Vancouver, WA

Layla and I went to Lacamas Lake Park today at 2700 SE Everett Road. I usually take Mill Plain Boulevard to 192^nd, make a left to SE 1^st Street, which becomes NW Lake Road. This takes you past some of the homes that surround the south side of Lacamas Lake, stay on this road until you come to Everett Street and take a left, just after the turn, the park is on your right. It is one of the most beautiful parks in the area, surrounding that area of Lacamas Lake at the western end known as Round Lake.

It is one of the most versatile parks in the area. We stopped first at the covered picnic area, which has running water, electricity, restroom facilities and a playground. And of course, that was what Layla was most excited about. The tire swing is a big attraction to the little kids, and the whole play area is covered with wood chips to alleviate the risk of injury.

After she had her fill of swinging and climbing, we set out on our hike. The trail through the picnic area is wonderfully wide and the whole park is filled with beautifully maintained older growth trees. Even now, with school not yet out for the summer, there were a fair number of people taking advantage of our sudden hot weather, young children, runners, older hikers, bikers, fishermen and non-motorized boaters.

Wheelchairs have great accessibility until you reach the southern end of the lake where the falls are located. Here the walk becomes a narrow maze of old equipment at the top of the falls, which both Layla and Mistie balked at. Once we made it to the other side we were in the woods, where a few wildflowers were still in bloom and trails headed off in every direction. We followed the widest and at one point heard a yell, “right.” Now, not being familiar with bike rules, or I suppose hiking rules, we turned to see what was happening and found a biker barreling down on us and quickly learned that the biker was passing on the right.

The question is if you have a stubborn dog wandering ahead on a leash; how to you teach the dog jump to the left? We ran into that problem again when coming back, she dug her feet into the dirt and absolutely refused to come to the left, even though the high school track team was bearing down on us. I had to run out and pick her up.

Back to the trail; it goes around the lake and has some pretty hilly areas so when we came to the sign which told us where we were at and where the different trails went, I decided to go to the lower falls, a trail I have never been on before. The falls were a lot closer than I thought they would be and though they have only a short strong drop, the potholes were fascinating. They were all over the top of the falls, which older kids had staked out. You can’t help but wonder how powerful the upper falls must have been, to have carved these huge holes in the rock.

This is a great park with something for everyone: shade, sun, grass, lake, trails, playground, picnic tables, benches; even individual BBQ stands and places to put your hot coal when finished. The main parking is on Everett, but there is additional parking at the street just north of the lake.