The Washington State Hiking Podcast

Hikes to do with or without out of town visitors during the holiday season

• Episode 39

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Jennie and Craig discuss their favorite hikes around Washington State to take visitors on during the holiday season and the ones they go back to again and again this time of year.

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Jennie Flaming:

Welcome to The Washington State hiking podcast. I'm your host, Jennie Thwing Flaming,

Craig Romano:

and I'm your co host, Craig Romano,

Jennie Flaming:

Craig and I are happy to have you here. We provide practical and timely, seasonal hiking advice for hikers, trail runners and potential hikers and trail runners of all skill and ability levels that is helpful, accurate, fun and inclusive. All right, Craig, so today we're going to be talking about some great hikes to do with visiting family who might be coming for holidays, and maybe you don't have family visiting for holidays, but you're gonna have a few extra days off, or things are a little quiet or a little busy, and you just want to get out of town or in town. Um, so, yeah, so that's what we're talking about today. Do you do you take visitors out hiking?

Craig Romano:

I do. And the thing is, here, here's the major factor in here, the weather, of course, the weather, and it's been, it's been brutal so far this month, in November, it's been a tough month, but I'm, I'm holding out hope that come Thanksgiving, that we'll get at least one nice day. And that tends to be a thing. And so one of my traditions. You know, I live up in Skagit Valley, and there's lots of, lots of great places to showcase the area, which I certainly do. But one of my absolute favorite places, like I've done more more Thanksgiving weekends than any other place in this might sound like, God, it's so un American. I actually go up to British Columbia to boundary Bay, yeah, which, again, I'm half it's in Washington. So what do I love about boundary band? This is point Roberts. You go in there too. So back into Washington, it's a great time of year to be there, because one all the wintering birds are incredible. It is amazing. It's unbelievable you're gonna see and this year being cold, I mean, there's always a chance of a snowy owl being in that area. There's short haired owls. There's dunlins and sandpipers and but I'll tell you, when it's clear and you've got daylight is fleeing the alpine glow on Mount Baker across when you're when you're hiking along the bay, looking across the bay, it is absolutely stunning. And then what's also crazy, because you're walking east west on boundary Bay. This is in Surrey and in Delta, and you're looking south in the San Juan Islands, or south of you. And again, you see the light of you can see the turtle back mountain on orcas, and with the red, with the alpenglow, it is absolutely I never get tired of it. It is one of my favorite winter Thanksgiving hikes. So that. And matter of fact, I will be up there again this year, unless it's unless it's a downpour. So look for me up there. It's one of my favorite places. And

Jennie Flaming:

you know, the other thing about boundary Bay, for folks who haven't been there, is it's completely flat. Oh god yes. So it's like if someone wants to get outside, but maybe they don't hike regularly, or they live in a flat state. It's a great place. It's gravel. It's not paved, but it is completely flat because you're walking across the top of that

Craig Romano:

dike. Yeah, it's a dike, and I have to plug here. I have a brand new book coming out on Vancouver BC this spring. I have it all included in there, but there's an 11 mile trail that goes, you know, from mud Bay and Surrey all the way to swasson and Delta. Yeah, that's one of my favorites. But there's other areas too, in Surrey and in in delta. And then, of course, point Roberts, that we tend to forget about. There's Lily, you know, the lily point marine park there is spectacular. The high bluffs, that's wonderful. And then, if you don't want to cross the border, okay, you got semi amo. You got the semi amo spit, which is a Whatcom County Park. It's a paved trail, yeah, it goes along. And then this low tide beach. So you're still getting some of that boundary bay area there too. And you got Drayton Harbor, which is again, full of birds. And you're going to look across the water there at Mount Baker again. So that whole area is what I just love being up there. Yeah,

Jennie Flaming:

totally. You know, I, as you know, my family mostly lives here in the greater Seattle area the but so I don't have a ton of family visitors, but often we have Alaska visitors that come down at this time of year, or unplanned Alaska visitors that went to visit family in the lower 48 and then get stuck here because of weather or something like that anyway. So, um, yeah, I think my absolute favorite hike to take visitors on in November and December is Twin Falls near North Bend. You know, there is some elevation gain on it, and there are some roots and things, but overall, it's a pretty well maintained trail, and you get this beautiful payoff, you know, in like a mile and a half. I. So it's a it's kind of a winner that way, for sure. Okay, so let's go around the state a little bit Craig and talk about maybe a couple favorites in different locations. So let's start with Seattle, biggest city in Washington. And what's your favorite kind of hike for holidays Seattle.

