Downtown Camas in August: The Year the Map Moved Three Blocks

Every summer in Camas has a center of gravity, and for nineteen years running that center has been a single stretch of NE 4th Avenue between Everett and Franklin, where the Camas Farmer's Market sets up on Wednesdays. In 2026, that changes. City construction pushed the market three blocks west to 314 NE Birch Street, and while three blocks sounds like nothing on a map, it quietly rearranges how a resident's week actually flows through downtown.

If you have lived here long enough to have a routine, this is the summer to notice the routine. The events on the August calendar are familiar. The geography around them is not.

The Three-Block Shift

The Camas Farmer's Market opens on Birch Street this year because of what the market's own board describes as new City construction projects, and it will stay there Wednesdays from 3 to 7 p.m., June 3 through September 30. The temporary footprint runs along Birch between 3rd and 4th, plus 4th Avenue between Adams and Birch. It is the market's 19th season, and it is the first time in nineteen years the market has picked up and walked west.

That matters because Birch Street is not just an alternate address. It is where the Downtown Camas Association parks its bigger events. Boo Bash lands on Birch in late October. The Plant & Garden Fair spills across the whole district in May. The market moving onto Birch means the Wednesday crowd is now flowing directly past storefronts and galleries that used to be a slight detour, and the businesses on 4th between Everett and Franklin no longer have the built-in Wednesday foot traffic they have counted on since 2007.

Wednesday, 3 to 7

The market itself is unchanged in spirit. Live music runs from 5 to 7, kids' activities and healthy-eating demos fill in the afternoon, and the vendor list still leans heavily on Clark County growers. In the 2026 season you will find:

• Annie's Berry Farm for blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and cherries
• Thoeny Farms for berries out of Woodland
• Windy River Livestock for grass-fed beef raised in Camas and Washougal
• Bakehouse Sourdough, a micro-bakery out of Washougal
• Columbia Gorge Garlic for certified organic garlic and heirloom tomatoes
• Shady Grove Farm for organic greens and vegetables grown in Camas
• Swallowtail Dairy, new this year, for goat milk and cheese from Centerville
• The Green Grocer for farm-to-table breakfast and lunch you can eat on the library lawn

August is the peak crossover month, when berries are still moving and stone fruit and heirloom tomatoes are showing up on the same table. If you are the kind of shopper who plans a Wednesday dinner around what looked good at the market that afternoon, this is the four-week window that rewards you the most.

First Friday Is Comic Con This Year

August 7 is First Friday, and the theme, for the fourth year running, is Camas Comic Con from 5 to 8 p.m. The Downtown Camas Association leans into it: a Fandom Fun passport activity spread across downtown businesses, collectible lanyards for the first 300 check-ins, lightsaber lessons, slime making, and character photo ops with Star Wars Legion of Oregon, Ghostbusters, and Marvel volunteers. Straub's Snow sells all-natural shave ice on the street.

The part locals underuse is the gallery walk. All four downtown galleries stay open with receptions the same night: Attic Gallery at 419 NE Cedar, Gallery 408 at 408 NE 4th, RedDoor Gallery at 411 NE Dallas, and Second Story Gallery at 625 NE 4th, which sits inside the Camas Public Library. Comic Con pulls families to the sidewalks, and the galleries stay quieter than you would expect for a First Friday. If you have out-of-town guests and the sidewalk feels too loud, cut into any of the four for twenty minutes and the evening resets.

After Comic Con, Two Dates Worth Circling

The rest of August pivots to two anchors:

Sip & Stroll on the 22nd is the shoulder event that residents either love or forget. It runs 3 to 7 p.m., the same window as a Wednesday market but on a Saturday, and it is the last major downtown daytime event before First Friday in September turns the theme back over to art with the Celebrate Art edition and the Plein Air weekend at the end of the month.

Saturday Belongs to Lacamas, But Not the Way You Remember

Lacamas Regional Park is a spring destination for most of the region because that is when the camas lilies bloom, and the City confirms mid-April is the peak. By August the fields are past. What is not past is the creek. Lacamas Creek carves the Potholes into a curved basalt scabland, and those formations are actually best seen in summer when the creek is running low, which is the opposite of what most out-of-town visitors assume when they show up in April looking for water features and get wildflowers instead.

Two practical notes for August. First, the upper dam at Round Lake has been under a partial closure since March 2026, and Clark County Public Works is the source of the current routing guidance if you want to run the full Lake-to-Lake loop rather than an out-and-back. Second, cell reception thins out inside the park and the trail junctions are not always signed. Download the map before you go in.

If you want a shorter walk, the Round Lake and Lily Fields Loop is a 1.1-mile route out of the small lot on NE Oriole Street that gives you the meadow, a stretch of shoreline, and a couple of bridges without asking you to commit to the full 4.8-mile perimeter.

Where to Eat When the Market Runs Out of Dinner

The Wednesday hot-food vendors sell down by 6, and Birch Street is walking distance from most of the sit-down dining downtown. A short list of what is open on a Wednesday evening in August:

Feast at 316 on Dallas for a longer dinner. Roots Restaurant & Bar for seasonal plates. The Hammond Kitchen + Craft Bar for craft cocktails and pork belly tacos. Grains of Wrath, founded in Camas in 2017, when you want beer with the meal. Camas Slices and downstairs CamBrewCo for New York-style pizza that also runs a Detroit-style daily count until they sell out. Rakuzen Ramen House for something quicker. Tommy O's @ The Camas Hotel for Pacific Rim on the corner. Natalia's Cafe on Dallas for a fifties-diner brunch on a market morning. Adams Street Bar & Grill and Birch Street Uptown Lounge for casual food and a drink close to the new market footprint.

The point is not the list. The point is that the market's move to Birch puts Adams Street, Birch Street Lounge, and Camas Slices inside the same block as the vendors, and those three benefit most from the new geography. If you have not been to any of them in a while, this is the summer to walk the new line.

One Closure Worth Marking

Not every 2026 update is an opening. The Camas-Washougal Post-Record reported that the owner of Juxtaposition, the luxury home decor retailer with locations in both downtown Camas and Ridgefield, has announced she plans to close both stores. If you have been meaning to stop in, this is the season to do it. Downtown storefronts do not stay dark long in Camas, and whatever takes the Dallas Street space next will be part of somebody else's routine by 2027.

Camas in August rewards residents who treat the week as a shape rather than a schedule. Wednesday afternoon on Birch. Friday the 7th for Comic Con and a gallery. Saturday the 22nd for Sip & Stroll, or a walk to the Potholes when the crowds are elsewhere. The events are the same ones you already know. The map underneath them is not.

When you are ready to think about what your Camas house is worth in this market, or what a smart pre-sale plan looks like for a home built before the downtown foot traffic shifted, Dawn Jensen-Beaudoin and her team offer a free home valuation and a straightforward conversation about the numbers behind it.