Lake Sammamish State Park offers numerous day-use facilities which allow for a wide range of recreational activities.

[5] The park has also gained notoriety by association with serial killer Ted Bundy, who on July 14, 1974, abducted Janice Ott and Denise Naslund in broad daylight there within four hours of each other.

[6] Their skeletal remains were found several months later on the side of the road two miles (3 km) away near Issaquah, the town nearest to the park.

[citation needed] The area that now contains both the state park and the city of Issaquah has a long history of human use, dating back to the earliest settlements by resident native tribes.

The descendants of the Snoqualmie, Sammamish, and Duwamish people fished, hunted, and gathered plants such as camas from the mixed prairie and coniferous old-growth forest that grew in the Issaquah creek valley.

Beginning in the 1860s, foreign hunters, miners, and settlers began to come over the hill from the area now known as Bellevue, and up the Sammamish River valley to the open fertile regions stretching from today's Kenmore, Bothell, and Redmond.

Archeological studies have identified trees on the bottom of Lake Sammamish dating back over 1100 years that are there because of seismic activity and landslides.

The condition of the lake and its surrounding forest most likely remained relatively unchanged from the time of the landslides until the late 1800s when European/American explorers found the valley.

Roads and railroads, and land clearing for homes, businesses, and farms soon changed the area dramatically.

Human intervention has impeded the return of the characteristic, long-lived conifers and the natural understory trees, shrubs, and herbs associated with native Douglas-fir, pacific madrone, western hemlock, Sitka spruce, pacific dogwood, cascara, red-alder, and vine maple.

The drier prairie-like areas hosted Garry oaks and camas, and were maintained for hundreds - possibly thousands of years - by periodic burning by the local tribes.

Along with camas from the drier areas, tribal residents harvested salmonberry, snowberry, currant, huckleberry, thimbleberry, wild ginger, elderberry, Indian plum, serviceberry, nootka rose, and other plants for food and medical needs.

Visitors can enjoy scenic views of the lake and surrounding mountains, especially during the fall when the leaves turn vibrant shades of red and gold.