Cama Beach Historical State Park has had several changes since the cabins closed in 2024. A section of seawall collapsed in January 2026, and the septic system failed in July 2026. The wooden boat rentals at the park also ended in October 2024.
Here is an overview of what is closed and what remains available before your next beach walk, brunch reservation, or trip down to the water with out-of-town guests.
The cabin closure
The cabins are gone, and they're not coming back where they were. In October 2024 the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission voted to permanently close the 33 waterfront cabins that had stood since 1934, when LeRoy Stradley first opened the fishing resort. The vote followed a February 2024 septic failure that forced an abrupt closure, and a public comment period that drew more than 185 written comments and a petition with about 1,500 signatures asking the commission to reopen them. It didn't happen. Between the cost of fixing decades-old infrastructure, a seawall that needed strengthening against king tides, and the site's documented cultural sensitivity, staff recommended permanent closure and the commission agreed.
Cama Beach Cafe owner Chad Allen told commissioners the closure was already hitting his business hard, since weddings, events, and overnight guests had been a meaningful share of his traffic. Since then, the park has also experienced the changes described below.
Seawall damage in January 2026
In January 2026, a king tide lined up with high wind and wave conditions and took out roughly a 20-foot section of the park's aging seawall. Seawater started breaching into the interior sections of the remaining wall and beach, and the flooding damaged the boathouse. State Parks staff installed oversized sandbags as an emergency stabilization measure and started monitoring the wall daily. The lower part of the park, including the historic cabin area, has been closed to public access since, not because of the 2024 decision, but because of storm damage that happened more than a year after that decision was already made.
The lower beach is closed for two overlapping reasons: the 2024 cabin closure and the January 2026 storm damage. The seawall damage is an ongoing infrastructure issue the park is actively managing.
The newest closure: a septic failure in July
On July 19, 2026, the park's aging septic system failed again, this time at the Vault 3 lift station located upland above the Cama Center. The corrosion and maintenance issues behind it aren't new; they're the same category of failure that triggered the original cabin closure back in 2024. What's new is the practical effect on a visit today: the bathroom facilities at the drop-off shelter near parking lot C are closed until further notice, with portable toilets standing in at lot C, lot A near the Cama Center, and the beach area.
If you're planning a longer visit with kids or older relatives, that's the detail that changes your afternoon. It's a small thing next to a seawall collapse, but it's also the most recent change, confirmed as still in effect as of early September 2026, which makes it more relevant to a visit this month than anything from 2024.
Wooden boat rentals at Cama Beach
The Center for Wooden Boats operated a rental outpost at Cama Beach for years, alongside its flagship Lake Union location in Seattle, offering rowboats, sailboats, and the kind of hands-on maritime programming that made the park feel alive beyond the cabins themselves. The Cama Beach location has been out of operation since October 2024, tied to the same park infrastructure issues that closed the cabins, and the January 2026 boathouse flooding didn't help. If you want the wooden boat experience, that program now lives at the Center for Wooden Boats' Lake Union campus in Seattle, not on Camano Island.
Some tourism listings may not reflect the change, so check the details before visiting.
What remains open
Day use runs 8 a.m. to dusk year round with a Discover Pass, and none of the 2026 closures touch that. The Cama Beach Cafe is open daily from mid-June through Labor Day and weekends only the rest of the year, serving breakfast and lunch out of the lodge with views over Saratoga Passage toward Whidbey Island, the kind of spot where you might spot an orca or a gray whale from your table if the timing's right. The welcome center is on its summer schedule through early fall, open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The trail network is untouched by any of this. Up to 15 miles of trail wind through the park's upper reaches, and a mile-long connector trail links Cama Beach directly to Camano Island State Park, so a single Discover Pass covers a longer loop than most visitors realize. Picnic tables are scattered through the park on a first-come basis, and the historic buildings above the closed beach area, the vintage gas pumps and interpretive displays telling the story of the Risk family's resort era, are still there to walk past even if you can't get down to the water itself.
None of this requires the shuttle, which has been suspended since the original 2024 closures and hasn't resumed. Parking is ample enough at the upper lots that most visitors don't miss it, but it's worth knowing before you arrive expecting a ride down.
Why this is worth sorting out now
Cama Beach isn't a place that changes status once and stays that way. It's had three distinct closures layered on top of each other over two years, each with a different cause and a different timeline, with the cabin closure dating to 2024. If you're planning a fall walk, a brunch reservation, or a visit with someone who hasn't been since before 2024, the answer to "is Cama Beach open" is yes, with three specific closures and service changes to keep in mind.
That kind of layered, evolving status is common to a lot of the infrastructure that shapes daily life on Camano Island, from county road projects to shoreline permitting. Keeping up with local infrastructure changes is part of understanding daily life on Camano Island.
If you're weighing a move to Camano Island, or thinking about what your own property near the water might be worth given how seriously the state is treating shoreline erosion at parks like this one, the team at Pilchard Properties knows this stretch of Island County block by block. Reach out for an instant home valuation, and let's talk about what's actually happening with your home's value, not what the market looked like two years ago.
