holiday.
Parks urges visitors to:
Lewis and Clark Trail State Park lies nestled in a grove of ponderosa pine trees in the valley of the Touchet River. The park is situated along a pathway used for thousands of years to connect the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with the salmon highway of the Columbia River.
Kanaskat-Palmer State Park borders the Green River at the upper end of the Green River Gorge, a unique place where sandstone bedrock, covered by glacial deposits in most of the Puget Sound lowlands, is revealed by the downcutting of the river through the formation. Seams of coal interwoven with the sandstone fueled a local mining industry in the early 20th century.
“The river was the lifeblood of the people. Not only did it connect all of the many villages into one tribe, but it was the home of the salmon, the Nisquallies’ main source of food.” --Cecelia Svinth Carpenter, Where the Waters Begin
An Island In the Salish Sea
Blake Island Marine State Park, located in the heart of Puget Sound, has long been a desired getaway spot, now surrounded by the homes of millions of people.
OLYMPIA – Oct. 6, 2021 – Today the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission received the voluntary resignation of Director Pete Mayer. Mayer's decision to resign is based on the best interest of his family and he steps down as director to pursue other opportunities closer to his new home. The commission appreciates Mayer's service to Parks and the citizens of Washington state. Mayer was initially appointed as director in March 2021.
The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission (Parks) has identified 35 public recreational mooring buoys across western Washington that are at risk of breaking in the future.
Starting this week, Parks will close these buoys, which the agency plans to replace. Even though individual buoys will close, the impacted parks will still have other mooring buoys available for use.
OLYMPIA – Feb. 22, 2023 – The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission will hold its regularly scheduled commission work session virtually on March 1.
Commission work session items include a financial update covering Parks' 2021-23 biennium operating and capital budget expenditures and Parks Renewal and Stewardship Account (PRSA) revenue; An update on the 2023 legislative session; and an update on the work to develop a new state park at Nisqually State Park in partnership with the Nisqually Indian Tribe.
Beach with a view
Scenic Beach State Park is rooted in the era of automobile tourist camps that sprung up around Washington’s inland waterways in the 1920s as car ownership became widespread. Its location on the eastern shore of Hood Canal, with views across the water to the soaring peaks of the Olympic Mountains is highlighted in the spring and early summer with blooming native rhododendrons.
Federation Forest State Park is an oasis of old growth forest preserved by women who banded together to effect social change and influence public policy despite barriers to their participation in political life.
In the park, Douglas fir trees soaring 200-300 feet high into the forest canopy have been growing for 300-400 years or more. Long after they die, their fallen trunks or standing snags continue to provide habitats for a diverse community of life.
Lincoln Rock State Park is a popular recreation area with access to Lake Entiat, the reservoir created by Rocky Reach Dam.
Indigenous Lands
The park lies within the traditional territories of Sahaptian and Interior Salish Indigenous people whose present-day descendants include members of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation and the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. For thousands of years this area has provided habitat for a diverse community of life that forms the basis of their cultures.
Ocean City State Park has been an oceanfront destination for generations. The park faces the Pacific Ocean at North America’s “active margin,” where the ocean-floor Juan de Fuca tectonic plate slowly sinks beneath the continent, sliding at a rate of about 13 feet per century in the plate’s subduction zone. Sudden movements of the Juan de Fuca Plate can cause earthquakes that may modify the land surface and generate tsunamis.