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Ike Kinswa State Park encompasses a rich history about the ways in which natural resources have been stewarded and exploited at the historic confluence of the Tilton and Cowlitz Rivers, now flooded by the reservoir behind Mayfield Dam.

Rockport State Park is renowned for its forest of giant Douglas fir, western red cedar and western hemlock trees--some more than 600 years old. The classic old growth forest features large trees, standing snags, decaying logs and layered, multi-aged forest species. It has held great value for people through the ages, although it has been valued in different ways in different times.

Pacific Beach State Park has a long history as a place for travelers to rest as they journey along Washington’s Pacific Ocean coastline.

Indigenous Lands

The park lies within the traditional territories of Coast Salish Indigenous people whose present-day descendants include members of the Quinault Indian Nation and the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation.

Ethnographers reported that the mouth of Joe Creek in today’s Pacific Beach State Park served as a “rest stop” for Indigenous people traveling along the coast between trading centers. 

Beacon Rock State Park centers on the prominent rock monolith that rises more than 840 feet above the Columbia River, but the park’s landscapes and stories extend well beyond the rock.

Boring Volcanics and Ice Age Floods

Beacon Rock is the core of an extinct volcanic cinder cone that erupted about 57,000 years ago. It is part of a volcanic feature geologists call the Boring Volcanic Field (named for the town of Boring, OR), as is the explosive caldera featured in nearby Battle Ground Lake State Park.

Fort Ebey State Park preserves a World War II era military facility established to bolster Puget Sound coastal defenses. Its unobstructed view west through the Strait of Juan de Fuca provided a valued strategic location and features wide vistas for park visitors today.

Wallace Falls State Park highlights three plunging waterfalls on the Wallace River. The largest one drops 265 feet down a sheer face of moss-covered rock. The park’s busy, well-built trails are a testament to the hard work and persistence of those who dedicated themselves to its creation.

Steamboat Rock State Park preserves spectacular features of the Columbia Plateau Ice Age Floods. The 800-foot-tall butte of Steamboat Rock, sheer cliffs, and scoured coulees are remnants of a series of flood events that completely dwarf the imagination.

Alta Lake State Park is located on the shores of an unusual body of water. Its namesake lake, perched 1,166 feet above sea level inside a meandering trench between the Methow and Chelan valleys, has no visible inlet or outlet.

Washington’s Sand Sea

Potholes State Park is set in a unique environment dominated by ancient sand dunes and a modern irrigation reservoir.

In the final stages of the most recent ice age, masses of glacial ice repeatedly blocked meltwater drainage, creating huge bodies of impounded water in northern Washington, Idaho and Montana. When the ice dams melted or were breached by the sheer weight of water behind them, gigantic Ice Age floods swept over the landscape.