Oak Creek elk feeding station, when to go and what it costs

As of October 2026, the Oak Creek elk feeding station is the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's public winter feed site at the Oak Creek Wildlife Area headquarters, 16601 U.S. Highway 12, Naches, two miles southwest of where State Route 410 from Enumclaw meets U.S. 12. In the five winters through 2025 the feeding began between December 14 and the first days of January and ran into mid-March in the one winter whose end WDFW's reports record, 2023 to 2024, with the hay going out once a day at 1:30 p.m. by the Yakima Herald-Republic's reporting; the visitor center opens 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily while feeding lasts, and truck tours into the herd run on donations. Parking takes a Discover Pass, $10 a day or $45 a year. From Enumclaw it is about 160 miles each way in winter, because the 94-mile road over Chinook Pass is shut for the whole season.

Since May 17, 2025, putting out hay, grain, salt or fruit for an elk anywhere in Washington has been an infraction under WAC 220-440-260, a rule the department adopted to limit the crowding that spreads chronic wasting disease, a fatal neurological disease of deer, elk and moose. The same rule lets the director authorize feeding for three purposes, the first listed as "Prevent damage to private property," and that is the reason the department gives for Oak Creek: keeping the Yakima herd out of the orchards. So the thing nobody may do in a back pasture is done here every afternoon, off two state trucks, by the agency that wrote the rule.

When does Oak Creek elk feeding start and end?

In mid-December in most winters, once in early January, and no date is fixed; the one season WDFW's reports date to the end, 2023 to 2024, finished in mid-March. WDFW's Oak Creek unit page prints none. The Herald-Republic's season stories supply the starts: December 14 in 2021, December 15 in 2022, December 26, 2023 at the closed Cowiche site and about a week later at Oak Creek, December 16 in 2024, and December 22 in 2025. The rule behind them, as the wildlife area's manager, Greg Mackey, told the paper in December 2022: staff wait for the late archery season to end and the winter closures to begin on December 15, then let the snow bring the elk down.

The end is softer. WDFW's report for late March 2024 says feeding wrapped up on the Oak Creek Unit on March 16 and at Cowiche on March 19, after 702.9 tons of hay since December 26. Mackey's version, in January 2024: once the range greens up, "They don't want to be here. They want to be down along the Yakima River." The 2026 to 2027 start was unannounced when this was written; call 509-653-2390, WDFW's number, before you drive.

What time are the elk fed at Oak Creek?

At 1:30 in the afternoon, every day of the season, by the Herald-Republic's reporting since 2022; WDFW's page prints no time, so confirm it by phone. Two trucks drive onto the field below the headquarters and staff sweep the hay off the back while the elk file down off the ridge; in the mild January of 2026 Mackey said they were generally leaving before sunset, so arriving at four is arriving late. Without a tour, the viewing is from the parking area, an ADA viewing platform and the fence line, where the biggest bulls, the paper noted one afternoon in December 2024, camped at the nearest bales.

How much does it cost, and do you need a Discover Pass?

Parking takes a Discover Pass; everything else is by donation. WDFW's page requires the pass on its lands unless the vehicle carries a Vehicle Access Pass from a hunting or fishing licence, and State Parks' Discover Pass page prices it at $45 a year or $10 a day as of October 2026; this site's guide to the passes near Enumclaw covers where to buy one. Mackey said in January 2026 that visitors give about $8,000 a year and that the fund stood near $100,000 after a 30 percent cut to the hay budget for the 2025 to 2027 biennium.

How do the Oak Creek truck tours work?

Daily during feeding, about 30 minutes, reservations recommended and made at least 24 hours ahead, leftover seats first come, first served: that is WDFW's page, though a WDFW truck driver told the Herald-Republic in December 2024 that a reservation is not required, and by the paper's reporting the tours have begun after the hay: on December 26 in 2022, on the Saturday after the December 16 start in 2024, and on January 17 in 2026. The department's report for early February 2024 gives tours from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily and says the visitor center is run entirely by a volunteer group, the Friends of Oak Creek Wildlife Area, which by then had given 210 tours that winter. A truck takes up to 15 adults, the Herald-Republic reported in December 2024, and Mackey counted 40 to 50 volunteers in January 2026.

Isn't feeding elk illegal in Washington now?

