The Washington State Hiking Podcast

Bainbridge Island Hikes

• Jennie Thwing Flaming and Craig Romano • Episode 89

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 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.

 Hey, Craig, how's it going? It's, I'm, I'm doing well, Jenny. How you doing? You are you been getting out on the trails much lately? Uh, well I, um, I broke my shoulder. Oh, that's right. God. And I know I told you about that before I got on. We got on, but, um, yeah, it was a dumb at home accident. It wasn't. Like any exciting trail thing so I can walk, make, make up stories for the kids.

I know my niece, uh, she's 15. She said, I should tell people I fell out of an airplane. And I was like, whoa, okay. Maybe I'll remember that. Wrestling alligators, there's so many great things you do, right? She's like, just tell. I love the simplicity of falling out of an airplane just like you fell. And that's it.

That's it. Good. Yeah. Idea. Anyway. Um, so I, I can walk. Um, there's no real reason I can't hike except I can't use my right arm. So I can't use my hiking poles. I can't wear a backpack. Um, I really can't trip and fall on anything. So, so far I've been, you know, it's been less than a week. I've just kind of been around the neighborhood, but I've made some plans with like.

Other people in my life, you know, I hike by myself a lot as we've talked about, um, to like, get me, this is, this is shoulder season. You know, so sorry. So I have made plans. Thank you for that. Um, I have made some plans with other people where like it's a short enough, flat enough, like it doesn't have to be pavement.

It's fine for it to be a trail, but this is not the time for me to be like going up and down. Steeper trails or, um, like ones that have a lot of rocks and roots, you know, and, you know, it's a great place for doing a lot of that hiking, uh, especially this time of year. Is it Bainbridge Island? How did you guess I was gonna read?

Oh, well, yeah, I just read your mind, Craig. I think we, I think we read the, the show notes too, but it's, yeah, but no ba you know the thing, okay. If you live in Seattle. Um, you probably are familiar with Bainbridge Island. You may not be, I mean, there's actually plenty of people and or you may have the wrong ideas about Bainbridge.

You might think that it's a Seattle suburb, which it is in some respects. Yeah, yeah. Um, but you know, it's kind of interesting. I had this explain to me once it makes sense if you're from New England, uh, you may consider Bainbridge as the Connecticut of, of Puget Sound. Yeah. Um. And what that means is, yeah, there's a little money over there at a nice, stately little homes and ranchettes and it's very green and very, um, uh, or it is very pretty.

Uh, and it's a great place. Um, again, like New Yorkers wear a lot of New Yorkers, they go to Connecticut for a weekend. Uh, the countryside and Seattleites, you can just hop on a ferry really quick. Ride. Yeah. And go to Bainbridge for the day. Totally. You know? Yeah. I always wanna spend the night. There's some nice little places to stay there, but as a hiker.

There are over 30 miles of trails on Bainbridge. Yeah, there, Bainbridge has an incredible park system. They have a, a, a wonderful land trust there. So even with the 22, 20 5,000 people that live on Bainbridge Island, um, you wouldn't, you wouldn't notice. You wouldn't feel it. Uh, and it had, Bainbridge has these distinct little communities, um, that makes it like little small towns again, like little Connecticut villages.

Uh, and it has. A really fascinating history, uh, too, um, that, uh, a lot of these places you're gonna hike or walk or, or, or bicycle to, um, you'll be able to really come back with a, a, a, a much better appreciation for an area you thought was just a, a Tony suburb of Seattle. So, yeah, I totally agree. And you know, one of the reasons we wanted to do some island episodes in the next couple months is because, um.

You know, like you said, Craig, they're super underrated hiking destinations. I think we've talked about that before, especially very early on in the pod. We did some hiking on island stuff. Um, but of course many of you didn't know about us that back then. So I think, yeah, I think these are places you can go all year.

A lot of the Bainbridge trails you can get to on transit. You know, you can take the ferry and then take the bus. I've done that, but take your bicycle across. Yep. And the thing is, Bainbridge is such a great place. I mean, I've done, I've done the chili hilly, um, yeah. You know, it's a very, very popular bike ride around Bainbridge Island.

