WA State Parks Guide
This FREE all-inclusive outdoor guide was created in a collaborative effort between Washington State Parks & Recreation Commission and ParksByNature Network®, and the next generation of the app is better than ever.
Powered by Pocket Ranger® technology, the app gives outdoor enthusiasts an environmentally friendly way to enjoy the parks. It contains everything you need to plan a trip to the state parks, navigate them once you get there, and share your experiences afterward.
Newly added features:
•New user interface (UI) with a sleek, more photo-centric home screen design.
•Photo galleries on each park description page.
•A new Explore feature to optimize search capabilities, allowing a 4-in-1 search by location, activities, category, and site name, making it easier to find the perfect recreational destination.
The app still has rich GPS features, such as:
•Advanced GPS Maps, complete with an accuracy and distance indicator, which allow you to access trail data, record tracks from hikes, runs, or bike rides, and view elapsed time and distance traveled.
•Easy-to-cache GPS Terrain Map tiles, which ensure that navigation remains possible in the event of lost mobile reception.
•Photo waypoint feature allowing you to snap a photo and mark and record the coordinates of plant life, animal species or landscape views. Post or share these remarkable finds with family and friends with the click of a button.
•Friend Finder feature that tracks friends and family around the parks.
•Built-in compass.
•Potentially life-saving Alert feature that supplies GPS coordinates to designated contacts in case of an emergency.
Other standard features make exploring the great outdoors a breeze:
•Thorough information on all state parks including general policy, contact information, activities, trails, park maps and much more.
•Detailed, cacheable maps of park facilities, trails and campgrounds.
•Up-to-date news, park advisories and weather information.
•Sharing features for sharing current positions, waypoints and recorded tracks via Facebook, Twitter, or email.
•A real-time Calendar of Events.
•Access to online reservations that make it easy to secure overnight visits.
•Plus so much more!
With the Pocket Ranger® in hand, prepare to bask in the vast natural wonders of Washington State Parks!
•The enhanced pro features on the app are designed to function in areas with little to no mobile reception; however, some of the features require mobile data reception in order to function properly.
•Continued use of GPS running in the background can dramatically decrease battery life.
Category : Travel & Local
Reviews (30)
I like being able to book camping and check availability online. It can be a bit tricky to navigate sometimes and there's some redundant clicking to get to the park you want.
really slow and clunky. Not as useful our easy to use as the state parks website.
Unresponsive. Links not informative and it is clunky. Maybe not designed for latest OS. Using Moto G6 and Android 9. Go to Wa St Parks web site if you need info.
I used this app many years ago, before it was "improved". it used to be good. it has become completely useless. I uninstalled it immediately.
Makes it easy to find a park with open camping.
It works okay, the only issue is that I can't use it right now being Canadian. You know why. Dec. 09 2020.
Needs to be able to go directly to campsite reservations.
App keeps stopping
Very informative
This app constantly crashes. Unfortunately it is also very slow and laggy. The interface resolution occasionally stretches to the point that it is unreadable. When trying to get back to the main screen of the app it gets stuck on an add and then becomes unusable and had to be forced closed and reopened. With much patience and restarting of the app, most features can be used but the overall experience makes it too painful to continue to use. This app was used on a Samsung galaxy S8
I'm sorry to see such a poor app published by Washington State. It could be great, if a little effort was applied.
Awesome app but really need to fix the bug, constantly crashes, too much time consuming with crashes. Fix it please!
I wanted to be supportive, but this app makes it hard. It crashes, when it doesn't, it's sluggish. I uninstalled it. I'll be back, when you guys do a better job.
App doesn't even load. Crashes 100% of the time and errors out.
Somewhat useful but constantly crashes
Good overall , but difficult to navigate at times
Incredibly slow!!
Easy to use some days
Not intuitive. Terrible to navigate. No maps, except a useless one that constantly crashes. It seems like they over complicated something that should be simple. Give a map (work with Google maybe) plus activities in one map, based on regions. Instead of a map that gives no information, and lists of parks or activities by alphabetical, make it more intuitive. I open a map, click on the region, click on the activity then the map shows those activities in that region.
This is the third state I've tried and these apps do not work or look like the advertised pictures on Google Play . I can't get to the homepage and the secondary homepage only has two options on the side... information and feedback, so I can't get to any parks. WA better than NJ which only gives me a blank screen
Not ready for Primetime This app stops as soon as you try to run it.
crashes often when transitioning to reservation system, where of course you have to enter your search criteria again. For example when searching for equestrian gives the results but no way to find the horse camping spots. All it says when you go to the first campsite is that it didn't meet all the criteria
The app keeps crashing when trying to look up information on a park. The only part that keeps working is the ads.
Outdated info about the parks. Crashes way too much. Sad, it could be a great app.
Bloated, constantly crashes. When it does work (roughly 1 time in 10--briefly, before crashing again), it's counter-intuitive and difficult to navigate. Example: it's difficult to find the map display option (hint: it's the "Explore by Toyota" option, which blends nicely into the front-and-center embedded photo of a Toyota); all other searches, including the "Nearest to Me" option, only show results in a list (no map display option). Other than failing to serve it's only purpose, it's a fine app: pretty to look at, if you can spare the excessive storage space.
App keeps crashing. Seems promising enough, if they fix this.
Worked perfectly for me right out of the box. Very helpful.
Crashes more than Lindsay Lohan
Just downloaded this app. Just browsing the site for 1st time. Has lots of good information.
So sluggish and difficult to navigate that I really couldn't explore any of the features. It's unfortunate, because I would have liked to have maps for state parks on my phone. But alas :(