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• Lake Wenatchee becomes a Sno-Park every winter, and the sled hill is only the start

• Westport’s waves get bigger every fall, and you don’t need a board to catch the show

• Madison Falls is a 0.1-mile paved walk to a 60-foot waterfall, and it might be the easiest win in Olympic National Park

• Hurricane Ridge sits at 5,242 feet, and in winter the road up is open only on weekends

• Port Townsend bet on a railroad that never came, and the bust is why its Victorian downtown survived

• Seattle voted to save Pike Place Market from the wrecking ball, and a rainy fall morning is the best time to see why

• The big guns at Fort Casey on Whidbey Island came from the Philippines, and its lighthouse lost its lantern to another one

• Tacoma’s biggest park just got a 1.6-mile paved trail that links the zoo, the pagoda, and the beach

• Mount Erie is the highest point on Fidalgo Island, and you can drive up it — but the hike is better

• Sol Duc Falls is a 0.8-mile walk through old-growth forest, and the gorge at the end is worth the drive

• This Olympic beach is a 0.4-mile round trip from the parking lot, and a low tide turns it into a tide pool playground

• A World War I railroad finished too late for the war is now a paved trail through two tunnels beside Lake Crescent

• Seattle’s Gas Works Park turned a coal gas plant into a lakeside playground, and fall is the time to go

• Marymere Falls is a 1.8-mile walk to a 90-foot waterfall, and a gray fall day is the best time to go

• Washington’s coast is at its best when the weather is at its worst, and these 4 spots give you a front-row seat

• Rialto Beach’s Hole-in-the-Wall is a 3.3-mile walk, and the tide decides if you get through the arch

• Seattle’s best fall color is a free, 230-acre park with one of North America’s biggest Japanese maple collections

• Thunder Knob is a 3.8-mile round trip to a Diablo Lake view, and fall is when the trail earns its keep

• This I-90 hike near Seattle climbs to a Mount Rainier view on clear days, and fall is the time to go

• Mount Si climbs 3,150 feet in 8 miles, and a fall weekday is when it finally feels like a mountain

• Bald eagles from Alaska pile into the Skagit River every winter, and the front-row seat is a county park in Rockport

• Mount Storm King climbs about 2,100 feet to a Lake Crescent view, and the last stretch is hauled up on ropes

• You can see a Mount Rainier glacier on a 1.2-mile paved loop, and fall is a great time to do it

• Leavenworth’s Christmas lights stay on through February, and the quiet weeks after December are the better trip

• The tallest lighthouse in Washington has 135 steps you can climb, and it’s open four days a week this fall

• The Chain Lakes Loop packs Mount Baker, Mount Shuksan and a string of alpine lakes into 6.5 miles, and fall color is the reason to go

• Dog Mountain climbs 2,800 feet in 6 miles, and the weekend permit crowd is gone by fall

• The guns at Fort Ebey on Whidbey Island never fired at an enemy, and you can still explore the bunker

• You can hike 2.3 miles straight through a Washington mountain, but the tunnel closes November 1

• A 24-foot cedar pole at Deception Pass tells a Samish story most hikers walk right past

• Ruby Beach is a quarter-mile walk from the parking lot, and it comes with sea stacks, driftwood piles and a lighthouse on the horizon

• This Sitka spruce near Lake Quinault stands 191 feet tall, and the flat loop next door is made for fall

• You cross the Yakima River on a swinging footbridge to reach this central Washington fall walk

• Lake Chelan is 1,486 feet deep, and the best way to see it is a steep climb from downtown

• Orcas Island’s best waterfall hike is 3 miles with 200 feet of climbing, and it passes four named falls

• The North Cascades Highway’s best views are a quarter mile from your car, and the road closes for winter soon

• Kamiak Butte is a forested island rising 1,000 feet out of Palouse wheat fields, and the loop to the top is only 3.5 miles

• This Washington creek used to double as an ATV track, and now up to 30,000 salmon return to it every fall

• Snoqualmie Falls is 100 feet taller than Niagara, and the best part is buried underneath it

• Thousands of snow geese land in Washington’s Skagit Valley starting this month, and the best front-row spot is a 280-acre state reserve off I-5

• This Olympic National Park viewpoint is 190 feet from the parking lot, and coho salmon jump right past it every fall

• Snohomish has four pumpkin farms within a few miles of each other, and five more Washington patches are worth the drive too

• Washington’s bull elk started bugling this month, and these four spots put you close enough to hear it

• Washington cranberries grow in just three places, and the harvest floods one coastal town’s bogs crimson every October

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  Bellingham sits 21 miles from Canada, and almost nobody stops here — 6 reasons that’s a mistake

• Washington’s official state gem isn’t a gem at all — it’s a 15-million-year-old fossil forest along the Columbia River

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  Fort Worden was built to fight an invasion that never came, and 36 of its 41 guns ended up in Europe instead

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  This 800-foot basalt island survived Washington’s biggest floods, and you can still hike to the top of it

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  The highway that turned Winthrop, Washington into an Old West town opened exactly 54 years ago this week

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  Seattle’s largest park was an active Army fort for 70 years, and it took an occupation to get part of it back