Uh, but do your own chili hilly so you can actually stop and Yeah. Get some hiking in when you're over there. Um, yeah, and I think also. So, you know, in winter it's ni i, I love having places that you can, like, that feel like you're actually getting away, but aren't really that complicated. And I feel like Bainbridge is a perfect example of that Wonderful fact.

And it's also, if you have people visiting you from out of town for the holidays, man, even without hiking a day trip to Bainbridge is like, you really can't beat that, especially the, the ferry ride alone. I mean, yep. The Seattle skyline, the waterfront from the, from the ferry. It's spectacular. It's a, it's amazing.

And if you live south of Seattle, you know, like the Tacoma area, you can take the Tacoma Narrows bridge over, you can just drive there, drive around. Because if you, Cambridge is connected to the rest of the Kitsap Peninsula with the bridge. Yep. Yeah. So. Yep. And then similarly, if you're in the north end, if you're, you know, a shoreline Everett.

Yeah. Take at Bellingham. You can get down to the Kingston Ferry and then, you know, you'll be there in 20, 30 minutes from, um, from, uh, the Kingston Ferry. So there's several ways to get there. Also, go downtown Seattle, and I have to put a shameless plug in too. So, you know, I've written a whole series of urban trail guides and they're meant to be close to the city.

Uh. There, there are things you could do year round and Bainbridge Island is actually part of Kitsap County. I don't think a lot of people realize that. Yeah. Because again, they think it's more of Seattle because the of the, but it's part of Kitsap County and I have a whole chapter on Bainbridge Island in my Urban Trails Kitsap book.

Um, yeah. So give you lots of great destinations to get over there. Um, just pick up the book. Hop on that ferry and, and spend a wonderful afternoon, uh, walking around or again, spend the night over there. I mean, some great restaurants. Um, you know, I think you'll a great bakery right there. I think. I think you really enjoy Bainbridge if you have never been there.

I haven't spent much time there. I totally agree. Craig, can you Great books are there too. As you can buy, you can buy my book at Bainbridge too, so Yeah, there's a great independent bookstore there. Yeah. What's the name of it? I can't remember. Is it Eagle Harbor? I believe. Eagle Harbor, yeah. That's Eagle Harbor.

Yep, yep, yep. So, um, yeah, definitely support, support. Me as a, as a author, support a local business. Yes, absolutely. Uh, and then get out there and, and, and visit Bainbridge like a local. So, yeah. So tell, tell me about your, some of your, a couple of your favorite hikes out of the ones that are available on Bainbridge.

Yeah. So, so the largest place, uh, Bainbridge, uh, for hiking, very large trail network is, uh, GAM Lake. Yeah. You know, been there. Um, you could spend. W all day there. And yeah, it's a great trail. So it's, it's a nature preserve and it's, uh, I'm trying to think of the, the side. It's the largest green, green belt on the island.

Um, oh, I'm trying to find, find the acreage on that, how big it is. But you can, you can hike around the lake. It's an undeveloped lake. And then there's, uh, actually, uh. A couple, uh, trails, longer distance trails that will bring you out to the water. Yeah. So you can do kind of like these, uh, from lake, you know, lakes to the shoreline.

Um, so that's a lot of fun too. You can get some, you can, it's fairly easy just to go around the lake in that area. Actually can't go all the way around Lake, but there's trails around. That's pretty, pretty. Um. Um, where level, you know, it's not too Yeah. But if you, if you wanna gain, and it's really wide too, very wide too.

It's old, old road. That's the kind of trail that I could do with my broken shoulder. Exactly. Yeah. But I would not with a broken shoulder, go down to close beach or, because you have some elevation there. Yeah. It could be a little slippery in the mud and it's kind of rocky and narrow or, yeah. Yeah. So that's, but again, with kids as far as young kids or, or, or you know, people with, you know, just don't have the abilities.

