If you've walked the marsh loop at Steigerwald for more than one autumn, you already know the question that comes up every year about now: which way do you go once the gate closes?
Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge sits just east of downtown Washougal, close enough to East Washougal that most people who live here treat it as an extension of the backyard. But "the Steigerwald trail" is actually two different trails wearing one name, governed by two different sets of rules, and every October the boundary between them starts to matter in a way it didn't all summer.
One Refuge, Two Trails Wearing the Same Name
The interior of the refuge is covered by the Gibbons Creek Wildlife Art Trail, a 2.75-mile gravel loop that runs past shallow ponds, marshes, and a string of sculptural installations along the way. It's flat, accessible, and dog-free. No pets are allowed on the refuge's interior trails, which is the rule most first-time visitors get caught off guard by if they've come from the Captain William Clark Park side, where leashed dogs are common.
That's the other trail. The Refuge River Trail runs along the west edge of the property, accessed from a separate entrance off Index Street, and it's the one trail on the refuge where dogs on leash, bikes, horses, and joggers are all allowed. It's also longer, a 5.9-mile out-and-back, and it stays open year-round regardless of season.
So the practical split for anyone living nearby comes down to this: if you're bringing the dog, you start at Index Street. If you want the interior marsh loop and the art installations, you park at the main refuge entrance and leave the dog at home. Two trails, two entrances, two sets of rules, one refuge.
What October First Actually Closes
Here's where the calendar comes in. A section of the Gibbons Creek Wildlife Art Trail, specifically the loop's seasonal segment, closes every year from October 1 through April 30 to protect wintering waterfowl. The rest of the year, from May through September, that segment is open and the full loop is walkable.
That means the interior trail isn't closing for maintenance or construction. It's closing on a fixed calendar, every year, because the marsh becomes a working winter habitat rather than a walking path the moment cold weather sets in. Visitors who show up expecting the full loop this week or next will find the gate at the seasonal trail junction closed, with the option to double back to the parking lot rather than complete the circuit.
The refuge itself is the product of a much larger project than a single trail closure. Between 2020 and 2022, the Port of Camas-Washougal, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership completed a $32 million reconnection effort that removed more than two miles of levee and reopened 965 acres of floodplain to the Columbia River for the first time in generations. The refuge reopened to the public in May 2022 with a rebuilt trail system designed around exactly this kind of seasonal management, closing sections when wildlife needs them and opening the rest back up when it doesn't.
The Birds Arriving Right As the Gate Shuts
The timing of the closure lines up with when the refuge actually gets more interesting to visit, not less. Sandhill cranes pass through in fall, migrating along the same river corridor the refuge was built to protect. As the weather turns, winter waterfowl start arriving in the numbers that give Steigerwald its reputation: ring-necked ducks, scaups, coots, northern pintails, wigeons, Canada geese, and buffleheads all show up on the water through the colder months, with bald eagles working the skies above them. Birders have logged more than 200 species at the refuge over the years, and fall and winter are consistently the seasons with the most to see.
So the gate closes on the interior loop at almost the exact moment the birding gets better, which is why the seasonal closure doesn't actually keep people away from the refuge. It just redirects them to the trail that was built to stay open.
The Route That Doesn't Care What Day It Is
That's the Refuge River Trail, and it's worth understanding as more than a fallback. Starting from the Index Street trailhead, the trail runs east along the river and dead-ends at a gate inside the refuge, or you can head west and connect directly into Captain William Clark Park at Cottonwood Beach, about a mile away. Once you cross into the park, the trail becomes paved and takes on a new name, the Captain William Clark Trail, and continues west toward downtown Washougal.
Cottonwood Beach carries its own weight of local history. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark camped there for six days in the spring of 1806, the longest stretch the Corps of Discovery spent anywhere in what's now Clark County, while they waited out food shortages before continuing east. The park still has interpretive markers and a replica canoe referencing that stay, alongside the picnic shelters and sandy beach that make it a regular stop for people out walking the dike on any given weekend. Dogs are required to be leashed in all Washougal parks, Cottonwood Beach included, which keeps the rule consistent all the way from the Index Street trailhead through to downtown.
If you don't want to drive to the trailhead, C-TRAN runs an on-demand rideshare service called The Current for $1 rides around the Camas-Washougal area, which covers the stretch out to the refuge for anyone who'd rather not deal with trailhead parking on a busy fall weekend.
From Provision Camp to Pint Glass
The corridor doesn't stop at the park. Keep heading west along the river and the trail carries you straight into downtown Washougal, where the walk has a natural endpoint. Smeads Pub and Kascadia Public House both run regular live music and trivia nights that make for an easy reason to end a walk there rather than turn around early. 54°40' Brewing Co. leans family-friendly and occasionally hosts bingo nights, while Grains of Wrath draws a crowd for West Coast IPAs. On the right Saturday, Reflection Plaza and the Washougal Community Market add an outdoor stop worth timing your walk around.
None of this requires planning around the refuge's interior loop at all. The full corridor, from Index Street through Cottonwood Beach into downtown, runs on its own schedule, open every day of the year, dog included.
What This Means for the Rest of the Season
The refuge doesn't get less interesting once October arrives. It gets more selective about which part of itself it shows you. The interior marsh loop pulls back to protect the birds that make the place worth visiting in the first place, and the river trail picks up the slack, carrying the same walk from the wildlife refuge through a park with a genuine piece of Pacific Northwest history and straight into a downtown that's built a whole evening around a pub crawl distance from the trailhead.
For anyone who lives in East Washougal and treats this stretch of river as part of a weekly routine, that's the shift worth knowing before the first cold morning makes the choice for you.
If you're weighing what daily life actually looks like in East Washougal, from the trail out your back door to the walk into downtown, Peter Cutile can talk through the neighborhood in more detail. Schedule a consultation whenever you're ready to dig into the specifics.
