The Washington State Hiking Podcast

Best hikes for Whale Watching in Western Washington

• Jennie Thwing Flaming and Craig Romano • Episode 56

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Jennie and Craig talk about some of their favorite hikes around the Salish Sea in Western Washington for seeing whales - resident and transient orcas as well as migrating grey and humpback whales

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Jennie Flaming:

Jennie, 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. Well, hey, Craig, we're talking about whales today.

Craig Romano:

Hey, Jennie, you know, I live in Skagit County, close to Anacortes. You know, I love whales. I I've seen him several times, just just on the fairies. So, yeah, whales, great topic, great topic, whales.

Jennie Flaming:

Whales are amazing. I mean, they're just, they're just incredible. And we're so lucky to live somewhere where we can see them. So right now, you know, we're talking about late March, right? That's kind of where we are in time. And so we're starting to have gray whales migrating past the coast of Washington up further north for the summer. And we also, of course, have our resident and transient orcas that are in our waters all the time. So Craig, what are some of your favorite hikes around Washington to see whales, and then maybe also just share what types of whales you tend to see there.

Craig Romano:

So getting back to us saying earlier with being close to the antiquaters and the San Juans and ferries, let me tell you that whole area, the San Juan and the Gulf Island, the archipelago, the in the sailor sea, the Gulf, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Strait of Georgia. Dude just said all that this is brine for for seeing orcas and of course, and that resident pod moves around. So there's no guarantee where they're going to be. They move around. I've actually seen them right in the harbor in Anacortes, and then I've seen them more out off of San Juan Island, Friday in Friday Harbor. So it's gonna be a crap shoot. When you go out there looking for them, you never know. And

Jennie Flaming:

you know, I think that's an important thing to just mention quickly. So this is a hiking podcast. We're talking about hikes where you have a chance of seeing whales, but if you're, if you're, especially if you're visiting Washington, and you want, like to see whales, for sure, then you definitely want to do a whale watching trip, you know, instead of what we're talking about. Um, so, yeah, right to

Craig Romano:

the whales we're here. Yeah, it's a matter of you might happen to be, yes, hiking by when they jump,

Jennie Flaming:

yeah, which is pretty awesome.

Craig Romano:

Yeah. So, so where do you want to go for good chances of that? Well, the San Juan's, of course, San Juan Island, lime killing Park is one of the best places for seeing whales. They tend to congregate a lot out there the feeding you're hiking along shoreline, cliffs and bluffs, some great views, even, even though you know you're right on the water, should always you want to bring binoculars and everything. Yeah, a few of them, you'll see them jump and you'll see the spout. But if you really want to get the view and telephoto lens, if you're trying to photograph them, um, other, I mean, other places you know, in on Lopez Island, Chadwick Hill, there's, there's some, some cliffs in that area. You can see what mo Bay, Colville point, Colville, iceberg point, which is also on Lopez, great place to see whales on Cypress Island, wonderful one of my favorite places. There's no ferry service there, so you have to either Kayak or get a water taxi to take you up. There's over 20 miles of trails on Cyprus Eagle cliff, although Eagle cliff is closed right now for peregrine falcon nesting, but it'd be a good one in the fall. Yeah, see, you know to see, but there's other areas, shoreline hikes and cypress that are good for whales and even in Anacortes right in Washington Park. Yeah, there's some great trails there. You may see weymus islands, another one, good opportunity to see whales in that area. So right in the San Juans, you chance you hike enough there, you probably going to see sea orcas at some point.

Jennie Flaming:

Yeah, yeah. Doesn't lime kiln park have, like, not, but what are those things? It's like binoculars, like a sliding scope that's like, attached to the ground.

Craig Romano:

Scopes, yeah, they're pretty much, I mean, they're no lime kills, though, for a couple It has beautiful lighthouse. It has a lime, of course. You know, hence the name. You know, what's interesting, the San Juan Islands at one point back in the 1870s booming with the ship industry, with with with lime kilns and lime quarries. So this is a great place to see a pretty much restored lime quarry, lime and lime kill much, much better shape than the one in Snohomish County that's the. It kind of looks more like a Raiders the lost art, you know, because the right the vegetation is growing all over. It's a little drier out of yeah on Friday, yeah. But outside of the history in the lighthouse and all that, it's known for its whales, it's just one of the best places to to see whales. And the State Park has nice trails, but it actually borders much larger areas. Part of I believe it's a San Juan concert, San Juan Island Land Trust, either that or so land bank. It's one of those two that has adjacent land, which even with even more trails, with shoreline access, so there's lots of room to roam, and good chance you're going to be able to be able to see whales out

Jennie Flaming:

there. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So if you're interested in

Craig Romano:

a lot of this, especially those non my day hiking, the San Juan Islands and Gulf Islands book has all these, these hikes in it. I've got, it's a really good book. It's a good guide for whale watching and hiking, because it also has all the Canadian Hot spots too, yes,

