Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park

A great short stop if you’re on the I-​90 heading anywhere. Lovely views of the gorge, and some nice fossilized specimens to look at. You can also drive down to the water’s edge and enjoy a different set of views.

On a recent road trip, I was hell-​bent on finally seeing the petrified forest state park, and I got my wish! I’d heard mixed reviews about whether it was worth the visit, but overall I think it is if you like geology, mineralogy, petroglyphs, or scenic views of the Gorge. Unless you’re a die-​hard rockhound, you won’t need more than 30 – 60 minutes to see all there is to see.
You pay a $ 10 day pass fee for state park access (which you can then use for the rest of the day at other state parks), and museum admission is by donation, but they won’t give you stinkeye or anything.
Inside, there’s a smallish museum and gift shop that’s mostly dedicated to petrified wood. You’ll see fossil maps of Washington, many samples of different types of wood found in different locations, and some locally found minerals such as Ellensburg blue agate.
The exhibits are kind of old-​fashioned, with some typed labels and dated-​looking displays, but that adds to the charm. Kids will enjoy the picture jasper slices that look like animals, faces, and other objects (like the «Fish Face» one), and there’s a short movie about the geologic history of the area, but otherwise I’m not sure this is especially kid-​friendly.
Outside and behind the museum, you’ll see a display of larger logs of petrified wood, which may not look like much when you’re driving up but are very colorful and textured up close, so don’t miss those. There’s a back patio with a scenic view of the Gorge and the river, but no shade and minimal seating, so it’s not very tempting to stay out there long in summer. There’s also a display of petroglyphs down a short ramp around the side of the building, which is very cool and definitely worth seeing.
The posted hours on their website are as follows: Summer hours are 6:30 a.m. to dusk, and Winter hours (November 1 — March 1) are 8 a.m. to dusk. However, we tried to go on a Sunday afternoon on a previous summer trip and the museum was already locked up – I think the fence was shut, so you couldn’t even go up and see the outdoor stuff — so take it with a grain of salt. Honestly, the Gingko Gem Shop located outside the park entrance is almost as good if you’re only mildly interested in petrified wood and minerals. ;)

This state park kind of seems like it is split into two. If you are coming off of I-​90 you hit the turn off for the visitor’s center first. If you travel on a little ways further then you hit a hiking loop where you can look at fossilized trees.
Technically on the hiking loop what you are looking at is fossils of tree trunks and not actually whole trees. They are alright but if you are not really into examining the textures of fossils it could get to be a little bit boring.
The most impressive tree fossils are actually at the visitor center. There are huge slabs of petrified trees which are very impressive to look at. There is a museum there as well. The admission is a suggested donation of a dollar aside from paying the enterance fee to get into the park which is $ 10.
The park was cool to go to but is not as impressive as the Petrified Forest in Arizona but that is ok. It was still a learning experience

Relaxing, scenic view of the gorge, and nice place to picnic with the family.

This is the best place to pull over and relax en route to Eastern Washington. Bring a picnic lunch, let kiddos burn off some energy, and enjoy the sunshine and beautiful view of the river. The little museum is fun too, great place to learn and relax and get some fresh air.

Crazy geologic theories. Maybe even true and definitely worth hearing.

As good as it get for free activity and enjoyment of the nature.

Good stop on I90 from Seattle to Spokane. Right on the Columbia River near The Gorge. I didn’t get to do much in the petrified forest, maybe next time.

What a great little place for a break from the long Seattle — Spokane drive. They have a nice visitor’s center and a beautiful view of the river. It is the perfect place to have a little picnic and stretch. They also have a few petroglyphs for viewing near the visitor’s center. They are not in excellent shape, but still very cool.

The setting is beautiful. It’s right off I-​90, just three miles down on a nicely paved road. The facilities are borderline excellent and the staff is professional and maintains the place with an almost relentless energy.
So, why am I giving the Wanapum Campground at Ginko Petrified Forest State Park two stars?
Wind.
Not just a stiff breeze and not just once in a while. In the three times we’ve been there — twice for day-​long visits with our kids and the latest on a three-​day camping trip — the wind has howled down the rise of low hills behind the campground like a Boeing wind tunnel. There is no natural windbreak at all and the trees that were planted there — tall, slender things that are typically used as windbreaks — are grizzled veterans of aeons of this bluster but are clearly of little or no use against gales that howl down the long canyon at Vantage for literal DAYS at a time. After our arrival there at six p.m., it was calm until about 9:30, when the winds picked up and rattled our tent the entire night, making sleep possible only from sheer exhaustion. There was a lull of maybe seven hours the next day and then it blew for a solid forty hours without let-​up, slapping our tent so flat that, finally, at 3 a.m., we abandoned it and slept in our car.
The winds are so strong and so common that there’s a new café, in what passes for «downtown Vantage», that’s called «The Blustery Grill». It was bad enough that our kids, who have a rock-​steady camper mounted so that its aerodynamic front side was to the winds, finally gave up and went home a day short of their departure date. Even people in huge, heavy RV campers admitted to me that they are sometimes worried by the sheer relentlessness of the winds.
This is a GREAT campground, as Washington State Parks go. We’ve researched about three dozen potential campsites so far and Wanapum is by far the cleanest, most orderly, and best managed. We would LOVE to stay here again but have had to — VERY reluctantly — cross it off our list. If you have a monster RV and a LOT of patience with staying inside, don’t mind not having a campfire and not being able to get your boat out onto the wildly-​pitching Columbia, and can sleep through what sounds like 400 people banging on cardboard boxes with rolled-​up newspapers, Wanapum is an ideal place; an easy two-​hour interstate drive from Seattle, to see one of the most gorgeous stretches of river in the American West. Sadly, seeing it is about all you can do, most days. It’s magnificent and majestic and still wild as it undoubtedly was before man trampled on it. Unfortunately, the raging winds are very much part of that wild majesty and they were just finally too much for mere mortals like us.