One of the busiest WA hikes dead-ends at a boulder field, and the forest around it has been protected since 1947
The Washington State Fair pulls in over a million people a year, and its fairgrounds once spent a summer as a WWII prison camp
Lopez is the flattest island in the San Juans, and you can bike the whole thing before the last ferry back
This central Washington desert canyon hides five lakes and a 100-foot waterfall, and the flood that carved it dwarfs anything happening today
One of Washington’s most photographed beaches is closed right now — and it won’t reopen until mid-October
Washington’s best wildflower meadow near Mount Adams is only open eight weeks a year, and your park pass is useless there
Washington’s official state vegetable grows in a valley with more than 120 wineries, four-plus hours from Seattle
Washington has the longest natural sand spit in the country, and the lighthouse at the end makes you earn it
Washington’s first lighthouse could only be seen by half the ships looking for it, and the park around it just reopened after nearly ten months closed
This popular Seattle-area waterfall hike has its own hydroelectric plant, and by August it’s noticeably thinner
Mount Rainier’s Spray Park hasn’t been reachable by car in over a year, and there’s no fix on the horizon
Washington’s rainiest forest gets 140 inches of rain a year, and you can still see it on a 20-minute walk
Yellow Aster Butte is named after a flower that isn’t there, and it’s still one of the best hard hikes in the North Cascades
The biggest waterfall that ever existed sits dry in central Washington, and its visitor center is closed
This 9.4-mile Washington coast loop has almost zero elevation gain, and centuries-old rock art waits at the halfway point
This 151-foot Washington waterfall drops directly under I-90, and the hike to see it is under two miles
This 848-foot monolith was bought for a dollar to save it from becoming jetty rock, and Washington almost let Oregon have it
Washington’s Steptoe Butte is 400 million years older than the lava around it, and it gave geology a word used worldwide
Washington’s second-deepest lake is so clear you can see 60 feet down, and the easy hike here ends at a 90-foot waterfall
Leavenworth’s Bavarian storefronts aren’t historic — the whole town repainted itself in the 1960s, and the gamble paid off
Washington’s first state park isn’t up a mountain — it’s a stretch of sandstone coastline south of Bellingham
South of Olympia, a Washington prairie is covered in thousands of dirt mounds nobody’s fully explained
This picture-perfect loop near Mount Rainier crosses two kinds of federal land, and it decides which parking pass you need
The busiest day hike in North Cascades National Park follows a trade route that’s older than the state itself
Long Beach calls itself the world’s longest beach, but the real surprise is that you can legally drive on it
The highest point in the San Juan Islands has a 1930s stone tower on top, and you can drive right to it
Washington’s most photographed sea stacks sit on tribal land, and reaching them takes two separate permits
The deadliest avalanche in U.S. history hit Washington, and the trail through it is easier than you’d think
This 3.3-mile loop near Mount Rainier crosses onto the Pacific Crest Trail, and half of it isn’t even inside the park
The longest lava tube in the continental U.S. sits under Mount St. Helens, and it never warms past 42 degrees
The road to Artist Point just reopened at 5,140 feet — and the loop trail underneath it only just melted out
A natural granite waterslide sits one mile up this Snoqualmie Pass trail, and most people never go any farther
The busiest trailhead near Seattle pulls 300,000 hikers a year, and it sits on a town Seattle itself flooded
Washington’s most-visited state park sits above tidal currents that can hit 8 knots, and almost everyone just drives right over them
The sea stacks off Washington’s Second Beach have been a protected wildlife refuge since 1907, and you still can’t set foot on one
