The Washington State Hiking Podcast

Whidbey Island Hikes

• Jennie Thwing Flaming and Craig Romano • Episode 51

Share episode
Jennie Flaming:

Jennie, welcome to the Washington State hiking podcast. I'm your host. Jennie Thwing Flaming, and I'm your co host. Craig Romano, 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. Hi everyone. Jennie here, so today I am talking about hiking on Whidbey Island. And the reason I wanted to record and share this episode with you here, where we are in late February, is that this winter, because of some kind of family factors and logistical factors, I have needed to stay a little bit closer to home with my hiking and I have, and I live in South Seattle, and I have spent quite a bit of time on Bainbridge Island and Vashon Island and Whidbey Island. And I was really reflecting on how wonderful of a day trip getaway that is really makes you feel like you got away from from the city without a lot of driving complication. It's not crowded this time of year, and there are wonderful hikes on all of these islands. So last year, I did an episode about Vashon, and in the future, I will do one about Bainbridge. But for today, I wanted to talk about Whidbey Island, and partly because spring is also an amazing time to go over to Whidbey. It's really convenient for people who live in Seattle and north of Seattle. It isn't as convenient for people who are in Tacoma, in Vancouver and Eastern Washington, but it's also worth a trip over there at even in the non summer months. So let me tell you a little bit about why would be in particular is such a wonderful hiking destination, and then I'll talk about a few of my favorite hikes there. So

Unknown:

on Whidbey, there is a wide variety of hiking options compared to many other close to town locations, which is wonderful. There are beach hikes you can do, like at EBS landing on the west side of the island, also double bluffs, which is a dog friendly Beach, is another wonderful place. Whidbey has old growth trees. There are wonderful old growth forests in South Whidbey State Park. So that is a wonderful place. There are also great view hikes like goose rock in deception pass State Park and also e B's landing. So I just wanted to mention that I'll talk about those more a little more specifically in a moment. I also like that for Whidbey, you can either take the ferry or you can drive from Anacortes over or Mount Vernon over the deception pass. Bridge. Deception pass. The park is the most popular state park in Washington State. And in the off season, it's really nice to go there when it is a bit less crowded. And it's usually the whole island is usually snow free. You know, if there's a lowland winter storm that might present some snow, but for the most part, it's a pretty doable day. And you can I often do like a loop of going on the ferry one way and the bridge the other way. That can be a nice way for just some variety. Some of it depends on where you live. If you're on the Olympic Peninsula, then it probably makes the most sense to take the ferry from Port Townsend over to Coupeville. So Whidbey Island is also an important crossroads for humans in the Salish Sea for 1000s and 1000s of years, many different Coast Salish indigenous people make either their permanent homes or seasonal homes all over the island in most of what I've seen about the history of the island that is not emphasized as much as I would like for it to be, but it is a place where there was lots of and still is, lots of seasonal fishing activities, lots of important sites. It's been an important place for people since. This way before white settlers came to Washington State. It's also a big island with a lot of variety, and there are also many wonderful local restaurants. On Whidbey Island, there are several wineries and a couple of breweries, and those are great places to go, Green Bank farm if you have a dog, that has a large off leash area for dogs to play and run. And then there's also the bistro there that serves amazing pie and other food. There's wine tasting and a cheese shop. It's pretty it's pretty great so lots of great local food to find on the island. One thing I will let you know is that at times, the Naval Air Station, which is near Oak Harbor on the north end of the island, at times, there are quite a few low lying jets in different areas, especially the north part of the island, so just be aware of that that's pretty normal, especially in the deception Pass area. I don't find that to be a huge deal personally, but for many people, I know it is. So I just want to make you aware that that's something you might encounter. All right, so let's talk about a few specific hikes out on Whidbey. I'm going to start at the north end of the island and work south, and I want to make it super clear that I'm not even covering all the wonderful places to hike on the island, but these are just a few of my favorites. So deception pass State Park, amazing place for hiking. Goose rock is the highest point on Whidbey Island, and has an amazing view. You can start at the parking area near the deception pass bridge and climb up there for great view. I also really love going around Bowman Bay and you can see the maiden of deception Pass, which is a beautiful sculpture, wood sculpture there that's been there a really long time. You can also that hike. You can kind of do up to seven or eight miles, or just one or two miles, depending on how far you want to go. And I would just encourage you to check out the maps that Washington State Parks has of the park to see all these different trails, but those are a couple of my favorites. Bowman Bay is also a wonderful place to see a sunset, and there's a small campground and picnic area there. Great, great location. All right, going a little further south, I mentioned E, B's landing. It is one of my all time favorite hikes in Washington State. You have the option of just walking along the beach, or you can go along the bluff. Has amazing views of admiralty inlet. I have almost always seen Eagles there often seals in the water. So you can do a loop, starting either at the top or the bottom and going up along the bluff and back on the beach. Or you can just do and that's about three and a half miles. Or you can just do an out and back on the beach, or an out and back on the bluff. So there's a few different, few different options there for EBS, alright, going a little further south, a spot that a lot of people have never heard of or haven't been to, is South Whidbey State Park, and it has amazing old growth trees. I mentioned that before, but there you can do several miles of hiking in this incredible forest, and it is not busy ever. It's one of my other favorite spots. And then I mentioned double bluff beach. I mentioned Green Bank. Those are great places to go with a dog. There are also kind of back near Coupeville and near where EBS landing is. There's also a long trail system, the kettle trail, and that has amazing rhododendrons in the spring, late spring. So that's another and many, many, many miles of trails. So another great place to check out, all right. Well, I hope this inspires you to take a day trip, or maybe even a longer trip over to would be this spring, and spring really is just around the corner. So congratulations on hiking your way through another Washington winter, and spring will be here soon, so we'll have more wonderful spring hikes coming your way very soon. Bye for now. Hi everyone. This is Jennie. I hope you enjoyed this episode, Craig, and I love bringing these episodes to you. And. I want to remind you about how you can support the podcast. You can leave us a tip or purchase Craig's books or sign up for my email list. And in addition to that, we have our affiliate link for Expedia and Rei in the show notes. So if you are making a purchase from one of those places, and you follow the link that we always have in the show notes, then we will receive a small commission, and that helps us keep things going. So thank you so much for your support, and thank you for listening. You

People on this episode

Head Shot

Jennie Thwing Flaming

Host
Head Shot

Craig Romano

Co-host