Hunting season in Washington, the dates hikers should know

As of October 2026, the state's deer season rule sets western Washington's general modern firearm deer season, the one that allows rifles, at Saturday, October 17 through Sunday, November 1, 2026 on both sides of Enumclaw and up State Route 410, plus a late rifle season from November 19 to 22. Rifle elk season follows from November 7 to 18 on the plateau, though up SR 410 elk take a permit, and seasons for bows and for muzzleloaders, guns loaded through the muzzle, fill most of the plateau's other days from September 1 to December 31. Hikers do not have to wear orange; the law puts that on hunters.

Strictly speaking, it is always hunting season in Washington: the state's small game rule keeps coyote open statewide all year. On the two game units whose shared line runs along the highways through Enumclaw, the state's 2026 dates leave a general deer or elk season, by bow, muzzleloader or rifle, open on 108 of the 122 days from September 1 to December 31; the longest break is the week before the rifle opener.

When is rifle season near Enumclaw in 2026?

October 17 to November 1 for deer. Game management units, or GMUs, are the state's numbered hunting districts; general seasons are open to any licensed hunter with the right tag, permit hunts only to permit holders. In the 2026 columns of the deer rule and the elk rule, WAC 220-415-050, units 454 and 652, north and south of town, open with bows, for deer September 1 to 25 and elk September 12 to 24, then muzzleloaders from September 26 to October 4 for deer and October 3 to 9 for elk. Rifles follow for deer October 17 to November 1, elk November 7 to 18 and deer again November 19 to 22, and from November 25 late bow seasons run to December 31 for deer and, with muzzleloaders, to December 8 or 15 for elk.

Up SR 410, unit 653 has no general elk season at all. Its general deer seasons are bow from September 1 to 25 and rifle on the same dates as the plateau, and its elk are hunted by permit, including 54 rifle permits for bulls from October 12 to November 6, 2026.

Rifles are not confined to those weeks. Black bear season runs August 1 to November 15 in all three units and cougar season September 1 to March 31 unless an area reaches its mortality cap, and both may be hunted with a rifle. East of the Cascades, the 2026 general rifle deer seasons also open October 17 and close October 27 or 30, but rifle season for white-tailed bucks reopens November 7 to 19 in units 105 through 124, in Stevens, Pend Oreille and Spokane counties, and the main rifle elk seasons run October 31 to November 8 or 15.

Which game management unit is Enumclaw in?

Two, split by the highways. By the unit descriptions in WAC 220-410-040 and 220-410-060, unit 454, Issaquah, lies north of State Routes 410 and 164 through town and unit 652, Puyallup, south of them. Heading east, unit 653, White River, begins at the second set of power lines near Mud Mountain Dam Road on the south side of SR 410 and at Forest Service Road 7110 on the north side, and runs to the Pacific Crest Trail and Mount Rainier National Park. Northeast of town, unit 485 is Tacoma's controlled-access Green River watershed, closed to hunting year round except to special permit holders (the story of Tacoma's pipeline and its gated watershed).

Inside 652, WAC 220-413-180 makes a pocket east of town, bounded by SR 410, Southeast Mud Mountain Road and 284th Avenue Southeast, archery only during general seasons. The lines mostly follow roads, rivers and power lines, so check a destination on WDFW's Hunt Planner map before guessing which side it is on.

Do hikers have to wear orange in Washington?

Hikers are not required to. WAC 220-414-080 puts the duty on hunters: anyone hunting deer or elk with a modern firearm, or most other wildlife where and when a modern firearm deer or elk general season is open, must wear "A minimum of 400 square inches of fluorescent hunter orange and/or fluorescent hunter pink exterior clothing, worn above the waist and visible from all sides." WDFW's page on the rule says that includes archers, muzzleloader hunters and grouse hunters there, and that a hat alone does not count. A violation is an infraction.

The Washington Trails Association tells hikers where hunting is open to wear colors that stand out, such as pink, red and orange, to skip black, brown, muted greens and camouflage, and to talk or whistle so hunters hear them. It suggests a bright pack or coat for a leashed dog, too, since a dog can be mistaken for a coyote or a deer.

Where is hunting not allowed near Enumclaw?

In Mount Rainier National Park, first. "Hunting and other uses of firearms is not allowed in Mount Rainier National Park," the park's laws and policies page says. The park is open all year, entry is $30 a private vehicle for seven days as of October 2026, and this site's winter guide to the park covers which roads stay open once the passes close.

