Hi, I'm Eric.

I’m an avid world traveler, photographer, software developer, and digital storyteller.

I help implement the Content Authenticity Initiative at Adobe.

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17
Kopachuck State Park
17

Kopachuck State Park

west of Gig Harbor, Washington
visited 24 January 2021
Back to parks list

Kopachuck was once a popular camping park. It has since become a day-use park with some nice hiking trails and beach access. I visited on a blustery winter day and found myself wishing I, too, had brought a dog to walk in the park.

A large weathered driftwood log with twisting, gnarled roots lies on a gravel beach at Kopachuck State Park, its jagged upright form silhouetted against calm gray water and a distant tree-lined shore under an overcast sky.
A weathered fallen tree stretches horizontally across the frame, its bare curved branches reaching upward against an overcast gray sky, with calm steely water and a low forested shoreline in the background at Kopachuck State Park.
A close-up of weathered driftwood showing deep reddish-brown grain running in wavy horizontal ridges, streaked with patches of pale bleached gray and white where the surface has worn smooth and damp.
A weathered, reddish-brown piece of driftwood with deeply grooved, splintered grain lies on a pebbly beach, encrusted with small barnacles and bits of sand, with patches of green seaweed scattered among the smooth multicolored stones around it.

Kopachuck offers a tease of nearby Cutts Island State Park. As the name implies, that park is an island, a mile or so away across Carr Inlet. I did not have my kayak with me that day, so that visit will be the subject of a future article. Stay tuned … (I’ve since been.)

A small, tree-topped rocky island sits in calm gray water under a heavy, overcast sky, with a low forested shoreline stretching across the horizon. The muted blue-gray tones give the scene a quiet, moody winter atmosphere.
Cutts Island, as seen from Kopachuck State Park.

Looking for a quick day hike? Kopachuck offers some nice wooded, inland trails.

Bright green licorice ferns fan out across a moss-covered rock face in a damp forest, with scattered brown fallen leaves at the edges and patches of lichen on the stone.
A dense curtain of feathery green moss covering a surface, filling the entire frame with a lush, hanging texture of bright and olive-green strands at Kopachuck State Park.
A dirt hiking trail winds through a damp evergreen forest at Kopachuck State Park, flanked by a large cedar trunk on the right and ferns and fallen leaves covering the forest floor under an overcast winter sky.
A decaying log on the forest floor with reddish-brown bracket fungi growing in overlapping shelves along its lower edge, surrounded by moss, fallen leaves, pine needles, and green ivy at Kopachuck State Park.

But, do be careful, especially in the area of the former campground. In the early 2010s, forestry officials determined that many of the trees in the area had been infected with laminated root rot, which compromises the root structure and makes the trees more likely to drop large branches or fall entirely. The old campground access roads have become hiking trails.

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