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
Two separate ends of the Three Waters Trail at Cape Disappointment State Park already exist–the first located on the Columbia River and the second on the Pacific Ocean, dedicated in 2006. The intention of this project is to link together the existing segments. The Three Waters Trail was designed by Maya Lin. This grant proposes to build 558 feet (0.10 mile) of a total 1,030 feet project. This grant is entirely east of Robert Gray Drive; the remaining segment will be completed using capital funding and is separate from this request. The overall project will complete the vision of linking by trail the park’s three waters including the Columbia River, wetlands and lake, and the Pacific Ocean together where these waters find their confluence. Although the trail will provide an outstanding recreational resource it is also a safety project that creates 0.6 of a mile of continuous trail and separate pedestrians from vehicles making it safer for drivers and walkers. The project, however, it is perhaps eclipsed by the extraordinary vision to weave the complicated history of our nation together manifesting in the trail. $27,000 match dedicated to interpretation on the vision interweaves the history of Native American presence with Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery– the trail therefore represents some of the most important themes of Western US history development. This project connects the history, living cultures, and ecology of the Columbia River system.