Jennie Flaming:

yeah. And you know, definitely the Gulf Islands, there's also lots of wonderful places to you. Hi everyone, it's Jennie. I just wanted to quickly break into this spring episode to tell you that I am offering a special discount on my hike planners and my Seattle seasonal hiking guide in my shop. And you can get to the shop. It's shop, dot ordinary adventures.com, and the link is always in the show notes. And if you use the discount code, spring 30, you will get a 30% discount through March 29 to welcome spring and say thank you for listening to the podcast. What about Craig? Have you ever seen I have not, but I'm curious. If you have, have you ever seen gray whales like out on the coast at this time of

Unknown:

year? Yeah, I have. People

Jennie Flaming:

have, I'm so curious, if you Yeah, not at San Juan. I meant, I meant out on the Washington on the Pacific coast, yeah, Long

Craig Romano:

Beach. Long Beach area is a good place there, you know, because in the San Juans, you're still, you're you're inland, yes. And grays will come in occasionally, but it's not part of their migration, yep. So you want to be out. And the thing is, some of the the Olympic like OSET area, that's tough because you've got the, got a lot of offshore islands, the whales are going to be much farther out. There's a lot of shelf, you know, a lot of shelf areas in there, yep, that's tough. But when you get out towards Long Beach, you're there right the ocean. And a lot of Long Beach, of course, is flat, so it's, it's hard to to see. That's where you go to Cape Disappointment. And you're up on on North Head, which is a pretty prominent headland at the mouth of the Columbia River. And also, because the mouth of Columbia River, there is a lot of nutrients coming out in that area, it's a great feeding area. So that's a good place. Stand up there with another beautiful Lighthouse you can check out, but with some binocular scope during the migration, and you're going to see the spouts going off as working away. So that's one of the best places. Yeah, you could see him in a few of the other, you know, the other places along the coast. But it gets a little tougher because you're lower but, but there's certainly you're going to have a better, a better chance there, I think, than in a lot of the wild Olympic coast, where you have just a lot of offshore islands and shelf land. Yeah,

Jennie Flaming:

yeah, that makes sense. And I would just add that both Long Beach and, well, Cape Disappointment, State Park is right by Long Beach. But that is a really, I mean, there are lots of really fun things to do there at all year, like, that's a great, great place to visit just into and there's

Craig Romano:

some nice trails in that area. And I've got that area covered in my day hiking Olympic Peninsula book. Yeah, I've got cool all of Long Beach. It's a, it's an area that a lot of hikers don't think about sending the bay. There's been some new trails expanded in there. It's a great area for wildlife, yeah, so same thing. There's Scarborough Hill on for Columbia. You've got some some access there along the mouth of the Columbia which is such a productive area

Jennie Flaming:

for wildlife. Yeah, definitely. I was, I was

Craig Romano:

just thinking again about the mouse. So Cape Flattery on the macaw nation lands is another great place to see whales, too. You ran at the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which is very, very wide there. And there's not as much offshore islands and shelf. It's more trench there. It's a great place to see whales. Yep,

Jennie Flaming:

yep, and gray when, when we typically see gray whales off the Washington coast is, I believe, kind of late March and April. Yes, is that you're under? Yeah, it's kind of a short because they're migrating past us. They're not, you know, staying here for the whole summer.

Craig Romano:

Normally never. Up to your summer stomping grounds. Yes,

Jennie Flaming:

exactly, yeah. Okay, so a couple other places that I have seen orcas that I'll just add to your list is for worden. There by Port Townsend, there are some trails around there, and those really cool, like, old, you know, military things, creepy military buildings, like climb around Port

Craig Romano:

wardens, wonderful. It's about 10 miles of trails there. It's a really nice park, yeah, yeah. And

Jennie Flaming:

it's near Port Townsend, which is a super fun little town to visit

Craig Romano:

one of the coolest things at Fort word, and I had experienced about 30 years ago during the Tom Clancy days, and I'm like, all sudden, I'm looking out at the water, and I watched this giant sub just come out, like, Hunt for Red October. Yeah, because you're near, you're near the nuclear sub base across, right? So if you don't see a whale, there's always a good chance of

Jennie Flaming:

seeing a nuclear submarine instead, and that'll be just as exciting. It was pretty exciting. I know it is pretty bizarre, um, you know, so if you're listening and you're like, What are they talking about? So there are, there's a trident submarine base in Hood Canal near paulsbo, and at times the submarines will come and go through the canal out to the ocean, obviously, but they have, like, a significant escort. And you could just kind of Yeah, but it's, it's pretty bizarre when you see them definitely. And I think you know one of the things that I'm not an a whale expert, and I know you aren't either, but appreciation doesn't necessarily equal expertise, but I know that a lot of places where there are very confused and mixed currents in the Salish Sea are places that tend to Have more orca activity if they're feeding, you know, there's more food there, that kind of thing. So that is definitely the case there off of Port Townsend where, you know, there's the currents and the winds in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and then the ones coming up from Admiralty inlet and anywhere along Admiralty inlet. So, like, west of Whidbey Island is also a pretty good like, EBS landing places like that, in

Craig Romano:

those areas too. Yeah, you want to have a little bit of elevation so you can Outlook. So 40 EB um, for Casey, all those areas you're up on some nice, you know, some, some good bluffs, yeah. And that really,

Jennie Flaming:

really helps. And I've also seen orcas in between Whidbey Island and Camino Island. What is that water called? Well the Salish Sea, but it has Sarasota passage, so some of those state parks that are on the coast of Camino are also places where I

Craig Romano:

have cama beach over there, and Camino Island State Park and there, and there's a trail that connects them as well. So some some nice hiking in that area too. Um, yeah, wonderful, wonderful places.

