The Drive: Coming south down I-5, my GPS told me it was about 35 miles to the town of Yacolt. As my wife reminded me later, it took more than an hour to drive those 35 miles. The road, while lovely, is slow going, curvy and slows through small towns.

The Town of Yacolt: On the east coast, this would be called a village. Out west, we call them towns. Yacolt is a really cute quaint little berg. Really charming!

The Park: Yacolt Park is a small city park sitting on the outskirts of town. It sits right besides a Vorizion satellite station of some sort which has all these large satellite dishes. The small flat park is completely fenced in and has a soccer field, a restroom facility, a picnic shelter, a basic BMX track and wonderful mature Douglas Fir trees.

The Course: The 8 hole course starts right in front of the restroom. There are small fiberglass tee signs which give the hole #, Par and distance. Each sign has a minature course map on it. The tee pads are on the smallish side with bricks enclosed in a wooden frame. The baskets are new Discatchers with the yellow band and a small #. Every hole is listed as either 200', 250' or 300'. The course designer must not have wanted to confuse you with odd numbers or perhaps the distances are simply estimated!

# 1 is just an open 275' throw across the grassy lawn.
# 2 plays 250' throwing across the BMX track.
#3 is 300' to a basket which sits on a raised berm area. There is the park fence on the right all the way down the fairway.
# 4 is 200' with one very large fir tree behind the tee and basket. Simple little hyser to throw around it.
# 5 is 250' but through a grove of about a dozen mature firs. There are Multiple routes here. My favorite hole, I guess?
# 6 is 200' with a couple of large firs trees Ito navigate around.
# 7 is a boring, open 300' throw to a basket just left of the shelter.
And finally, # 8 is listed at 250', playing to a basket set behind a large fir which sits beyond the picnic shelter.

Not much to speak of. I would have liked a couple more feet of tee pad length.

Holes 2 (the BMX hole) and 8, throwing around the picnic shelter could be problematic at times with other park users but I really don't think this high usage is a major problem here in greater metropolitan Yacolt.

Really, as previous master reviewer Sillybiz wrote, the course designers did a nice job here considering the space and terrain they had to work with.

Unless you are a serious course bagger (like Sillybiz or myself) I wouldn't stray off the interstate to play this course. It's going to take you two hours to play this little 20 minute course by the time you make the scenic drive here and back. There are other courses right off the interstate, in Castle Rock, Kelso and other places along I-5. Play one of them and save yourself some time and in my case, the wrath of my wife, who is usually, very understanding,

This course is in a small park with a BMX track and a dog park in it as well. Right next store there are HUGE satellites, looked like the SETI place or something, lots of barbed wire and a security gate. You don't want that gate, go though the fenced gate without the barbed wire to get into the park and the first hole starts right in front of the bathrooms on the edge of the soccer field. All new DISCatchers can't be missed as are the little tee pads and signs. No problem with navigation here.

The designers here didn't have a ton to work with but did a pretty good job bring in to play every tree on the park property which is three or four if memory serves me. Hole two throws over the BMX track which could be unplayable at times but when I was there we were the only ones playing the course. Hole three is up on a mound. Holes four through six are low ceiling shots on short grass, perfect for rollers.

There are few holes that are thrown in that aren't needed, mostly I'm thinking holes one and seven. Seven isn't terrible but one is just an open field throw on the soccer field with little to no imagination. The course is fairly wide open and mostly short. This is one of those "cookie cutter" courses that seem like all of the parks people in the country go together and decided to all make the same kind of course on the same kind of land. Just mostly blah here.

You need to make sure that you play the course between 8am and 5pm as they lock the gates after that. Kind of a downer that if you lived here you couldn't play a round or ten after work. This course is in the middle of nowhere and though I had some fun here I wouldn't recommend this course to anyone but course baggers and locals, maybe just locals.