Craig Romano:

Yeah, I did live in Seattle for years. So when people would visit, I'll tell you, if you don't want to leave the city, Discovery Park is wonderful. It really is. It's a great showcase of the area. Well, I mean, one you're right in the city, but the way it's positioned, you don't see the city that's in the forest exactly. You hear birds, you see birds, and the coastline is wonderful, and you get this incredible view of the Olympic Mountains. And again, if you want that alpine glow, if you get that perfect day, yeah. So that's a great choice, right in the city. And again, you don't want to go very far and stuff. It's amazing because the islands, I love the islands, yeah, in the winter time, yeah, so in Seattle, just hop on a short ferry to to Vashon Island. Yep, into some great, great hikes on Vashon Island, some great beaches to walk down that area. And I'm always surprised. Jennie, I don't know if you how many people I've encountered who live in Seattle who have never been to Vashon Island. Yeah,

Jennie Flaming:

it's a few. And there's people who haven't been to Bainbridge either, which is even more surprising to me, because it's literally, it's even closer,

Craig Romano:

yeah, and Bainbridge has actually, because, you know, you think, I don't know, I don't know what people think of any Bainbridge. I mean, it's kind of a bedroom community, but there is, there's a lot of trails in Bainbridge. There are. They have a very active trail system. There a great park system. Yep. Again, my urban trails, Kitsap book, I have quite a bit on Bainbridge, awesome, really wonderful area. Grand forest is a great place to hike in there. I

Jennie Flaming:

agree, grand forest is awesome, and it really doesn't matter what the weather is. No, it's a rain forest.

Craig Romano:

That's a good one to be when it's slightly overcast. And again, Bainbridge, you get a little bit of that, that rain shadow effect. Some of the other islands, you go farther south or north. I mean, north, you get the rain shadow. South, not as much, because one of my favorite islands, can we jump into Tacoma? Sure, let's go for Tacoma, okay, and south so. So again, if Tacoma, obviously, if you live in Tacoma, you have one of the finest urban parks to display. And this is one of the finest urban parks in America. And that's point defiance. Yes, so many good things about that, about that park with old growth forest and the bluffs and the views and the bridge and yep, can go on and on and the views of Mount Rainier. But one way again, getting back to the you know, people in Seattle have never been to Vashon. How many people I've met in Tacoma, they've never been to Anderson Island. And Andrews is a short little Pierce County ferry, ferry from silicon. Wonderful, wonderful place. Go over for the day there. There are several parks there. I write about this urban trails Tacoma book some really nice parks that are never crowded. It's a great place this time of year to head over there too.

Jennie Flaming:

And while we're talking about Tacoma, you can also get to bash on from Tacoma, yes, right. So, you know, from Seattle to the north side and or from point defiance, basically, um, across to the south side. And, yeah, I mean, you mentioned Vashon has some great hikes. I really love if it's an if it's a sunny day in winter. And one of the best hikes is over there on Maury Island. You know, it's like a, it's kind of a steep downhill to the beach and then a steep back uphill. But it's not super far. The beach is beautiful and it's large. The views are amazing. Yeah,

Craig Romano:

the view It's incredible because you're looking you're looking east, so you're gonna be looking over, you'll see the planes, you know, coming in SeaTac, but you've got the whole backdrop of mountains, yeah. What's neat about you have two very large King County Parks over there right now, and there's actually, I think WTA is working. They're connecting some of the trails and cool. So that's new, some new happenings there, but there's miles of trade you can spend, you know, all day hiking there. This is the other thing people don't realize. The longest track of undeveloped public coastland shoreline in King County is there on Vashon Island, yeah? So you can hike these beautiful beaches for a couple miles. Yeah, you're not going to find that in Federal Way. Well, dash point a little bit, but you're not going to find that

Jennie Flaming:

each area in dash point isn't super large, yeah, right,

Craig Romano:

yeah, not very Yeah, you those tides are great and everything. There's a lot of trails and dashboards you don't have. You don't have a two mile stretch of developed public land that you can be walking on. Yeah.