You up there, there's, there's several miles of trails that just make wonderful strolls, uh, at ga and I, I actually. Hiked that trail with an out of town friend on Black Friday last year. And so, yes, it was winter, but it was a holiday. The ferry was very busy and we saw six people see Yeah. All day. That's one of the best time I, yeah, I love exactly, you know when you go to these places and people aren't there, so the gasoline is 440 acres.

So that's a pretty good, pretty good s uh, yeah. Good, good size park. Uh, yep. On the island there. Uh, and again, uh, you want another very large, uh, hiking area with actually even more trails is the Grand Forest Park. Yeah. I dunno if you've been there. And Grand Forest, I believe, was a DNR property way back in the day.

Uh, so it was logged, but it's logged a long time ago. So the trees there are, um, they're, they're, they're mature. Second growth, there's some really, really pretty trees, but again, it's another place you can spend all day. Um. Hiking there. It's also, it's a great place for running. I, I find the trails, uh, well groomed, connected, so you can, you can definitely get some good training there.

There, there's some hills there. There's some open meadow in there. And also it ties into this across island trail that's not complete yet. There's some parts of roads in there, but, but there are parts where you can, you can use it. Uh, it's, it's um, the forest to sky trail and you can, um. Connect to other areas in Bainbridge.

Um, several large parks, but yeah, there's a large, large meadow area on, on, uh, the grand forest. So on a nice sunny day, sunny winter day, get up there, enjoy that. But if it's a rainy day, those that, those mature trees are gonna keep you well sheltered as well.

Totally. Yeah, those are some great ones. I mean, this feels really unfair because all the trails on Bainbridge are amazing, and I feel like no one knows about them. Yeah. Do you think we're gonna get hate mail? Someone's like, Hey, ba, why did you tell people about. No, I don't think so.

That has happened to me a couple times, 

but Oh yeah. Always have. Not if we send 'em over to your bistro afterwards. To your bookstore or to you. 

Exactly. 

You know? Um, no, you know, it's funny, I've been to these places many times 'cause, I mean, I've written about 'em and over there and I have not found them crowded.

And I've been there in the summertime. The wintertime, uh, I think we've talked about this before. One of the ironies, particularly in the summertime, um. Is that I find a lot of these close trails places like less crowded than the back country. Totally. Everyone's heading up. I 90, I, I spent a lot of time in Kitsap this past summer 'cause I'm working on updating my, my, my Urban Trails book.

So looking at, and I was amazed at, uh, how few people that I, that I saw a lot of these places. Uh, never crowded, never ever crowded. Yeah. Now granted, I, I wasn't out there on the weekends, but still on sunny summer days. Um, plenty of space. Yeah. And, and, and did and certainly didn't feel like I was a half hour ferry away from Seattle.

Yeah. One other place. Uh, I don't know that it's exactly a hike, but that I wanted to mention for Bainbridge. You can make it a hike, but, um, is Fort Ward? 

Fort Ward is one. It is, 

yeah. So 

it's part of, it's an old military installation. 

Yep. 

It was a Washington State Park for a while and now it belongs to the city.

Um, yes. Of Bainbridge Island, but there's a, a closed road. That you can hike along the water, you can bike it. Uh, but there's a, a loop. You can actually do a, a great loop hike there. Uh, yeah, really nice. You can visit all batteries. The, the, uh, the views are incredible from the, the water A across, uh, rich passage.

Yeah. Over towards, uh, Southworth, that area. 

See, you see the ferries going? 

Yeah. The ferries going to, to Bremerton. Um, you see Mount Rainier, it's, it's really spectacular. It's, and there's a lot of military history there too, because it's one of the oldest military installations because it was there along with Manchester on the other side to protect.

Bremerton because of the naval yards and everything. Yep. Like that. So there's a lot of history there. Uh, and, and still some of the, the officers buildings are there. Some of the batteries are there. But what's even cooler than that is that you can hike from Fort Worth. All the way to, to Port Blakely. 

Yeah.

And there, and it's a, a fairly new park there. That was fascinating place. It was a company town there. It was, it was one of the early lumber, uh, lumber town that brought a lot of people, uh, immigrants and people from back east that moved out here brought a lot of the, the original, the Japanese population.

