FREE First Day Hikes in Washington & Oregon on January 1st!

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FREE First Day Hikes in Washington & Oregon on January 1st!

If you have a New Years Resolution of exercising more or spending more time with your family outdoors, spending the day hiking would be a great way to start off your year! Did you know that all 50 states offer First Day Hikes in their state parks?

For those of you in the Northwest, both Washington and Oregon State Parks are offering FREE admission/Free day-use parking to the state parks. Normally you’d need a Discover pass for WA State Parks or have to pay parking fees in some OR state parks, but not on January 1. It’s a Fee-Free Day to get out & enjoy your local state park!

If you are hiking with kids we have a free printable scavenger hunt they can use to make the hike even more fun! Grab these before you head out and the kids will love it.

And don’t forget to check out our list of 5 important items to bring with you hiking!

If you’re looking for some ideas, here are some lists of scheduled, guided hikes available::

• Trip Planner for hikes in Washington
• List of guided hikes in Oregon

Here are some of our favorite hikes around the Puget Sound:

6 Waterfall Hikes around Seattle & Tacoma

6 Family Friendly Hikes near Seattle & Tacoma

We’ve taken part in this tradition off & on with our family and hope to do it again this year. We headed one year to Flaming Geyser State Park to do a hike around the park & had a great time even in the chilly temps. It kicked off our goal of doing one family hike a month for the year. Unfortunately we did not make it every month, we missed a total of 3 months (mainly the busy fall months when school/work caught up with us), but we loved having that as a goal as it really did encourage us to try to get out more – some months we were able to do more multiple hikes, too. It was a way to try out new hikes around the NW as well.

You can also check out our post on Snowshoe hiking in the NW, with all the snow we have gotten in the mountains this winter!  I also found this article about more Snowshoe hikes around the Northwest.

What are your favorite hikes around the Northwest? We’d love to hear some great family-friendly hikes that you enjoy so we can check them out ourselves!