Jennie Flaming:

I'd also add that both Vashon and Bainbridge have fun, like, especially if you're with family and it's holidays, like, Whidbey has this too. Like, fun local restaurants or local breweries, and Bainbridge and Whidbey have wineries. There's one winery on Vashon that I know about, and actually there's one winery on Bainbridge Island, I'm pretty sure it's called Bainbridge Island winery. They actually make their wines with grapes that are grown. On the island, which is pretty unusual in the Puget Sound area. Most of our grapes come from Eastern Washington, but that's kind of a fun thing to do. Lots of great restaurants. And

Craig Romano:

the other thing about Bainbridge too, which is great if fashion is a little tougher because you get off the ferry and you're far from from a lot of the places, yeah. So if you bike, it's great. But let me tell you,

Jennie Flaming:

a bus to you take the bus on is pretty nice. But the nice

Craig Romano:

thing about Bainbridge is that you can walk on the ferry. You don't even need to take your car, because the downtown area is right there. There's trails that connect. So that's, that's a good one. You can do without, you know, car free, which is always great with the ferry. You don't have to worry about the lineup and everything. Just walk on, yeah. So, so that's a good destination if you want to take people out without having to drive there.

Jennie Flaming:

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And you can get around Bainbridge on the bus as well. I feel like it isn't quite as convenient as Vashon, but you can do it. So, yeah, okay, cool. Well, let's, let's head up to Everett. Then Everett, let's, let's kind of put Everett Bellingham, sort of Northwest Washington, maybe into one group. What are some of your favorites up there? Craig, well,

Craig Romano:

again, in Skagit Valley. Some wonderful hikes. I know Jennie. You love Padilla Bay. I do. That's a good one in the winter. Same thing that Alpin glow, and when it's clear, you can actually see Mount Rainier from up there, which is wonderful. And

Jennie Flaming:

one other thing too, about Padilla Bay, it's also flat completely and gravel, so it's also just, it can be really mellow. And you can go up to, I believe the whole trail is two miles. So you could go up to four or five, yeah, it's about two and a half. You could also walk, like, 100 yards and see some beautiful stuff. So it's super mellow.

Craig Romano:

And again, the bird, the birds, they're amazing. You have the brand, large brand population in the winter time, yeah? So one of the, one of those crazy, over exposed hikes that you won't catch me on during the summertime, but the winters, is oyster dome. Yeah, oyster dome in the winter times. It's a good choice. And I now Bellingham, right between Mount Vernon and Bellingham. It's, you know, it's gonna be more than likely snow free. Very rarely, snows up there. And again, getting the views out towards the San Juan Islands, the Olympic and the Skagit flats and everything, it's spectacular. It is. So that's a great one to two to showcase. Yes, there, and it's a wonderful winter hike. And there's other great hikes in plant that's part of the Blanchard State Forest. Yep, great hikes that that are crowded. Oyster, don't always a lot of people there, too, but, yeah, get up early. You know, go on a weekday. You can have it. Have it almost. It's

Jennie Flaming:

definitely less crowded into some Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

Craig Romano:

So. So another good choice, gwemus Islands, a place that people don't think about the same thing, leave your car in Anacortes, walk on, and you can walk about a mile and a half on a very lightly trafficked Road, mostly along the channel, and go to glymus Mountain, which was protected by the Skagit Land Trust and the San Juan Preservation Trust. Really nice network of trails. There wonderful views of Cypress Island and back over at Anacortes and up to the coast range in BC and Baker. I mean, really, really nice hike. So no, no need to take a car on that one either.

Jennie Flaming:

Yeah, yeah. I think you know, I would add to that list. And also for Seattle, Tacoma would be Olympic National Park, because, again, you can kind of go no matter what the weather is, and you can kind of make, you know, I probably wouldn't bother going up to hurricane Ridge if I couldn't see the view, especially in winter. But, you know, the rain forest, the beaches are, beaches are great, great for winter. And you know, one thing we haven't talked about yet, well, we'll probably talk about this in our Solstice episode that we have coming up is like, our sunsets are at such a reasonable hour in December. You know, like, you know, there's none of this staying up until 9pm to see a sunset. Like, no way you can see that at four. That's good, right? No,

Craig Romano:

it's funny. If you're you have people in town you want to do a little overnight or, um, definitely places like, like the Olympic coast is a great time again. You don't, you're not dealing with a lot of the numbers. You are the other time of year, yeah. And it's funny, because a lot of people, I very rarely go to the coast in the summertime, because it's usually cloudy. You know, it's it's foggy in summertime. But you get those dry, we'll get those sometimes. We're lucky, in February, we'll get a couple weeks of dry and the coast is spectacular. Sunsets are just out of this world, yeah, on there. If you haven't had experience at winter sunset on the Olympic coast, you're in for a real treat. Yeah,

Jennie Flaming:

yeah, I totally agree with that. Okay, well, let's head further south then for our friends in Vancouver and Portland. Hello, Vancouver and Portland. So. Are some suggestions you have down there. Craig, well,

