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 When you check out of your campsite, please remember to pack all your things - including the trash! Photo: Freya Fennwood
Coming up: A fun, busy summer in parks — and we need your help!
In a few weeks, our campgrounds and picnic areas will get busy. We’re excited to welcome you.
Our visitors are an important part of our team. Parks belong to us all! This summer, you can help us by continuing to be good stewards.
Leave No Trace (LNT)
Whether you’re staying a week or a day, remember to pack out everything you pack in. Packing out can look like taking all of your trash to designated cans and dumpsters or loading up a garbage bag and taking it home so you can throw it away in your garbage can.
Picking up litter is easy, and you can even make it fun. Make it a game by staging a friends and family scavenger hunt to collect trash on the trails or beach — the person who collects the most plastic in their bag wins (and so do our parks)!
Pro tip: One of the best ways you can protect our parks and all the wildlife that call them home is by teaching your friends and family how to protect them too.
Turning over campsites
Part of LNT happens when you break camp. If you’re like us, you probably triple-check that you haven’t forgotten anything. That checklist includes trash — even in the fire ring.
In fact, we ask that you not burn trash in your campfire or leave half-burned garbage in the fire pit. This can hurt wildlife, and it creates more work for park staff who are busy trying to help everyone have a great visit. Most of our parks have trash cans or dumpsters, making it easy to be an LNT rockstar.
We wish you a safe, happy summer enjoying state parks that are gorgeous and clean because we all did our part!
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 Come in through the main entrance at the Ecology building and find our Information Center right there!
This month, our statewide headquarters will move from its building in Tumwater to collocate with the Department of Ecology at their building in Lacey. The move will save around $1 million a year, and it will help us better serve you.
Our Information Center staff will still be available to help you in person at our Tumwater building until the end of May. We expect to be up and running in the new location by June 2.
Of course, our staff is always available by email at [email protected] and by phone at 360-902-8844.
Our new physical address is: 300 Desmond Dr. SE, Lacey, 98503.
You’ll find free visitor parking 100 yards from the entrance and signage to the main entrance. All paths are ADA-accessible.
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 The Mount St Helens Visitor Center will reopen in early June, and staff are excited to start summer programming.
The Mount St. Helens Visitor Center is set to reopen in early June! Stay tuned for an official opening day announcement.
When you visit, you'll find a new theater, improved accessibility and updated activities, including:
- An updated feature film and featurettes developed in partnership with the Cowlitz Indian Tribe
- Exhibits about the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and their connection to this area
- A “Make-a-Quake” exhibit that lets you create your own shockwaves with a seismograph
- “Volcano Blasters” pinball machine
- Over 80 historic artifacts, including an eruption blasted Weyerhaeuser logging truck door.
- New Junior Volcano Explorer booklet and badge program
- And more!
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 Trio Guadalevin will headline a special concert at Yakima Sportsman this weekend and play around the state this summer.
Nothing says summer like easy, breezy concerts in the park.
Our Folk and Traditional Arts Program’s (FTAP) concerts begin Sun., May 18 with an afternoon (2 – 5 p.m.) at Yakima Sportsman with Trio Guadalevin. This group of Tacoma-based musicians and educators trace our region’s Hispanic/Latine history back to the 1700s, with musical and cultural origins in Spain, the Middle East, Africa, the Carribean and the Indigenous Americas. They will be joined by La Cantina and La Familia Hunter at this event.
If you can’t make that date, you’ll have at least two more chances to see the Trio with us:
Check our Calendar for updates and for FTAP’s lineup of June cultural festivals, including Salish Sea Day with Samish and Swinomish Canoe Families on June 7 at Deception Pass and Sundaes Outside, featuring the Buffalo Soldiers of Seattle who will offer horseback rides and historical education on June 22 at Bridle Trails. Register for Sundaes Outside.
Also happening June 7, a Discover Pass free day, Fort Columbia will host an open house with local folk and jazz bands, guided battery tours and more.
For other interpretive programs this season, please check our calendar of events!
Early summer mooring buoy maintenance planned
Are you o-fish-ally obsessed with cruising WA waterways? Do you appreciate the boat-iful views at our marine state parks?
Here is our maintenance schedule for state park buoys this season. Keep in mind when planning your trip that mooring availability may be limited at these parks on these days:
- June 3: Hope Island, Mason County, Joemma Beach, Tolmie, Eagle Island
- June 4: Penrose Point, Kopachuck, Cutts Island
- June 5: Saltwater, Illahee, Blake Island
- June 6: Blake Island
- June 17: Mystery Bay, ForJune 2: Stretch Island, McMicken Island, Jarrell Cove
- June 18: Fort Worden
- June 19 – June 26: San Juan Island marine parks
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Dozens of volunteers from Issaquah Alps Trail Club, Friends of Lake Sammamish and Wild Sky Community Trails Association donated hundreds of hours clearing and reconstructing trails at three damaged parks after the November 2024 Bomb Cyclone storm.
Once the storm had passed, staff found:
While staff from across the region worked with our Arbor Crew to start repairs, the stalwart Friends groups called on their members. Over the past six months:
- The Issaquah Alps Trail Club volunteered 361 hours at Squak Mountain.
- The Friends of Lake Sammamish gave 265 hours at Lake Sammamish.
- The Wild Sky Trail Association spent 209 volunteer hours at Wallace Falls.
We offer heartfelt thanks to the heroic volunteers who worked beside equally heroic staff to make these parks safe and usable again.
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Swale Canyon open for spring
Looking for a spring horse, bike or walking trail? Check out Swale Canyon, part of the 31-mile Klickitat Trail between Centerville and Lyle in the Columbia Gorge!
See raptors, reptiles and wildflowers galore as you meander through this canyon where the hills turn orange or purple, depending on the light.
Swale Canyon is open now and closes June 21 for fire season, so plan a quick trip in the next few weeks to the Klickitat State Park Trail!
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This July 4, your job is just Beach, and Leave No Trace |
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The Fourth of July is six weeks away. It will be here before we know it!
We ask that you celebrate Independence Day with chill vibes and clean beaches.
Last July 4 weekend, volunteers picked up 129,526 lb. of garbage on our beaches, an 18,439 lb. increase over 2023.
But you can help us get those numbers going in the right direction – down!
- Grab a garbage bag from volunteers at an ocean beach approach or bring your own bags from home.
- Bag trash and find the dumpster or garbage can.
- Extinguish fireworks and keep bonfires small and 100+ feet from fragile, flammable dune grasses.
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