Explore Washington State
Brian Alley did not set out to run a music festival. He offered to help with one. He spent years on the road with Never Come Down, a Portland band that played bluegrass instruments and pretty much anything else, from Gillian Welch to Ween. When the band was booked for Cidergrass, a small festival in...
Most photographs of Washington State are made in a fraction of a second. John Shephard’s are not. One of his two cameras, a Noblex 135U built by hand in Germany, has a lens mounted on a cylinder that physically rotates during the exposure. At its slowest setting, that cylinder takes two minutes and twenty seconds...
Scott drove to the town of Okanogan, in Okanogan County, and sat down in the offices of the Okanogan Land Trust with Kate Miller, its executive director. He admits on tape that the naming situation gets him every time. The trust is small. Two staff and an intern, with a conservation coordinator role currently open,...
Kelsey Lang has one of the stranger commutes in Washington State Parks. She walks. She lives in ranger housing at Fort Flagler, which means her daughter grew up with a historic coastal fort for a backyard. Interpretive specialist is the job title on paper. In practice she introduces herself to visiting kids as Ranger Kelsey,...
If you are looking for the best coffee in downtown Everett, the good news is that you have some hard choices to make, because there is more of it than this old mill town usually gets credit for. Quick note for the regulars first: yes, the show is back. After six months off, I relaunched...
If you’ve ever camped at Lake Chelan State Park, you know how busy it can get. Summer weekends fill fast. Campgrounds feel packed. The lake is constant motion. What most visitors never see is what it takes to keep a park like this running when it’s full. “During peak season, Lake Chelan State Park can...
A Conversation with Author Eric Vickrey Most baseball fans can tell you about the Dodgers’ iconic moments in Los Angeles — legendary players, unforgettable seasons, and the culture that turned the franchise into a powerhouse. But far fewer know where the roots of that success were actually planted.And almost no one points to Spokane, Washington as the...
Wallace Falls State Park is one of those places almost everyone in Washington has a story about. A first hike. A rainy weekend escape. A “let’s just go to the Middle Falls and see how we feel” kind of afternoon. It’s familiar, it’s reliable, and it’s always busy. But the version of Wallace Falls most...
he best art often comes from the people who don’t quite fit in. The ones who color outside the lines, play offbeat notes, and follow curiosity instead of convention. Those are the artists As Many Weirdos As Possible celebrates — the ones who make the Northwest’s music scene feel alive, unpredictable, and proudly original. In...
Some outdoor moments stay with you. Morning light filtering through evergreens. The steady rhythm of boots on dirt as a trail wakes up for the day. A quiet pocket of forest after rain. These experiences often return to us long after a hike ends. For decades, Mountaineers Books has helped capture moments like these and...
Joe Giampietri worked in grocery stores for 15 years. Department lead, manager, the whole climb. Respectable career. But here’s the thing—he knew it wasn’t what he wanted. When Joe was 18, he spent a summer working at Yellowstone. One summer. That was enough. He came back to Spokane and thought, “Yeah, that. I want to...
Coffee, UFOs, and Micro-Adventures with Mark Everton Most people see SeaTac as an airport, Tukwila as a shopping stop, and Des Moines as a place to pass through. But there’s a lot more going on—if you know where to look. In this episode of the Exploring Washington State Podcast, host Scott Cowan sits down with...
