This year, we’re turning this destination race into a destination camping weekend of fun for you and your family, friends, or teammates! We share more below about this fun weekend, including bunkhouse lodging onsite, meals at the retreat center hall, games, a camp song sing-along, navigation skill-building classes, soft-serve ice cream, a campfire and s’mores, and a beautiful setting for a weekend of fun, relaxation, social time, and the charms of life at camp.
Sun Lakes-Dry Falls State Park encompasses a natural amphitheater ringed by majestic cliffs that were once an enormous waterfall. This is a beautiful flood-carved monument to the epic geology of Washington State. Massive basalt flows blanketed the state east of the mountains several million years ago, and then ice age floods carved and ripped into the basalt tens of thousands of years ago, leaving whimsical lakes, dips, caves, and canyons carved into the land. These channeled scablands are breathtaking to behold and fun to explore.
The park is a remarkable oasis on the sunny side of the Cascade Mountains with great amenities for a getaway weekend with friends including miles of trails, lakes for swimming, boating, and fishing, a golf course, a store, and expansive lawn areas with picnic tables for relaxing and enjoying the view or a picnic by the lake.
The park’s Camp Delany will be our headquarters for the weekend. Lodging is available on a first come/first serve basis and includes Friday & Saturday night dinner and breakfast Saturday & Sunday. The camp has WIFI, and there is a concession stand with snacks and fast food at the nearby Dry Falls Visitor Center. Friday night we’ll be offering a free seminar on orienteering, so that runners participating in Saturday’s Navigation Race will be ready! For those wishing to join us for Sunday’s trail races only, there is a neighboring resort with cabins and RV hookups, and camping available in the park.
A mix of sandy and rocky trails runs along ridgetops with views of lakes and wetlands and in and out of canyons. The trails connect the developed areas of the park with the relative solitude of the flood-carved ancient lakes at the base of the dry falls to the east.
One more reason to make a weekend of the run is that the Grand Coulee Dam is a scenic 45 minute drive to the north of the park along the Grand Coulee!