For the public it is, and the state's trucks run under an exception in the same rule. WAC 220-440-260, adopted April 9, 2025, makes it an infraction to put out "grain, hay, minerals, salt, fruit, or other such substances or food types to feed, lure or attract deer, elk, or moose not lawfully held in captivity." Farming and feeding livestock are exempt, and the director may authorize feeding to prevent damage to private property, to mitigate a predicted winter die-off, or to support a WDFW research or management program. WDFW's wildlife feeding page names Oak Creek, L.T. Murray and Wenas as the wildlife areas where elk and bighorn sheep are fed through the winter alongside extensive fencing, and says the department "is evaluating its own wildlife feeding practices in areas where elk are fed": the program runs at the agency's discretion and could change.

The rule also had a hole, though not from the start. The penalty subsection of RCW 77.15.160 it cited was the right one on May 17, 2025, but a bill the Legislature passed in its 2025 session, chapter 76, Laws of 2025, renumbered the statute when it took effect on July 27, 2025, and from then on the rule pointed at a big game hunting infraction instead; it stayed wrong for eight months, and the department's February 2026 filing to fix it says that as a result "WDFW enforcement officers are unable to correctly write infractions to enforce this rule." The correction took effect March 29, 2026.

How many elk come to Oak Creek?

Several hundred at the public site, and far more at a second site the public cannot visit. WDFW's report for early February 2024 has staff feeding about 650 elk a day on the Oak Creek Unit and about 2,300 on the Cowiche Unit, south of the Tieton River; WDFW staff counted 608 at Oak Creek on January 4, 2022, the Herald-Republic reported, and nearly 450 in the mild January of 2026, when WDFW's Trinity Peterson put Cowiche at around 1,300 a day. The herd is about 10,000 animals by WDFW's surveys as the paper reported them in December 2024, against an objective of 9,500. The hay is the fence's partner, not a kindness. "I don't want them to get through somehow and get in the orchards," Mackey said in January 2026. "Because once they get by you, it's hard to get them back."

Why does Washington feed the Yakima herd?

Because the herd is an import that outgrew its welcome, and the state chose land and fence over cutting it to a remnant too small to hunt. WDFW's Yakima elk herd plan of December 2002 traces the herd to 50 Rocky Mountain elk, 47 in the 2006 management plan's count, shipped from Gardiner, Montana in January 1913 and released at the Stevens Ranch on the Naches River. Enumclaw will recognize the corrals: on December 25, 1912, a King County game warden took delivery of 80 Yellowstone elk at the same Gardiner railhead and sent them by rail to the White River Lumber Company's mill in Enumclaw, told in this site's field guide to Enumclaw's elk herd.

By 1939 the Yakima herd topped 3,000, and the biologists offered two options, buy land and build fence or cut the herd to a size nobody would hunt; the state took the first. When the buying began depends on which WDFW document you open: the 2002 plan says 1938, the 2006 management plan says 1939, the unit's current page says the 1940s. The 1940s brought most of the land and the first 10 miles of elk fence; temporary feeding began in the winter of 1942 to 1943; the 1955 winter took 1,200 tons of hay; and the 2006 plan dates the annual program to the mid-1960s and the headquarters viewing area to 1985.

How do you get to Oak Creek from Enumclaw in winter?

The long way, every time. State Route 410 leaves Enumclaw, crosses Chinook Pass and ends at U.S. 12 two miles from the station's entrance, about 94 miles by a routing engine, but WSDOT's table shows the pass closed on October 31, 2024 and October 24, 2025 and reopened on May 23, 2025, and it reopened on May 22, 2026 by the Courier-Herald's report that day, so the elk were never at the hay while the direct road was open; this site's guide to the Chinook Pass closing dates has the pattern. That leaves two passes WSDOT keeps open: north by Interstate 90 over Snoqualmie Pass, Interstate 82 from Ellensburg and U.S. 12 west out of Yakima, about 160 miles and three and a half hours by the engine; or south through Eatonville and Morton and over White Pass on U.S. 12, about 150 to 155 miles and four hours. Either pass can carry a chain or traction tire requirement; WSDOT's White Pass report gives the restriction in force, and this site's guide to the studded tire and chain rules explains what counts as chains.

Before you go

Call 509-653-2390 and ask whether feeding has started, when the trucks go out and whether tours are running. WDFW's unit page carries the closure and wildfire notices; during feeding, Forest Road 1400 up Oak Creek and the Bethel Ridge Tie road are closed to motor vehicles and the upland range to all entry until May 1. Mackey said in January 2026 that a state Recreation and Conservation Office grant would pay for new toilets and a longer viewing deck, with work expected to begin later in 2026, so ask whether construction has changed where you can stand. Bring a Discover Pass and warm clothes; keep the dog in the car and the apples at home, because the exception that lets the trucks feed the elk does not extend to you.