Why Lacamas Lake Looks So Low This October, and Where to Walk While the Dam and Bridge Work Wrap Up

The City of Camas started lowering Lacamas Lake and Round Lake at 8 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 21. The target was a drop of about six feet. The City expected the lakes to reach their low point around Monday, Oct. 5. That means the shoreline around Lacamas Shores this week sits close to the lowest it will get this year.

The lake drops every fall, so that part is routine. This year is different because the water level and the closed trails in Lacamas Regional Park are each tied to a separate public works project. Each project runs on its own schedule. Neither schedule follows the weather or the usual turn of the season. The lake can't refill until the City finishes work at the dams, and after that it depends on rain. The park's northeast trails depend on a design review and a contractor's paperwork. Knowing which schedule controls which view or which walk tells you more about the next two months than any single reopening date.

The drawdown happens every year, but this year it started late

The City describes the drawdown as an annual step that lowers the lakes enough to inspect and repair the dams. The depth matches recent years. The timing doesn't.

In 2026 the low point came more than a week later than in either of those years. The City's notice also said the drawdown had been "rescheduled." It gave the reason as well: besides the routine inspection, the City is "replacing parts of the dam in order to update and improve it, which is why more time is required."

Those parts are spelled out in the City's bid documents for Project No. STM24001, the Lacamas Lake Dam Gate Replacement Project. The contract covers removing and replacing the spillway gates, actuators and outlet valve at both the Upper and Lower Lacamas dams. That includes new slide gates, manual actuators, gate frames and a new knife-gate valve. The engineer's estimate was $529,354, and bids were opened on May 5, 2026. In short, this fall's drawdown includes a gate replacement on top of the usual inspection.

Why the refill waits for the dam work, and then for rain

The City's drawdown notice explains the order of events:

"Once inspections and repairs have taken place, the process to refill the lakes to normal levels will begin. Officials expect this process to take several weeks, depending on rainfall volumes."

The gate work has to finish before the rain can do anything. For comparison, the Lacamas Watershed Council's September 2024 field report said that year's refill was scheduled to begin in late October, also depending on rainfall. This year the low point came later and the work list is longer, so the refill has a later starting line. As of Oct. 12, no City update gives a confirmed start date for the refill. The Oct. 5 low point was a forecast, not a measured level.

The City also said the dam work requires "significant trail closures around Round Lake," on top of the closures Clark County set up for its own project. That is the second schedule.

The park bridge is waiting on design review and paperwork

Clark County is replacing an aging bridge in the northeast corner of Lacamas Regional Park, on the park's main access road. The City's drawdown notice calls it a bridge on the Lacamas Creek Trail. Workers removed the old bridge in August. They had to do it then because August is the in-water work window, when environmental rules allow work in the stream.

After that, visible work stopped. The county's update dated Sept. 18 says the design calculations for the new foundation must be reviewed before it can be installed, and on-site work will resume once those plans are approved. The Columbian reported on Oct. 2 that the contractor was going through submittals, which are routine requests for materials and equipment. The county told the paper it would normally have pushed back the start date, but its environmental permits required the demolition and in-water work to happen during the August window.

So the August deadline set when the bridge came out, and the paperwork now sets when the new one goes in. The same Columbian story says completion, originally expected by Nov. 15, now looks more likely in late November or early December.

The project's money is in better shape than its schedule. Engineers estimated $811,000 when the county put the job out to bid in March. Nutter Corp. won the contract with a $485,000 bid. Design, survey and permitting work by Dowl LLC added $470,000, and permits added another $135,000, which puts the total above $1 million. The county told The Columbian the project was running about $70,000 under budget. The work also includes native replanting and fixes for runoff that was eroding the edge of the old crossing.

Clark County's closure map shows two areas:

• Northeast corner bridge zone: listed as closed Aug. 1 to Nov. 15. Portions of several trails are affected, but the map doesn't name them.
• Round Lake dam area: a smaller work zone just southwest of Round Lake, listed as closed Sept. 15 to Nov. 15.

The Nov. 15 date on the bridge zone is already out of date given the late November or early December forecast. No source confirms whether anyone can walk the full Round Lake loop or the dam crossing during the gate work. The county asks visitors to stay out of construction areas whether or not crews are working.

Where to walk while both projects run

With the northeast corner and the dam area fenced off, the walks with the fewest unknowns are farther down the lake.

1. Lacamas Heritage Trail. Clark County's trail map describes it as a 3.5-mile gravel shared-use trail along the west side of Lacamas Lake and Lacamas Creek. You can get on at NW Lake Road/SR 500 or at NE Goodwin Road. There is also boat-launch parking on NE Leadbetter Road. A 2023 county notice gave the Goodwin Road trailhead address as 7986 NE Goodwin Road.
2. Lacamas Creek Trail from the downtown end. The City lists trailhead parking on NE 3rd Avenue across from Louis Bloch Park. The trail runs to McEnry Bridge and the junction with the park trails. That junction leads toward the county's closed bridge zone, so plan on an out-and-back walk.

For the Heritage Trail, the research turned up no fall 2026 closure notice, but that isn't the same as confirmation that it's open. Check posted signs at the trailhead. Lacamas Regional Park itself, at 3344 NE Everett St., keeps its usual hours of 7 a.m. to a half-hour after sunset.

What the low water and the fall water tests show

Low water also makes old problems in the lake easier to see. The Columbian reported on Oct. 8 that four metal drums and a derelict boat have been sitting in Round Lake for an unknown length of time, and a car may still be somewhere underwater. Volunteers from the Lacamas Watershed Council found the items in late 2025. Advocates are now asking the Washington State Department of Ecology to help with the cleanup.

Water quality is the other fall check. The City's Lacamas Lake Management Plan page listed alum treatments by Aquatechnex scheduled for July 22 and Aug. 21, and it said the Leadbetter boat ramp would close on each of those days for staging and treatment. The most recent Lacamas Lake sample in the state toxic-algae database was collected Oct. 5, 2026, at the Lodge dock. Microcystin measured 6.5 µg/L, which the database marks as not exceeding the state guideline, and anatoxin-a was below detection. The database warns that results can lag behind conditions on the water, so the sample date is part of the reading.

Downtown events through early December

The bridge forecast runs into early December, so several Saturdays are likely to fall while the northeast trails are still closed. The Downtown Camas Association calendar covers the same stretch:

The Boo Bash page lists the event for 2026, but its description still mentions a 2025 date, so confirm with the DCA before you go. Check-in for both Sip & Shop nights and the start of the November First Friday is at Fuel Medical Group, 314 NE Birch St. Hometown Holidays includes a tree lighting, snow, Santa photos and crafts. It also falls in the same window as the county's forecast for the new bridge.

If you own on the lake or are thinking about it, the drawdown schedule, the dam work and the Round Lake cleanup are part of what owning there involves, alongside anything in a listing. Peter Cutile and our team follow these Lacamas schedules closely and are glad to talk through how the lake's yearly calendar fits into owning, buying or selling near the water. Schedule a consultation whenever you're ready.