Travel Guide to Washington State

First, you're in a land of rain forests—a world of towering trees, cascading waterfalls and wild, untamed beauty. It is a land of Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens, ice and snow, peaks and valleys, caves and legends. You're in a land where there is salmon to catch, or you can go kayaking. The Sierra mountain range hugs the coast, and many large rivers, such as the Columbia, stretch through the state. Washington State has a vast variety of parks and the largest protected wetlands in the nation. The state's name comes from a group of Native American nations including the Lummi Nation and the Suquamish Indian Tribe, who have called Washington home for centuries. Dangerous plants like the kudzu vine are the remnants of plant life that was spread by Europeans.