Riverside is really many parks rolled together under one name. I had a few hours in one afternoon to explore it, which was not nearly enough, but what I saw I truly enjoyed.

Trail 220

The first part of my visit to Riverside happened completely by accident. I was driving to a trailhead near the Nine Mile Dam area (see a bit later in this post) when I saw some signs that I thought looked a lot like State Parks signage.

I circled back and went for a walk. The trail was enigmatically named “Trail 220” but was well worth my time. Here are a few views from along the way:

Nine Mile Falls Area

A major part of this park is in the Spokane River Valley, so I spent some time along the river especially near Nine Mile Falls.

I captured a similar view during a winter visit to the area a couple years ago:

Nine Mile Falls was converted into a hydroelectric station in the early 1900s. The dam continues to power some parts of the city and surrounding area today.

Spring snowmelt and this day’s rains meant that there was lots of water flow to capture. It made an impressive sound as I stood on the bridge near the dam.

Deep Creek Trail

I asked a fellow hiker earlier in the day to name some of the highlights of the park. He said if nothing else, I should definitely visit the Deep Creek Trail and find the overlook there.

Oh how right he was!

The trail starts off modestly enough along a forest service road …

… but very quickly gets into deep scenery. I started down the trail into Deep Creek. They weren’t kidding about the name! From what I can tell, the creekbed is something like 120ft / 35m below the surrounding landscape.

I went back up to the edge of the creek and continued toward the overlook. It was foggy/misty afternoon and I was rewarded with moody rockscapes on the opposite bank, such as this one:

I found the overlook itself and it offered more moody landscapes:

There’s a lot more to this park and I look forward to exploring more on future visits to eastern Washington.

For more information:

• State Parks web site