Harry Gardner Park

This is a pretty scruffy park, apparently built on dredge spoils from the eruption of Mount Saint Helens. The river is beautiful and shallow enough for safe splashing for children in late summer, but the park itself is mostly sand with a few groves of trees here and there. There is not much shade in the late afternoon on the side of the river accessible from the park, so it was a tough place to ha... This is a pretty scruffy park, apparently built on dredge spoils from the eruption of Mount Saint Helens. The river is beautiful and shallow enough for safe splashing for children in late summer, but the park itself is mostly sand with a few groves of trees here and there. There is not much shade in the late afternoon on the side of the river accessible from the park, so it was a tough place to have little ones on a hot day. Given its location I expected it to be more forested than it was. The thing that impressed me the least was finding at least three pieces of scrap metal, conduit, wire, etc protruding from the ground of the riverbank - one of which I caught my toe on. The last straw was coming upon the leg bones of a medium sized animal (a dog?) on our way back to the parking area. We probably won't be back. Folks visiting this Park should know that many of the access roads which allow parking closer to the river are soft sand and might not be passable without 4-wheel drive.

This is a pretty scruffy park, apparently built on dredge spoils from the eruption of Mount Saint Helens. The river is beautiful and shallow enough for safe splashing for children in late summer, but the park itself is mostly sand with a few groves of trees here and there. There is not much shade in the late afternoon on the side of the river accessible from the park, so it was a tough place to ha... This is a pretty scruffy park, apparently built on dredge spoils from the eruption of Mount Saint Helens. The river is beautiful and shallow enough for safe splashing for children in late summer, but the park itself is mostly sand with a few groves of trees here and there. There is not much shade in the late afternoon on the side of the river accessible from the park, so it was a tough place to have little ones on a hot day. Given its location I expected it to be more forested than it was. The thing that impressed me the least was finding at least three pieces of scrap metal, conduit, wire, etc protruding from the ground of the riverbank - one of which I caught my toe on. The last straw was coming upon the leg bones of a medium sized animal (a dog?) on our way back to the parking area. We probably won't be back. Folks visiting this Park should know that many of the access roads which allow parking closer to the river are soft sand and might not be passable without 4-wheel drive.

This is a pretty scruffy park, apparently built on dredge spoils from the eruption of Mount Saint Helens. The river is beautiful and shallow enough for safe splashing for children in late summer, but the park itself is mostly sand with a few groves of trees here and there. There is not much shade in the late afternoon on the side of the river accessible from the park, so it was a tough place to ha... This is a pretty scruffy park, apparently built on dredge spoils from the eruption of Mount Saint Helens. The river is beautiful and shallow enough for safe splashing for children in late summer, but the park itself is mostly sand with a few groves of trees here and there. There is not much shade in the late afternoon on the side of the river accessible from the park, so it was a tough place to have little ones on a hot day. Given its location I expected it to be more forested than it was. The thing that impressed me the least was finding at least three pieces of scrap metal, conduit, wire, etc protruding from the ground of the riverbank - one of which I caught my toe on. The last straw was coming upon the leg bones of a medium sized animal (a dog?) on our way back to the parking area. We probably won't be back. Folks visiting this Park should know that many of the access roads which allow parking closer to the river are soft sand and might not be passable without 4-wheel drive.