Spring Road Trip to Palouse Falls State Park

I’ve wanted to take a road trip to Palouse Falls since I saw a photo of it on Instagram in high school.  A couple of weeks ago, my mom and I finally got to go!

Palouse Falls State Park is located about 260 miles away from the Seattle area, so it takes about four hours to drive there. We decided to spend one night in a nearby town so we didn’t have to drive 8 hours in one day, but it’s definitely a doable day trip if you only have one day to see it.

While most Washingtonians probably haven’t been to Palouse Falls since it’s so far from Seattle, in 2014, local elementary children succeeded in lobbying the state legislature to make Palouse Falls Washington’s official state waterfall. Conde Nast Traveler magazine recently named Palouse Falls as one of the 8 waterfalls in the U.S. worth traveling for.

PLANNING A ROAD TRIP TO PALOUSE FALLS

This road trip doesn’t require too much planning, especially if you’re just doing a day trip, but if you get nothing else from this blog post: have snacks, water, and a full tank of gas. There are pretty much no gas stations for 78 miles (highlighted below) after you get off of I-90, until you get to Dayton, a small town south of Palouse Falls.  Because Palouse Falls State Park is kind of out in the middle of nowhere, you might lose cell phone service, so be sure to download the offline Google map for the area.

If you’re staying overnight, there aren’t a ton of options. You’re truly in the middle of farmland. In normal times, you can camp at the park, on a first-come-first-serve basis, but during the pandemic, camping is not allowed. Check here for updates.

We stayed in Dayton, which was one of the closest towns, but it was still 45 minutes away from the park. You could keep driving for a little over an hour and go down to Walla Walla, which has more hotels and entertainment options. Or, you could drive 2 hours northeast to Spokane.

To park your car at Palouse Falls State Park, you’ll need a Discover Pass, which covers all of Washington’s state parks. You can buy an annual pass for $30, or a day pass for $10. They are available online or at a store like REI, Safeway, or Big 5 Sporting Goods.  Sometimes they run out, especially in the summer, so call ahead to see if they have any in stock!

DAY 1

My mom and I started our road trip to Palouse Falls with a full tank of gas and a loaded podcast playlist around 9am on Saturday morning.  It was supposed to be abnormally warm this weekend, 75 degrees! The morning was still brisk, but it was a beautiful April morning.  We drove through the Snoqualmie Pass area, and the skies were so blue against the snow-capped mountains.

Our first stop wasn’t until 2.5 hours later. I had looked for green areas on Google Maps along our route and found this random Japanese Peace Garden in Moses Lake.  It was located only a few miles off the freeway, right next to a neighborhood.  There was a picnic area by the parking lot and the bathrooms were open and fairly clean.  We walked around to see what there was and found a life-size zen garden and a small koi pond. The park was smaller and busier than expected, and we saw five other parties while we were there.  For lunch, we brought hard-boiled eggs and Cheesecake Factory brown bread and ate it in the parking lot.

About 70 miles later, we stopped at #ThatNWbus. I don’t know the backstory, but it’s an abandoned school bus that’s covered in graffiti. It’s just off of the 261 highway, and you can literally type #ThatNWbus into Google Maps  It’s not that well-known because it’s so far away from Seattle, but it’s one of the only cool things en route to Palouse Falls.

Once you pass the bus, you drive through the small town of Washtucna. I’m not sure if it was due to COVID-19, but the town was dead. Everything looked run down and there was an un-named gas station, but I couldn’t tell if it was open.

Next, we tried to drive to Palouse Falls. Once you get off Highway 261, you’re on Palouse Falls Road, which is a 2 mile stretch of bumpy gravel.  It was 1:30pm and there was a long backup of cars.  I don’t know if they normally have a park ranger directing traffic, but they were only letting in cars when there were open parking spots.  We decided to turn around and just head to the hotel because we wanted to see the falls at sunset.

Dayton is an extremely small town. It’s only about a dozen blocks wide.  We got gas and checked in at the Best Western, which seemed to be the newest building there. Pro tip: Best Western is on Rakuten (at the time of writing this in April 2021), so you can get 3%-15% cash back! If you haven’t already, sign up for Rakuten with this referral link and we’ll both get some dough:)

There are several little local restaurants in Dayton, and after Yelping the night before, we had decided to get pizza from Chief Springs Brew Pub & Pizzeria. We picked up a Hawaiian pizza (haters gonna hate) and then drove back to the park.

By the time we got to Palouse Falls State Park, it was around 4:30pm and there was only a backup of five cars. We parked, then walked around. There’s no cell service or running water in the park, so bring plenty of water, especially if you go in the summer! By 5:30pm, there was plenty of parking.  I’d recommend coming later if you can, to avoid the traffic and people, especially since the sun doesn’t set until 7:30pm in April (or 9pm during the summer).

While Palouse Falls (200 ft) is actually smaller than Snoqualmie Falls (269 ft), the surrounding landscape is way more stunning. The waterfall and rock formations were formed in the last Ice Age, and it reminded me of the Cliffs of Moher. There’s one 0.1 mile main path that will lead you to several different lookout points along a fence to prevent people from falling over the edge of the canyon. The sun was shining and created a rainbow by the falls, which was pretty.

You can also venture down to the top of the waterfall, but there’s no official path and it can be slippery. Most people stick to the main trail or walk a little bit on the cliff area above, but there are many signs saying you hike at your own risk. The nearest hospital is 45 minutes away, so it would take a while for emergency responders to get to you, so stay safe!

What surprised me the most were all of the marmots! They look like fatter squirrels and they make loud chirping sounds to each other.  They weren’t that afraid of humans and let you get a couple feet away from them before running away. Watch your step, because they also poop everywhere.

We stayed until sunset. The sky didn’t change colors, but it was still beautiful out there.  I’ve also seen some cool photos of the waterfalls with the stars at night, the Milky Way looks incredible there.  We were pretty tired, so we headed back to the hotel to shower and went to bed early.

DAY 2

We woke up at 7am to get a head start on the long way home.  The hotel had complimentary breakfast with waffles and other things, but we wanted to grab a pastry from Moose Creek Cafe & Bakery a block away.  Very unfortunately, we learned they were closed on Sundays during winter hours, so we just ate granola bars instead.

On the way, we stopped to take photos at Lyons Ferry State Park (Discover Pass required), which is 15mins from Palouse Falls.

Then, we drove all the way to Ellensburg before stopping for lunch at Arby’s, which was awful, and then went to Dutch Bros and I got a mango smoothie.  If you go further into Ellensburg, there are better food choices, but we wanted to stay close to the freeway.

About an hour from home, we stopped at Lake Easton State Park (Discover Pass required) just to check it out. There didn’t appear to be a hiking trail, but there was a nice view of the lake and mountains.  A few families were camping, but I didn’t see a whole lot of other things to do. Another stop on the way home would’ve been Gold Creek Pond (Northwest Forest Pass required), but we had already been there before.

I’m so glad we finally made the road trip to Palouse Falls! I don’t think I need to go again any time soon, but it was definitely worth the drive! I’d recommend visiting the waterfall in the spring or fall because there’s more water, and the grass is greener so it looks more like Ireland or Iceland!

If we had more time, I would’ve liked to go to Steptoe Butte State Park to see the rolling hills of Colfax.

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