Jennie Flaming:

I'm also just looking Craig. There's an app that, if people don't know about that I want to tell you about. It's called whale alert, and you can put it on your phone, and then you can, you can kind of follow along with, like, Wait, recent whale sightings that are near your location. It is kind of designed for people who are boating up like, part of the purpose of it is to avoid unsafely encountering a whale. But you can absolutely use it for hiking as well, because you can be like, Oh, hey, look, you know, here's where different whales have been seen recently, and it's on a map. It's a pretty cool app. So if you're, if you're wanting to do a whale hike, a good idea is places where whales have been recently, yeah, and I know people see them, you know, from time to time. You know, at point Rustin in Tacoma, oh, yeah, the Alki, Seattle, Edmonds. You know, those are all anywhere along the shore of the Salish Sea. You definitely have a chance. But then there are those places that we've talked about that are better than others. You know, Craig last summer, there was a humpback whale near, kind of between Edmonds and Whidbey Island. I remember reading about that, yeah, being around for a while. And so if that happens again, I mean, it was really cool. I've seen lots of humpback whales in Alaska, but it was pretty it was pretty awesome. And in the summer is when they're feeding, and so they're a. Lot more active than they are, like in Hawaii or Mexico, where they're mostly just giving birth and, like, chilling as they sit

Craig Romano:

down in Baja. Yeah, it's a good

Jennie Flaming:

activity there, but so another place that would have been would have been good, would be like meadowdale Beach Park, which is a really nice hike that I feel like not that many people have heard of.

Craig Romano:

That was one of my hikes of the week just recently. Yeah,

Jennie Flaming:

I saw that, and I was like, oh, Craig, that's a great one. Yeah,

Craig Romano:

meadowdale is a great little place, yeah, yeah. And

Jennie Flaming:

it's, if you're like, where is that? It is kind of in North Edmonds to muckle to area. It's technically in Lynwood, I think, but I would describe that area as like between Edmonds and muckle Tio by meadowdale High School, where my niece goes and my brother went anyway. Any other goodwill places you want to call out Craig before we wrap up today. No,

Craig Romano:

you those are all good play. And of course, the wild Olympic Coast definitely, you know there's, there are a chance of seeing whales hiking along that area too. When you're hiking along that area, also, you're just going to be out farther. But I do have to relate to you. And I think I talked about this on one of our other pro so one of my most memorable whale experiences was was on the wild Olympic coast north of Rialto in the summertime, hot summer day, going around to where the Chilean Memorial is being a pro one of the most foul, rancid, putrid, disgusting smells I have ever experienced in my life. It was a big dead whale. Oh, no, hey, bend your foil and let me tell you, they take forever to break down. Yeah, and so lots of animals, you know, are going to feed it, but it you've got this huge mass of decaying flesh on the beach. I mean, girls die like anything else. And if you know, if their body comes to shore, if the sharks, it's going to be really intense. It's intense one of the craziest anybody, any old timers here in the Northwest will remember in the early 70s when one washed out in the coast of Oregon. And this is classic. And if you want to some entertaining you can look this up. They thought it would be smart public officials to blow it up. Remember, have you? Have you seen the video? It did the footage of this? No, I see this. So showed up. Watch this. They blew it up, and it rained rotting

Jennie Flaming:

flesh. No, that's not ever okay.

Craig Romano:

This is a classic. People still talk about this. You can look this up. What not to do with a dead whale, blow it up.

Jennie Flaming:

Yeah. It's a really bad idea. Terrible idea.

Craig Romano:

Yeah. Anyways, one of the many enlightened things our public officials have done for sure, because that one did less damage than some of the other things that they do. So we'll go with that.

Jennie Flaming:

Yes, oh man, oh

Craig Romano:

well, yes, whale watching is great. And yeah, that, if you're looking to do it by hiking, check those areas. And then, of course, throughout the summer and all head to Anacortes, there's some great way of watching tour companies there, yep and Yep. You know, environmentally sound. And just on top of things, I think could be really, really happy with it. Yeah,

Jennie Flaming:

lovely. Well, I hope. I wish all of you listening many whale sightings this spring and summer, and we'll see you next week. You.

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Jennie Thwing Flaming

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Craig Romano

Co-host