Uh, Bainbridge had a very, very large Japanese population, um, that came over. That worked there. And then a lot of those Japanese, um, and Japanese Americans after the next generation, they went into, into, um, uh, farming in the, in the area, um, very, very well established until 1941. And, and so when things changed there, the, the very first Japanese Americans interned in World War II were from Bainbridge Island.

Yeah. 

And they were put at Eagle Harbor. There was 200 and over 200 of them sent there to Puyallup. To the fairgrounds. 

Yeah. 

Uh, we lost, got on a train and then down to the desert in California and to Idaho. You can visit this now. This is part Yeah. Of the Pritchard. Uh, outside of the, the Pritchard Park is, um, it's part, it's a National Park Park site.

Yeah. Uh, uh, to visit It is very, very sobering. Uh, yeah. Especially, um. It's gonna hit hard if you, you visit now during this time when we have some questionable things going on with people being attracted Yeah. And disappeared. 

Yeah. 

Uh, and, and, and realize that this can happen to any of us. Yeah. And, and be very, very careful, you know, uh, you know, about what you support.

Uh, but the whole thing, the ba you know, the ba the, the Bainbridge Island, uh, American Exclusion Memorial. Uh, very, very touching. Um, yeah. I would say it was 243, I believe. Um, 276, 276. Um, people of all different walks of life. Um, yeah, different age. I mean, they're all Japanese Americans, but different walks, you know, their backgrounds, um, right.

Their whole livelihoods. Were urp here and you can, you can visit this park. There's a, a great. Area you can hike next to it and then it, it, it a joint. This is a national park service site. Yep. Um, there's an, you know, there's an interpretation center there and some, a beautiful memorial. Yeah. Um, so yeah.

Make it a point to visit this. Absolutely. 

And I don't know if you knew this, Craig, but I learned recently that they're building a new, bigger visitor center 

there. 

They're, 

yeah. 

I was just out there this 

summer and just talking to Yes, they're, they're building a new visitor center up there. 

Yeah. Right now 

it's pretty small.

Yeah, but it's still an awesome, I mean, it's, it's a really dark period in our history. Um, so it's not like something that you do necessarily for fun, but I think it's just so important for all Americans, especially those of us on the West coast, to, to know this story of what. What we did to Japanese Americans during the war.

I think that's a really important, like you said, especially now Yeah. That we're aware of, of our legacy of things that we've done in the past. Um, yeah. So that is, that is a great place. I totally agree with that. Um, 

no, I, I, on a, on a, on a lighter note, um, you might not know this, but it borders the Pritchard Park.

Which was named after a, a politician, um, here in Washington, Joel Pritchard, who was a longtime GOP statesman from Seattle. He, uh, he was a state lieutenant governor, US congressman. He was from Bainbridge Island originally, but. What he was perhaps most famous for, Jenny. Uh, it's, it's, it's a craze now. It's crazy.

Do you wanna take a guess? So what, what he is credited of being the founder of, 

I feel like it has to be 

pickleball. It's pickleball, it's pickleball. So all those things he did as a congressman, this was a 

craze. I'm like, or this is a craze. I don't, it has to be pickleball. 

Yeah, it's pickleball that started here in Washington.

It started, um, on Bainbridge Island. There's, there's some. Conflicting theories on how it got its name and everything. But basically it's, it's our, it's, it's our homegrown sport here. Uh, and maybe people are cursing us for it too. Who knows? But that was back in 1965. So do you think we should have a 50th, uh, 60th anniversary?

I'm losing track. 60th anniversary of the pickleball. 

Absolutely. Yeah, 

so you can 

for sure. 

So, so Pritchard has a, a park named after him now. Um, and that was also, uh, really interesting. It, it's, it's a super fun site too. There was, uh, they're cleaning up right now, but some really nice beaches in that area.

But there was, um, you know, industrial activity on Bainbridge before it became a Tony little suburb. Um, and so they're cleaning up now. But one of the neat things about that park too, it's at the, the, the kind of the entrance of Eagle Harbor and all that. The view of the Seattle skyline is spectacular.