Craig Romano:

again, what's great about that area is the gorge. It's right there, and most of the time, and you get the ice storms in the wind, but most of the western part of the gorge stays snow free. Yeah. So, you know, it's a good time to check out some of the more popular places in the winter time. And the other thing too, your waterfalls are going to be spectacular in a winter. So right in Beacon Rock State Park, you've got Rodney and hardy falls, which is pretty, pretty short hike, you know, to get to those, and they're going to be roaring, absolutely roaring. So they're good any if it's not, you know, if the snow level is still pretty high, check out Hardy ridge in Beacon rock. It's a wonderful little loop you can do there in the creek. There's some great trails in there. Most of the traffic is usually, course, on Beacon rock or at the falls. But there are miles and miles of trails that you can do away from the crowd. Cape horns, another great place to do in the winter time too, 20 miles from Vancouver. So you've got, you know, you've got some wonderful destinations, you know, again, depending on how windy and cold and everything I've gone out and done about the coyote wall, some of those places in the winter time, you know, not nearly as pretty as in the spring, because it's brown in spring, that it's gorgeous flowers, but, but the crowds are just not there. Yeah, it's a great

Jennie Flaming:

if you really clear, you can still get some of those views. Absolutely

Craig Romano:

use the Mount Hood. Are wonderful there. So again, you just looking at some of these places from a different perspective. In summertime, there's so much, they're so busy. The downside, again, the wintertime, a lot of places are going to be brown instead of the flowers coming out everything. But you know, you might actually get these places to yourself, yeah,

Jennie Flaming:

absolutely okay. We're gonna take a short break, and when we come back, we're gonna head to Eastern Washington and then back out to the coast. Hi everyone. Jennie here, I hope you're enjoying this episode so far. Since it is the holiday season, if you're listening to these episodes in real time, I wanted to let you know that this is a great time to support the podcast. If you're looking for gifts for folks or things for inspiration for yourself in the new year, check out Craig's books. They are all linked in the show notes all of his amazing hiking guides to Washington. And I also have my weekly newsletter with weekly hiking, hiking inspiration, real time, current weather, current conditions, all of that, as well as my Seattle seasonal hiking Guide, which is digital, and my hike guide planner. So check all of those out. Those are all in the show notes, along with our tip jar, and this is a great time to support the podcast as we head in to 2025 so thanks for listening, and happy holidays, and we're back so so far, we've covered a lot of Western Washington, from Bellingham down to the Vancouver, Portland area. So what about Eastern Washington? Craig, what are some good ones if you're in Spokane or Tri Cities? What are some good spots out there this time of year,

Craig Romano:

Spokane has a really great urban trail system. Yeah. So again, you know, it does snow in Spokane. Gets a lot colder out there. But again, you know, for staying in the lower country, that's fine. We can get a little snow. So Riverside State Park, obviously, yeah, it's one of our largest state parks. The CCC was involved in, you know, all along the Spokane River, right there in town. It's amazing, yeah, great choice. If you want to go into higher country and you have the equipment everything across mount Spokane, yeah, is another first cross country skiing, if there's if, you know, or snowshoeing, if there's a good snow cover there, yeah. Miles and miles of downhill skiing there, too. Miles and miles of trails. The CCC did some beautiful structures there, yeah. But again, getting lower right, right in the valley. Dishman Hills, one of the larger trail systems, not, not terribly difficult to do a lot of hikes, and you're going to get great views of the Spokane Valley of Mount Spokane, really nice place. It's been a really large network of trails Micah peak, that whole area is expanded. You know, it's amazing. I've seen that the changes in the last 20 years, Spokane County has really expanded their trail system, in their urban their urban park system. So again, right there, you don't have to go very far. There's a lot of places right in the city,

Jennie Flaming:

yeah, for sure. What about, um, Tri Cities? I know we've, I think we've talked about, like, badger mountain and candy mountain before. You know, those are awesome hikes. I mean, it can be really windy and frigid in that well, it can be windy any time of year, but when it's cold, that can be really rough, but it's often Sunny, so they're often and you can get up above that fog. There too. Any other thoughts about that Gary in the winter,

