Hawk Creek Campground, boat launch to close | Field Reports

Road work is going to shutter a boat launch and campground on Lake Roosevelt for the duration of the summer season.

The National Park Service announced this week that the Hawk Creek Campground and boat launch will close April 16 to Oct. 6 because of work scheduled on Hawk Creek Road.

Work will start at the intersection of Miles Creston Road and Hawk Creek Road and will consist of widening and paving Hawk Creek Road, realigning sections of the road and building retaining walls along the hillside, among other items.

Plans also call for new signs, guard rails and planting native vegetation.

Public access by road and water will be closed for safety reasons and to keep visitors from interfering with the work, according to the release. Restrooms and docks will be closed.

The Hawk Creek waterway will be closed at the west side of the narrows with a log boom and signage.

Pike suppression begins on Lake Roosevelt

Work to keep northern pike from taking over Lake Roosevelt got underway this past week.

The Spokane Tribe, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife set gillnets each year to catch the aggressive and invasive predators.

Staci Lehman, a spokesperson for WDFW, said in an email that the Spokane Tribe began work this past week and that WDFW would begin setting nets next week.

Pike pose a major threat to native fish populations because they eat other fish and are notoriously fecund – an older female can produce as many as 250,000 eggs, according to WDFW.

The state wants to keep the species from becoming established throughout the Columbia River drainage to protect endangered salmon and steelhead stocks.

WDFW has also been using gillnets at Lake Spokane in recent years, but they’ve decided to scale that effort back after a reservoirwide gillnet survey in 2025 found no pike.

Going forward, the agency said it will do reservoirwide surveys every three to five years.