Lacamas Park Has Two Closures Right Now, and Only One of Them Should Change Your Weekend

If you've heard that Lacamas Park is "closed" this month, you've heard half a story stitched to the wrong half. There are, in fact, two separate projects touching the park right now, and they behave nothing alike. One shuts down a specific stretch of trail through November. The other keeps every trail open and just asks you to slow down for a flagger. Conflating them is how a five-minute detour turns into skipping the park entirely.

The bigger surprise, though, isn't the construction. It's what's happening underneath it. For three summers running, Lacamas Lake's algae story has been the same loop: advisory posted, advisory lifted, advisory posted again. This year that pattern broke, and not by accident.

The corner that's actually closed

Clark County has confirmed that construction to replace the aging bridge along the main access road in the northeast corner of Lacamas Regional Park began this month. The existing bridge is still fine for foot traffic, but it can't safely carry maintenance vehicles anymore, so the county is rebuilding it. Trail segments inside that construction footprint are closed for the duration, with signage marking the boundaries. The Columbian reported in mid-July that the county expects the work to wrap sometime in November, though weather could push that.

This is the closure that actually changes a route. If your usual loop runs through the park's northeast corner, near the main access road, you'll hit fencing and have to backtrack.

The project it keeps getting confused with

Starting next month, the City of Camas will begin separate maintenance work on the Round Lake dam, which the city owns and operates. According to the county's public notice on the bridge and dam closures, trails around the dam will stay open during this work. Crews will use flaggers to direct trail users when equipment moves along the path, which means a brief pause, not a reroute.

Here's the difference in plain terms:

Two agencies, two different scopes, two different asks of you as a visitor. Only the bridge project takes a route off the table.

Why 2026 is a different kind of algae season

Lacamas Lake has spent the past several summers on a predictable cycle. Clark County Public Health issued a cyanotoxin advisory in June 2025 after test results came back above the state's threshold, then lifted it once water quality improved, only to see it resurface later in the season at both Lacamas and Round Lake. The same pattern showed up in 2023 and 2024. Anyone who's lived here more than a couple of summers has learned to check for warning signs before loading the kayak.

This year opened differently. The city received word that the Washington Department of Ecology approved the Lacamas, Round, and Fallen Leaf Lakes Management Plan and Lake Cyanobacteria Management Plan, a document five years in the making. Rather than waiting for another bloom to trigger warning signs, the city moved on the plan's recommendation and brought in contractor Aquatechnex to apply an Aluminum Sulfate treatment aimed at reducing the phosphorus that feeds the blooms in the first place. That work closed the Leadbetter boat ramp for a single day, July 22, while boats treated the water.

That's a meaningfully different intervention than a sign posted after the fact. It's also not happening in isolation. The Lacamas Watershed Council, a group of residents who organized specifically around this issue, has been pushing for water quality fixes for years, and the Columbian's reporting in July on the council's work suggests the early results are encouraging. Even Camas High School students have gotten involved, with a student club posting informational signage at the lake earlier this year to help visitors understand what they're looking at when they see a bloom.

None of this guarantees an advisory-free summer. Cyanobacteria are stubborn, and conditions can shift fast. But the shift from reactive signage to a funded, state-approved treatment plan is the part of this story that doesn't show up in a quick search for "Lacamas Lake closed."

The loops that don't touch any of this

If you just want to know what's still fully open, here's what to expect from the park's core trail network:

1. Lacamas Creek Trail, a 0.7-mile stretch from the 3rd Avenue trailhead that follows the creek past Lower Falls and crosses the McEnry Bridge into the wider Lacamas Park trail system. The city's own trail description notes the maples and alders along this section turn early, so it's worth a return trip once fall colors hit.
2. The Lily Fields Loop, which passes Woodburn Falls and the Potholes before circling back, stays clear of the construction zone entirely.
3. The Heritage Trail along the lake's edge remains a continuous, well-used corridor for walkers and runners.
4. Picnic areas and the main play equipment near the NE Lake Road entrance are unaffected.

None of these require you to go near the northeast corner where the bridge work is happening.

If your usual walk does cross the construction zone

The Washington Trails Association's route description for the classic lollipop loop starts at the 3rd Avenue trailhead, which sits well clear of the current closure. If you normally park at the main lot off NE Lake Road and loop north toward the access road, that's the stretch to avoid for now. Starting instead from 3rd Avenue and looping through Lower Falls, the Potholes, and back via Lacamas Creek gets you most of the same scenery without crossing into the closed section. Signage in the park marks the construction boundary clearly, so even if you're unfamiliar with the reroute, you won't wander into an active work zone by accident.

Or skip the lake this week entirely

Camas Days wrapped up two weeks ago, but the downtown calendar hasn't slowed down. The Downtown Camas Association's event list has Summer Nights Sips & Bites on Thursday, August 13, from 5 to 9pm, followed by the Camas Wine Walk on Saturday, August 22, from 3 to 7pm, and the Camas Vintage & Art Street Faire on August 29. Any one of those is a reasonable substitute for a lake walk if the construction detour doesn't appeal to you this particular weekend.

What ties all of this together is the same thing that makes any local place worth paying attention to over time. A single closure notice tells you almost nothing on its own. Knowing which closure is temporary construction, which is a five-year water quality plan finally getting funded, and which trailhead sidesteps both, that only comes from watching a place closely across seasons rather than checking in once. If you're the kind of person who reads this far into a post about trail closures, you already understand why that distinction matters.

If you're weighing a move to Camas, or you already live here and are curious what a place like this looks like to someone who tracks it block by block, DPC Homes works this market year-round. Request a free home valuation and staging consultation, and let's talk about what's actually happening in your corner of Clark County.