With a tank of gas and a free day, why not head east of Kitsap and visit Lake Sammamish State Park?

Located in Issaquah, Washington, Kitsap visitors have the option of taking a ferry and driving through Seattle (about 36 miles one way) or driving around Puget Sound on Interstate 5 (about 85 miles one way), but the trip is an easy hour to two-hour journey, and at the end, you’ll be rewarded with a beautiful lake, nestled in a wooded state park.

The 512-acre day-use park has nearly 7,000 feet of waterfront on the lake, as well as deciduous forest, wetland vegetation, a salmon-bearing creek and a great-blue-heron rookery, among other things.

There are over a mile of biking and hiking trails, volleyball and softball fields, horseshoe pits, kayak rentals and fishing and shellfish harvesting opportunities, as well as nine different boat launches on the lake.

According to the park’s website, the lake is part of the accustomed fishing areas of several Native American tribes. European settlers quickly developed the area for farming, but the State of Washington started purchasing the land back in 1950.

A picnic pagoda at Lake Sammamish State Park. Photo: Kurt Clark / Flickr Creative Commons

“On July 27, 1952, the park was officially opened to the public,” the website states, “and quickly became popular with residents of Issaquah and the surrounding community as a place to swim and have group picnics.”

In April 2015, Eastside Scene editor Daniel Nash wrote an article about the book, “Lake Sammamish: Through Time,” by Kate Thibideau.

Nash wrote, “One hundred years ago, Lake Sammamish was a haven for boating, fishing and shoreside relaxation.

“Today, it’s … well, it’s largely the same.

“Though the lake may no longer function as a hotspot for the sawmills or over-water transport that serviced the area’s once-robust logging industry, residents really haven’t changed the way they use the lake for recreation. Make a paddle board out of fiberglass and you’re still paddle boarding; slap a motor on a boat and you’re still boating, just at higher speeds.

“Historian Kate Thibideau points to recreation on the lake as a representative example of the challenge in putting together ‘Lake Sammamish: Through Time,’ a new photographic history book of the lake, released by Fonthill Media and Arcadia Publishing April 20.”

Nash wrote that the “book provides a glimpse into the campgrounds, small homesteaded mill communities, resorts and post-Point Elliott Treaty Snoqualmie settlements that populated the shores of Lake Sammamish in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Though monopolized by images of the geography of the region, the book occasionally examines the people of the lake through time.”

The park requires a Discovery Pass, which can be bought on-site for only $10 for a day pass, or $30 for an annual pass, good for any Washing State Park. The park is open from 6:30 a.m. to dusk.

To learn more about the park, visit the website at www.parks.wa.gove/533/Lake-Sammamish. To read Nash’s Eastside Scene “Lake Sammamish: Through Time,” visit www.theeastsidescene.com.