Walk down C Street in Washougal this month and you'll see the fencing. A rectangle of turf and gravel behind the Community Center, gates on two sides, water dishes already scuffed from summer use. It's easy to read it as one more parks department checkbox: pocket park, splash pad, dog run, done. That's the wrong read. This is the first off-leash dog park Washougal has ever had, and its real function isn't the fenced yard itself. It's what sits about a mile and a half east of it, waiting on the far side of a paved trail that most residents have only ever walked with a leash in hand.
For years, Washougal's two best walking assets never quite talked to each other. Downtown had sidewalks and a community garden. The river had Captain William Clark Park, Cottonwood Beach, and beyond that the Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge, one of the better birding spots in Clark County. But if you owned a dog, the refuge was mostly off limits. The city's new off-leash park changes what a Saturday morning here can actually look like, and this particular week is close to the best possible time to test it.
What Just Got Built, and Why the City Is Bragging About It
The dog park is one piece of the Washougal Towncenter Revitalization Project, a multi-year effort to rebuild the block around the Community Center into something closer to a real civic core. Along with the fenced dog run, the project added a splash pad, a pocket park, a playground, and expanded parking, all sited near where the future Washougal Library branch is planned. The city targeted early spring 2026 for substantial completion, and by now the amenities are open and getting used, dogs included.
The project earned enough regional attention that the Vancouver Business Journal named it Top Project of the Year, a recognition the city doesn't hand out lightly, since it only goes to work seen as making a genuine difference in its community. Mayor David Stuebe put it plainly when the award was announced:
"We've been working hard to create a place where people want to spend time, whether they live here, work here, or are just visiting."
That line reads like standard ribbon-cutting language until you actually walk the loop the project unlocks.
The Confusion the New Park Quietly Resolves
Here's the part most visitors to Steigerwald Lake never sort out on their own: the refuge has two very different dog policies depending on which trail you're standing on. The main network, the Gibbons Creek Wildlife Art Trail, a 2.75-mile gravel loop through marshes and cottonwood groves, does not allow dogs at all. Online trail reviews are full of people who showed up with a leash and got turned away at that trailhead, confused about why a "trail" would ban dogs when the parking lot clearly welcomed them.
The exception is the Refuge River Trail, a separate 5.9-mile out-and-back route that runs along the river side of the refuge. Leashed dogs, bikes, horses, even joggers are fine there. The catch was always access. The dog-friendly entrance sits off Index Street, next to Captain William Clark Park, a good walk or short drive from most of downtown Washougal. Without a downtown starting point, most residents just didn't bother making the trip a routine part of their week.
That's the gap the new park closes. A few practical notes if you're planning the route for the first time:
- Refuge River Trail: 5.9 miles round trip, flat, about 88 feet of total elevation gain, dogs welcome on leash, open year-round
- Access point: parking lots on Index Street in Washougal, adjacent to Captain William Clark Park
- What it connects to: a paved segment continues west from the park toward downtown, and the trail itself runs east into the refuge, dead-ending at a gate rather than looping back
- What it doesn't connect to: the Gibbons Creek Wildlife Art Trail and its interior loop, which remain closed to dogs entirely
So the actual route now available to a Washougal dog owner looks like this: let the dog run loose at the new park on C Street, leash back up, walk the connector trail east to Captain William Clark Park and Cottonwood Beach, then continue onto the Refuge River Trail as far as you want before turning back. It's not a loop in the technical sense. It's an out-and-back with a proper start and a proper payoff, which for a town that never had either, is close enough.
Why This Particular Week Matters
If dogs aren't part of your household, there's still a reason to make this walk before the calendar flips to October. Steigerwald sees real migratory traffic in fall, sandhill cranes moving through along with the first waves of the waterfowl that will winter over. It's one of the two seasons the refuge is genuinely worth the drive for, the other being spring.
The trade-off is timing. A section of the Gibbons Creek trail system closes annually from October 1 through April 30 to protect wintering waterfowl from foot traffic, and a separate seasonal connector on that same trail is only open May through September. Neither closure touches the Refuge River Trail, so dog walkers aren't affected. But if you were hoping to do the full interior loop on foot this year, the window closes in about two weeks. After that, you're waiting until spring.
Book-Ending the Walk
None of this requires an early start or a packed cooler. Main Street handles both ends of the walk without much detour. Compass Coffee took over the old Washougal Coffee Roasters space at 1700 Main Street earlier this year, and it's an easy stop on the way out, close enough to the Community Center that a coffee run and a dog park visit fit into the same trip without adding real driving time.
If you'd rather turn the walk into a full morning, this weekend gives you a reason. Washougal's harvest season kicks off September 19 and 20 with a Harvest Fest and Fall Season Starter alongside Get To-Gather Farm's own Harvest Festival, both easy add-ons if you're already out along the east side of town. Check the city's community calendar for exact times before you head out, since weekend programming shifts week to week this time of year.
The Bigger Point
A dog park is a small, specific amenity. What makes this one worth writing about is that it happened to land at the exact spot where Washougal's downtown finally meets its riverfront trail system in a way that works for the people who actually live here year-round, not just weekend visitors headed straight to the refuge parking lot. The city spent real money solving a connectivity problem that wasn't on anyone's list of obvious priorities. It shows up in small ways: a coffee stop that didn't used to be part of anyone's walking route, a trail that used to dead-end at a policy nobody explained clearly, a two-week window before part of the loop closes for the season.
That's the kind of detail that tells you a place is being built with actual daily use in mind, not just ribbon-cuttings. Washougal residents who've watched the Towncenter project drag through construction phases for two years now have a genuine reason to go see what it turned into.
If you're weighing whether Washougal's momentum, the Towncenter project, the trail investment, the steady run of new restaurants downtown, translates into something worth acting on for your own next move, that's a longer conversation. Rebecca Lee Real Estate tracks this corridor closely, from Washougal's waterfront to Camas and the rest of Clark County, and is glad to talk through what a market like this actually means for your specific plans. Request a Luxury Consultation & Market Valuation whenever you're ready to have that conversation.
