Visitors on foot, horseback, or wheelchair can explore the Big Valley trail along the Methow River just off Highway 20, two miles north of Winthrop. W ashington's Wildlife Areas are found in every part of the state and were selected as key lands to benefit a particular species or group of animals. For waterfowl, areas are either ancestral migration stopover points or breeding grounds. Opportunities for public recreation on Wildlife Areas are extensive. Beautiful forests, lakes, estuaries, mountains, prairies, rivers and canyons await your visit.
Barn owls inhabit vacant structures on wildlife areas.
Recognizing that deer, elk and other wildlife need large stretches of habitat, the Game Commission began to buy land along the Sinlahekin Creek in the foothills east of the Cascades. Since then, the Sinlahekin Wildlife Area has guaranteed quality habitat for wildlife and recreational opportunity for Washington s citizens and visitors. Each year, the Sinlahekin hosts tens of thousands of visitors who come to enjoy camping, hunting, bird watching, fishing, hiking and boating. Experience has shown that it is significantly less expensive and disruptive to preserve an ecosystem that still exists than to re-create what has been lost. Basalt cliffs and pothole lakes on the Columbia Basin Wildlife Area in Grant County were carved by ice age floods.