Our video of Lacamas Park highlights
Updated 1/12/2023
I got lost at Lacamas Park several years ago, and that’s when I realized it’s a special place. We were there for an orienteering meet, so I was navigating through the park’s woodlands with a topographic map, looking for orange checkpoint flags. The challenge in orienteering is to find the checkpoints as fast as you can. I knew something was wrong with my route when I hit a dead-end…at a giant waterfall.
But the waterfall was beautiful. I stopped running and stared at it, realizing that Lacamas Park was not an ordinary suburban park at all.
My orienteering performance may have been slow that day, but it introduced me to Lacamas Park, a gem in the town of Camas, Washington. In today’s post, I’ll share the highlights of this fabulous park in the Portland/Vancouver metro area, from waterfalls to spring meadows of camas lily wildflowers.
Lacamas Park in a Nutshell
One of the best ways to experience Lacamas Park is to hike a 6-mile loop that passes the park’s three waterfalls, follows along the shore of Round Lake, crosses the historic dam, and travels through the camas lily meadows. The closest online map I’ve found of this route is the AllTrails entry here.
A caveat—if you’d like to see the third waterfall, Woodburn Falls (which is the most scenic, but only flows in the rainy season), you’ll need to deviate from the AllTrails route. The waterfall is marked on the AllTrails map, so it’ll be easy to find—just leave the suggested route temporarily and use the trail network shown on the map to navigate to the waterfall.
Lacamas Park (and the town of Camas itself) is named for the camas lily, a wildflower native to the Pacific Northwest. The camas lily thrives here because it needs the combination of wet winters and dry summers that so characterize this part of the world.
In the spring, camas lilies rise from the moss-covered meadows that intersperse the forests at Lacamas Park, turning the rolling hills a silvery purple. The rest of the year, the meadows glow golden green from their perpetual carpet of moss.
Camas lilies are not only beautiful, but they were also historically a key food for Native Americans in the region. The bulbs were first cooked and then dried and ground into a powder that was used in various foods. The camas lily looks similar to a poisonous plant referred to as “death camas”…so I’m steering clear of eating them!
To learn more about camas lilies and how to see them in the spring, check out our blog post on the Lacamas Park camas lily fields.
Getting to Lacamas Park
Lacamas Park is about a 30-minute drive east of Portland on the Washington side of the Columbia River. If you’re doing the 6-mile Lacamas Park “tour” loop hike, you can start at multiple parking lots. We started at the Lacamas Creek trail parking lot (circled on the map), but navigating to “Lacamas Park” or the parking lot on NE 35th Ave on Google Maps will just start you at a different part of the loop hike.
Lacamas Park Waterfalls
Much of the loop hike follows a trail along Lacamas Creek. To me, “creek” conjures images of a tiny woodland stream that I might be able to leap across…but not so with Lacamas Creek. Picture something closer to a rushing river. Lacamas Creek is rimmed by deep, moss-covered forest. Two of the park’s three waterfalls, Lower Falls and Pothole Falls, materialize right on this main creek.
If you’re hiking from the Lacamas Creek trail parking lot, you’ll encounter Lower Falls first. The trail crosses over the creek at a footbridge right at Lower Falls. It’s more of a torrent of rapids than a traditional drop waterfall, but looking out over the falls from the footbridge, this is the waterfall where you really feel the power of the river.
Pothole Falls appears next. In the summer, when the water is low, there are actually giant potholes all over the rock formations that make up the falls. But in the rainy season, there’s so much water that the potholes are hidden.
Woodburn Falls is on a tributary of Lacamas Creek. It’s the tallest and most intricate of the Lacamas Park waterfalls, but unlike Pothole Falls, this one is best in the winter. In the summer, it dries up!
With Woodburn Falls best in winter, the camas lilies best in spring, and Pothole Falls best in summer, there’s something special at Lacamas Park most of the year.
The Dam at Lacamas Park
The trail crosses over an old dam that forms Round Lake, a favorite local recreation spot. On our last hike there, we paused to watch the raindrops hitting the lake’s surface and a couple of kayakers gliding across the lake under the overcast sky. I was filled with a sense of peace and coziness. There’s something about watching the rain.
The dam at Round Lake was built for a paper mill in Camas. When the paper mill decreased operations and started using less water, the surrounding land and the dam were donated to the city.
Other Adventures in the Pacific Northwest
Thanks for joining us at Lacamas Park! For more adventure ideas in the Pacific Northwest, check out our PNW Trip Planner. You can find adventures near you and filter by season and difficulty level. There are weird and wonderful things to explore any time of year. The trip planner links to blog posts to help you plan your next adventure.
Happy exploring!
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