Search results

The 130-mile Columbia Plateau State Park Trail weaves together a diverse parade of landscapes filled with stories of land and people along the route of the abandoned Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway. The trail stretches through a swath of today’s eastern Washington, from ponderosa pine forests near Spokane across the volcanic “scablands” and into the deep canyon of the Snake River.

James Island Marine State Park preserves an entire island on the western side of Rosario Strait. Its two forested hills rise more than 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.  

With so many lakes, rivers, bays, inlets and ocean shores, it’s no wonder boating, paddling, angling and beach camping are popular in Washington, especially when the weather gets warm.

Washington State Parks manages public boat ramps, docks, launches and mooring buoys, and each has its own pass or permit requirements.

Here is your handy guide to help you determine which passes you may need for your favorite water activity:

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.

A visitor to Old Ruby State Park Heritage Site is likely to find themselves alone among tall ponderosa pines gently swaying in the breeze. But if one could travel back in time to the late 1800s, there would have been a bustling town with a population of more than 1,000 on the site. Ruby City was one of the most consequential silver mining locations in the history of Washington, and its development generated intense excitement just as Washington became the 42nd state in the United States.

Skagit Island Marine State Park is a delightfully pristine small island located in Skagit County near Deception Pass.

Rock From Spreading Tectonic Plates

The bedrock that makes up Skagit Island is part of a larger assemblage of rocks that outcrop on nearby islands and collectively make up an ophiolite sequence, a distinctive formation of rocks formed where the sea floor has spread apart at a tectonic plate boundary.

Stuart Island Marine State Park is a favorite boating destination with an interesting convergence of personal histories.

Sediments and Folds

The rocks that make up Stuart Island are made of siltstone and sandstone that formed from sediments deposited by river deltas and massive underwater landslides on the sea floor about 75 million years ago, at a location hundreds of miles south of today’s Stuart Island. Geologists call this formation the Nanaimo Group.

“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

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.