Category Overview
State Parks grants help preserve and develop our state’s best outdoor recreation areas by funding new campgrounds and amenities to increase the capacity of our parks, creating new parks, improving park resources, and protecting historical areas. These grants help our state continue to develop our world-class parks system to share our cultural heritage and natural treasures with all of its visitors.
Project Highlights
Cape Disappointment State Park is located at the mouth of the Columbia River and is a key site along the Lewis and Clark Discovery Trail. The Discovery Trail is a ten-foot-wide paved non-motorized trail that will run from the city of Ilwaco’s waterfront, west to the state park, and then northerly along the beach to the city of Long Beach. While the trail traverses a portion of the state park, it does not provide access to major attractions. State Route 100 provides motorized access to the park, but due to site and environmental constraints, the substandard road cannot be widened or rerouted to accommodate a bike lane. The road is quite narrow and presents an extremely hazardous condition for hikers and bikers. This project will construct two miles of trail, grade separated, but running mostly parallel to SR100, to provide non-motorized access from the Discovery Trail to the main State Park hub. This hub, known as the Isthmus, contains the park administrative headquarters, a campground, boat launch, major interpretive facilities and beach. The project will provide a safe route into the park and will provide a significant expansion of recreational opportunities for visitors using the Discovery Trail. Due to difficult terrain and consideration of marbled murrelet habitat, extraordinary design and construction considerations will be necessary.