State parks come next: WAC 352-32-120 makes firing a gun across, in or into one a gross misdemeanor unless the State Parks commission authorizes a special activity. As of October 2026, Nolte, Kanaskat-Palmer and Flaming Geyser list hours of 8 a.m. to dusk year round on a Discover Pass, $10 a day or $45 a year, though State Parks says each may close at times in winter, and the 1.4-mile loop at Nolte State Park is one rifle-week walk where hunting is barred; Federation Forest is closed for the winter until May 1, 2027, weather permitting, by State Parks' schedule. King County's park code also forbids firing a gun, bow or crossbow in a county park, Pinnacle Peak among them.

The Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest up SR 410, by contrast, leaves hunting to the state's rules, so its woods hold hunters in season alongside mushroom pickers, who need their own free Forest Service permit to take any home. Federal rules there bar firing within 150 yards of a home, building, campsite, developed recreation site or occupied area, or across a forest road.

What are hunting hours in Washington?

Half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset, the hours WAC 220-413-060 sets for the October and November rifle seasons. The state's hours table puts them at 6:55 a.m. to 6:50 p.m. in western Washington on the October 17 and 18, 2026 opening weekend, and 6:30 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. for the November 7 elk opener, after the switch to standard time.

How often are hikers hurt by hunters?

Rarely, by the state's count. WDFW's hunter education reports record three hunting incidents statewide in the license year ending March 31, 2025 and three in the year ending March 31, 2026, one of them fatal, and in all six the person hurt was the shooter or in the shooter's own party. When a bear hunter shot and killed a hiker on federal land on August 2, 2008, the day after that year's bear season opened, WDFW called it the state's first hunting-related death of a non-hunter in at least a quarter century and urged non-hunters to learn the seasons, wear bright clothing and make noise.

Why is there no general elk season up SR 410?

Because in 2006, WDFW's 2020 herd plan says, the state made bull hunting there permit-only, to prevent overharvest of bulls and to offer a less competitive hunt with a higher success rate. That followed cuts made while the herd declined and a general season limited to 3-point bulls from 1998 to 2005. The plateau's elk came by rail from Yellowstone to the White River Lumber Company's mill on December 31, 1912, as this site's field guide to Enumclaw's elk herd tells it. By a 1967 Washington Department of Game report that WDFW's 2002 herd plan quotes, they were protected until King County held either-sex seasons in 1929 and 1930, when 57 and 50 elk were killed, then protected again after a 1931 bull season until the first state bull season in 1947.

Before 1998, WDFW's 2020 herd plan says, generous seasons on antlerless elk, meaning cows and calves, raised the death rate among cows and may have been one of several causes of the White River herd's decline; the state ended either-sex archery there in 1997, the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe and most other tribes stopped hunting antlerless elk in the unit in 1998, and bull-only permit hunts began in 2006. The state's calendar is not the only one: the 24 tribes with off-reservation hunting rights, WDFW says, may set their own hunting regulations for their members, and from 2001 to 2017, by the plan's harvest table, tribal hunters accounted for about three of every four elk taken in the unit.

When are Washington's 2027 hunting seasons set?

In March 2027, if WDFW keeps to its timetable. The deer and elk rules run in three-year packages, the current one 2024 to 2026; for 2027 to 2029, WDFW's schedule has a formal proposal in December 2026, a decision by the Fish and Wildlife Commission or WDFW's director in March and the new dates in the 2027 pamphlet in late spring. The current package opens western Washington's rifle deer season on a Saturday in mid-October each year and rifle elk on the first Saturday in November, a pattern rather than a promise. WDFW can also change a season at short notice by emergency rule, good for up to 120 days, and posts those changes online.

Before you go

Find the destination on the Hunt Planner map, check that unit's dates in the current big game pamphlet or the rule, and look at WDFW's emergency rule changes page that morning. For the national forest up SR 410, the Forest Service's Enumclaw office is at 450 Roosevelt Ave. E., 360-825-6585, open, as of October 2026, Wednesdays and Fridays 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., closed noon to 1, and this site's pass guide says which trailheads take which pass. Wear something bright above the waist that shows from every side, dress the dog the same and keep it leashed, and save rifle weeks for the parks where nobody may hunt.