Millersylvania State Park Travel Guide

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The southwest corner of Millersylvania State Park contains Deep Lake. This is a popular lake for fishing and other water recreation, and it is perfectly possible to have a boat on the lake.

There are two options for boating on the lake: renting a boat from the boat rental office right there in the state park, or bring your own boat.

The boat launch facilities in the park are reasonably good in terms of having a long pier next to the boat launching area for preparing the boat after it is in the water. However, the boat launching area is not a ramp, and is really designed for the very smallest of craft. The lake really isn't suitable for large boats anyway - it isn't that deep a lake. Furthermore, in order to keep the peace of the park, there is a 5 miles per hour (8 kph) speed limit in the lake.

A battery powered small trolling motor works well in this lake, and helps keep the peaceful atmosphere of the park intact, though there is no prohibition against gasoline engines, everyone I have seen using a motorized boat uses an electric motor. Possibly there is a non-official pact among the most frequent park visitors to keep the noise on the lake down by using electric motors rather than gasoline.

Boats available at the park include rowboats, small kayaks, and canoes. As of this writing the most expensive is a rowboat, which costs $12 per hour. It should be noted that the boat rental office closes in the event of bad weather, so there are times when it can not be relied upon to be open. All of the craft available for rental are human powered only - no motors or engines are provided.

Follow the signs to get to the boat launching area, while the boat rental concession is at bath house 2 / swimming area 2.

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There are approximately 7.5 miles (12.7 km) of bike trails in this state park. Almost all of these designated bike paths are gravel, and most of these are wider gravel park maintenance roads (no general auto traffic allowed - only park maintenance vehicles) so that bikes do not come into conflict with wildlife (fast moving bikes on the very narrowest of trails can be fatal to ground dwelling birds such as winter wrens and others) or other park visitors. While the gravel is fairly compact and makes a reasonable biking surface, I did notice those with narrow road tires on their bikes changing their tires - so it is probably best to either be prepared to replace your tires or bring something with tires that runs well on gravel.

Most major trail intersections in the park are well marked, with many of them having maps and red "You are Here" labels on them. Some of these trail intersections are not labelled yet, nor do they have signs yet posted that certain trails are for hiking only.

Therefore when possible please pay attention to the trail maps, and if a trail is extremely narrow it is likely designated for hiking only for the protection of all involved (especially park wildlife).

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Millersylvania State Park has some 8.5 miles (14.3 km) of trails dedicated to walking and hiking. It may be helpful for you to download and print out the map on the Washington State Parks web site (below) that features all the trails in the park.

However, efforts are underway in the park to also label the trails, and today many of the major trail intersections each feature a map of the park trail system and a red "You Are Here" label (see photo 2).

Trails in the park are mostly through forest, but there are a few that also pass through some open clearings.

Many of the trails are gravel, but there are also enough dirt sections that if the weather has been wet recently you will likely wind up in a little bit of mud. However, for the most part these mud sections are quite small and may be avoided by simply walking on a section where the mud isn't quite as deep.

Trails are usually labelled for hiking or biking use. You will notice on the maps that the wider trails are labelled for both, but in some trail intersections the hiking trails do not feature labels telling bikers that bikes are specifically prohibited on that trail. Most likely, as time goes on more signs will be added to prevent conflicts between wildlife and bikers (fast moving bikes on the narrowest of trails can be dangerous for ground dwelling birds and other wildlife) as well as between hikers and bikers.