Located on the Moses Lake waterfront adjacent to Moses Lake, Sunrise-Pier 4 offers a wide variety of recreational activities, regardless of the season. Lounging, water sports, exploring, bird watching, and four-wheeling on the sand dunes are popular in warm weather, and in winter, ice fishing and cross-country skiing are added to the list.     

 

When the Grand Coulee Dam was built to harness the Columbia River for power, irrigation, and flood control, water began to seep through the lava rock at the reservoirs and surfaced in nearly every low area. With the appearance of so much water in the Moses Lake region, recreational facilities like the Pothold Recreation Area soon came into being.     

 

While you’re in the town of Moses Lake, you can learn more about the local history by visiting the Adam East Museum and Art Center where Native American artifacts and art exhibits are on display.     

 

Travel to the south of the resort to visit the 23,100-acre Columbia National Wildlife Refuge at Othello.  A variety of species of waterfowl and wildlife use the refuge as a nesting site. Barn and great-horned owls, ravens, red-tailed hawks, and swallows are most frequently seen nesting in the ledges and cracks of the cliffs. The summer months find blue-winged, cinnamon teal, redhead, ruddy, and mallard ducks making their nests along the water’s edge.     

 

An interesting day trip is the drive north on Highway 17, with a side trip to Ephrata to see the Grant County Historical Museum and Pioneer Village. The museum exhibits, in chronological order, depict life from the homesteading days up to the days of the Columbia Basin project when Grand Coulee Dam was built.     

 

Your next stop should be at Soap Lake. The Native Americans named it Smoliam or “healing waters” because they believed it to have a therapeutic value.