Craig Romano:

you get some great views from from badgering candy in the wintertime, obviously, it. Bay, I tell you, if you're a little more adventurous, the Hanford Reach, which is one of my favorite places, because love Hanford, we never want to go there in the summertime. No, it's way too hot. Way too hot. Spring is wonderful because of the flowers and all but winter. Winter has its own magic too. You know, it's going to be quiet. You might see some Yeah, there. There's large critters in that area, yeah. So if you want to get away from it all and feel like, I mean, Washington before, you know, before it was colonized, where people came over here, I mean, it's one of the few areas in that part of the state that has changed very, very little, mostly because it was all withdrawn before the war, yeah, you know. And just kind of, you know, as a buffer for the Manhattan Project. So that's a really neat area to check out. Winter time is a great place to and,

Jennie Flaming:

you know, the other thing too, is that, you know, that is one of the hearts of Washington wine country, and a lot of the wineries have special holiday events or tasting events or things like that. So again, if you're looking for sort of other things to do around your hike, that can be a really great spot for that, too. If you

Craig Romano:

want some of the best Mexican food Costco, you can go down the markets and everything like that, and then again and celebrate some of the holidays with a little bit of a Latin American flair too.

Jennie Flaming:

Yes, absolutely, yes. Okay, so finally, I know we talked about Olympic National Park. You know, any other areas of like the coast or Mount Rainier, or Mount St Helens, anywhere like that, Craig that you feel like are good places this time of year

Craig Romano:

long. Beach Peninsula is another one of those places. Again, it's quiet and again, if you're in the Vancouver, Portland area, it's fairly close to get there for the day or the weekend. You've got the Discovery Trail that's seven miles paved trail along there. You've got a Cape Disappointment, which lots of great hikes in there can get a little muddy and wet and everything. But again, it's, it's, you're not gonna be dealing with the crowds this time of year. And if you're up on a North Head, one of those areas of the lighthouse with, with the winter the breakers or tents, a great place to watch, very cool, yeah, to watch those waves coming in the storms. So that's nice lead. Better points can be flooded this time of year. So yeah, far though, you could still do the you can do the the dunes trail, the inland, the interior, won't be any mosquitoes this time of year. Yeah. So, you know. And while you're there, you've got to pick up a bucket or two of oysters. So yeah, with the food theme here,

Jennie Flaming:

yes. So, for sure.

Craig Romano:

So that's another great place to go in the winter time too. Yeah,

Jennie Flaming:

yeah. You know, I feel like Mount Rainier is really tricky in the winter. I mean, I have had some amazing days there in the winter. I mean, just spectacular. But, you know, the road isn't open every day and it's, I would say, and Mount Rainier low land areas aren't as accessible as Olympics are in the winter, except for, like, along carbon River, yeah, which is great. I mean, highly recommend carbon river any time of year, but it is harder to get into some of those low land forests there than it is an Olympic in my opinion. But I would say for Mount Rainier, if you want to visit there in the winter, I really recommend kind of a game time decision based on the weather. And even if the weather is good, if there's just been an enormous storm, the Park Service might not have the road open yet, or there could be trees down. So I don't know. What do you think about that? Craig, well, it's

Craig Romano:

funny. We probably should save this for our snowshoeing and winter, because I know one of my favorite winter destinations out there, but the weather has to be perfect. The snow, yes, is sun top Yeah. Sun top mountain, yeah. So it's on the periphery. This is on the White River side. There's also some good snow showing along White River, yeah. Area. You're not going to see the mountain from the valley. We'll see it from Sun top. But those I tend to do later in winter, not because you want the longer daylight hours and everything, like, yeah, too. And snow build up Rainier, like for the holidays, early. I you know, I think one year I did Longmire in early December, stayed at the lodge. Yeah, there's some nice hikes you can do. Depends, again, what your snow level. I think we're going to be in. So far, we're going to be in for a doozy of a snow year. This year, yeah,

Jennie Flaming:

it does kind of have that feeling, who knows, but

Craig Romano:

who knows? Yeah, well,

Jennie Flaming:

we're gonna have more info about winter hiking in about a month when we have our winter hiking guide, but this is a good little holiday preview. All right, that's it for now. See you next week. Thank you for joining us for this episode of The Washington State hiking pod. Podcast, hey,

Craig Romano:

do you have questions for Jennie and I to answer in future episodes? If so, the link right below the tip jar lets you leave a voice memo for us. We'd love to hear from you.

Jennie Flaming:

And if you are enjoying this ad free podcast, please help support it by contributing to our tip jar. You don't need an account, and there's no commitment. It's the first link in the show notes. We also have links in the show notes to our work, both Craig's books, my website, if you would like to support us further and

Craig Romano:

again, thanks again for joining us, and we look forward to the next episode.

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Jennie Thwing Flaming

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