Camp Every County, Washington: and see Washington State from the ground up

Ever notice how most people have one or two favorite campgrounds to which they return year after year, never trying anything new? My three camp-panions and I found ourselves camping on alternate weekends at Manchester State Park and Scenic Beach State Park in Kitsap County. Month after month, year after year, we saw mountains, saltwater, and even our native wild rhododendrons. That was the Washington we knew. We also knew there had to be much more. But I hated traveling far from home since I still worked full time. Gary had a genuine rattlesnake phobia, and it took considerable prodding to get him to camp in Eastern Washington. Tom hated crowds and would camp in only the most private of campgrounds. And John. Well, John hated just about everything (a South Boston thing).We soon decided to expand our horizons. We bought just about every camping handbook on the market, but rarely found satisfaction. They told us nothing of the experience of camping at these places. We learned how many campsites each campground contained, how much they cost, when they were open, how to get there… but what about the experience of camping? How did it make the camper FEEL? What effect did it have on the camper? Did they have the same briny air that we found at Scenic Beach? The remarkably clear view of Mt. Rainer we found at Manchester? What did the forests smell like? How about the sunsets, if they existed at all? But we got none of that.The four of us abandoned the camping manuals and set out on a journey over the next five years, eager to discover if the rest of Washington was as beautiful as the one we knew. First, we chose some popular campgrounds far from central Puget Sound — Steamboat Rock State Park, Mary Hill State Park, and Rasar State Park. Then we explored those less known — Indian Creek Campground, Battle Ground Lake State Park, and Takhlakh Lake Campground. We were hooked, and soon found ourselves printing out black and white maps of Washington with just the counties outlined, coloring in the “camped counties,” and setting out to find campgrounds in the unexplored counties. We finally camped in county #39 (Garfield County) in the summer of 2017. We discovered surprising camping gems along the Snake River and deep in the Umatilla Mountains. We ate mushrooms near Randle, swam in the cool lakes of the Grand Coulee, chased away bears at Spring Canyon, immersed ourselves in ghost towns in the Okanogan, and discovered with awe why remote Palouse Falls was named Washington’s Official State Waterfall. Looking back, this 5-year journey became the adventure of a lifetime, one which we hope to capture in this camping manual.Take our advice: Step out of your camping box, your comfort zone or, if you will, your rut. We have a great highway system that can get us anywhere in the state within an 8-hour drive. Those favorite campgrounds will still be there when you get back and, more likely, you will have fresh, new adventures that will make you appreciate your old faves even more. Let new parks work their magic on you. Think of them as adventures, treasure hunts, or like Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery. This is our challenge to all campers: Hold your maps in one hand, this manual in the other, and set out to go camping in all 39 Washington counties.