The Parks headquarters Information Center is moving from its current location in Tumwater to the Department of Ecology building at 300 Desmond Drive SE in Lacey. Our customer service team is located at the front desk, just inside the main entrance.
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“Islands are still the domain of the explorers, the adventurers, the discoverers.” --Alexander L. Bond, conservation biologist
Jones Island Marine State Park, an entire island off the southwest corner of Orcas Island in the San Juan Archipelago, offers each visitor a chance to connect with their inner adventurer. Its hills rise nearly 200 feet above a low isthmus. Rock outcrops on its rugged shore reveal that the bedrock of the island was formed deep on the ocean floor and uplifted above the water’s surface by the forces of plate tectonics.
PASCO – Sacajawea Historical State Park welcomes this year’s Heritage Day, a celebration with living history reenactments, hands-on workshops, demonstrations and learning fun, back to the park this month.
The family-friendly event, which is free and open to the public, will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 28. This date is also National Public Lands Day and a Discover Pass free day.
In celebration of our 111th birthday (just as Bilbo celebrated in The Fellowship of the Ring), we are here to show you Middle Earth and Washington are not so different. Sure, The Lord of the Rings wasn't filmed here, but that doesn't mean you can't walk through the ecological diversity of Middle Earth right here in Washington.
Hope Island Marine State Park is a delightful South Puget Sound island that owes its form and setting to the effects of Ice Age glacial processes. The island also holds the stories of some of its human residents, who found in it a place to retreat to a simpler life connected with nature, and make dreams come true.
As you enter Sun Lakes-Dry Falls, you may feel like you’re on another planet. The park is surrounded by one of Washington’s most striking and historically significant landscapes.
The 40-mile, 526-acre Spokane River Centennial State Park Trail winds through eastern Washington from Nine Mile Recreation Area on Lake Spokane to the Idaho border.
Lake Lenore Caves State Park Heritage Site offers visitors a window into the formation of the Grand Coulee and the lives of people who may have spent time here thousands of years ago.
McMicken Island is so small, you could easily miss it. But boaters who love Puget Sound would not want to miss it. This small state park, in the fold of Harstine Island, is only reachable by boat. Low tide allows you to walk across a tombolo to and from Harstine Island for a few hours each day.
An oasis that many locals have yet to discover, Helen McCabe is a small wayside park at the northern entrance to the Yakima Canyon Scenic Byway, near the intersection of Interstates 90 and 82 in central Washington State.
OLYMPIA – April 5, 2022 – As a member of the Washington Clean Coast Alliance, the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission will participate in this year's Washington Coast Cleanup.
The event will take place from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, April 23.
Application period closes May 10
OLYMPIA – April 20, 2023 – The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission (Parks) will establish a statewide Scenic Bikeways program. As part of that effort, the agency will establish an advisory task force to work with agency staff throughout the development and implementation of this new program.
OLYMPIA – December 8, 2022 – The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission Winter Recreation Program, along with U.S. Forest Service (USFS) partners at the Snoqualmie Ranger District, are excited to announce a new winter Sno-Park and access area at exit 47 on I-90 West of the summit of Snoqualmie.
Learn about the fauna of Harstine Island and the tracks they make with a lively game of Bingo! All ages welcome.
Test your boating knowledge and try to win a prize! Trivia questions are designed for ages 12 and up.
Tuesday, June 10th from 10AM-2PM: We will meet across the street from the Bear Creek Lodge at the entrance to Mt. Spokane State Park and work on sanding and staining the bridge near the old tubing hill!
OLYMPIA – Gov. Jay Inslee has appointed Scott Merriman of Thurston County as the newest member of the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission.
Clayton Beach access trail closes Nov. 1 until late spring of 2023
OLYMPIA – Oct. 27, 2022 – Larrabee State Park is getting an exciting renovation this winter that will significantly improve safety and access to Clayton Beach.
State Parks is building a new bridge over the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railroad track, which, supported by a new trail reconfiguration, will provide safe passage between this popular beach and the Lost Lake parking lot.
…a seacoast fortification may be said to have most efficiently performed the function for which it was intended, if it is never called into action at all.
-Eben Eveleth Winslow, US Army Corps of Engineers
Doe Island Marine State Park preserves an entire island along the southeastern coastline of Orcas Island in the San Juan Archipelago. It takes its name from the prevalence of deer in the area—nearby place names include Doe Bay, Deer Point and Buck Bay.
A Rocky Island
The San Juan Islands are distinct from most of Puget Sound in that they feature shorelines with exposures of hard bedrock, rather than the bluffs of clay, sand and gravel left by Ice Age glaciers that are predominant on most of Washington’s Salish Sea, the state’s inland saltwater passages.
Learn to identify common crabs of Washington!
OLYMPIA — The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission invites the public to nominate winter sports enthusiasts for the agency’s snowmobile advisory committee. Three positions are available statewide to snowmobilers, and one is available statewide to individuals involved in non-motorized winter sports.
OLYMPIA – Washington State Parks’ Folk and Traditional Arts Program (FTAP) announces its lineup of concerts and festivals this spring and summer, including the popular Waikiki Beach concerts at Cape Disappointment and the longstanding American Roots concerts at Deception Pass.
Monticello Convention State Park Heritage Site commemorates two meetings attended by Euro-American men that helped set in motion the establishment of the Washington Territory.
Despite the fact that the territory had fewer than 4,000 settlers, the petitions ultimately succeeded in influencing the passage of legislation establishing the Territory of Washington, approved by President Millard Fillmore on March 2, 1853.
The Boring Volcanic Field
Battle Ground Lake is a part of a geologic formation called the Boring Volcanic Field (named for the town of Boring, OR), but the stories revealed in its bedrock are actually quite interesting!
Forest thinning project will reduce wildfire risk to Roslyn, Cle-Elum
OLYMPIA – May 12, 2022 – Washington State Parks will begin work to thin approximately 90 acres on the Bullfrog State Park Property near Cle Elum this month. The hired contractor will remove smaller, weaker and less fire tolerant trees to reduce fuel loads and promote fire tolerant species. The project will return the forest to historic site conditions and improve the health of remaining trees by reducing competition.