It's, uh, from that park. 

Yeah. 

So, so definitely check, check that out. 

Yeah. Love that. I think. Okay. So, you know, these are some awesome trails, but literally this is only the beginning. There's so many more. Oh, 

there's 

so, there's so many. And Craig, several in my book in Urban Hiking, Kitsap. Book. Yeah, definitely check out and then go to all of them.

Yeah. 

Um, okay, so Craig, one thing you talked about is like all the like small local businesses and restaurants on. Bainbridge Island, and most of them, not all, but most of them are like right there by the ferry. So even if you didn't 

wanna hike Windlow. Yeah. Yeah. Little area of windlow. So, right. See, if you come out just walking on or bringing your bike again, there's really no, if you live in Seattle or have public tr, you know, Linwood and you area, you could public transportation.

You don't need to bring your car. There's, there's really no, no reason to be a car. You can get around, you can walk right through Winslow and there's some parks and trails there. Yeah. You wanna get out a little farther? Short bike ride to get like, you know, Eagle Harbor. Um, the Pritchard Park is just a couple miles from Winslow.

Yeah. So, and Bainbridge is, is pretty bike friendly too. A lot of people bike, there's a lot of bike lanes, couple roads you wanna avoid. But most, most of it, it's, it's pretty bike friendly. Um, 

yeah. So do you have any favorite restaurants or. Spots there on Bainbridge Craig? 

Well, the bakery. And why am I, uh, I'm, I'm not thinking of the name of it right now.

I have to look 'cause it's been a while since stopped in 

there. Well, there's two, there's 

um, yeah. One, right, right. Downtown Winslow. 

There's the Blackbird Bakery. 

The one thank the one you're thinking of. That's the thank. Yeah. 

That's the one. That's right. Downtown. 

The Blackbird. 

It's great. 

Yep. 

Yeah. 

Yep. What about you?

Well, um, I also really like the, the Blackbird Bakery. The Streamliner Diner is a really great breakfast spot. I, I've been 

by it. I have not 

been there. Yes. Yeah. I thought that's, it's great for that. I think also, um, man, there's a lot of great things. Proper fish is a pretty great fish and chip spot. Nice. Um, if you want like more of a sit down restaurant, like kind of in the casual style, there's the Bainbridge Brewing Alehouse, but there's also.

There is an Italian restaurant, Craig, 

now you're talking, 

uh, well, it's, um, it's called Bru. Ciao. Is that how you pronounce it? 

I, I have to see how it's spelled to tell you what. 

Okay. B-R-U-C-I-A-T-O. 

Bruto. Yeah, that sounds 

bruto. Okay. Thank you Craig Ano, um, they have, um. Like wood fired pizza. 

Mm. Nice. 

Just pretty fun.

Yeah. Anyway, there's lots of great places on Bainbridge. Yeah. I'll also say, um, something that's kind of interesting and I feel like people generally don't know about Bainbridge, is that there are like five wineries on Bainbridge Island. 

Yeah, that's a good point. People could, because even though may think of it as suburban, there are.

Not large, but you know, 10 20 acre plots here and there. Yeah. And I, and I didn't mention, you're talking about the wine. Another place well worth visiting. It's, it's a private reserve. You can hike is the blow Dell. Yeah. Um, and, and it, you know, it's, it's a non-profit gardens spectacular. It's beautiful open year round.

Yep. It's, it's pretty reasonable to price to get in there. And I think they have some free days too, uh, that you, you know, that you can get in. But, um, spring time's a spectacular time Oh yeah. To begin with. The Rends and Zaius. Yeah. But, uh. Yeah, you definitely wanna check that out as well. 

Yeah, for sure. Um, and you know, in addition to, uh, like you were saying Craig, you know, with wineries, there's also, you know, a lot of wineries in Western Washington use grapes from Central and Eastern Washington.

Mm-hmm. Of course. But there is one, the Bainbridge Island Winery, that's an estate winery. So I learned from them when I visited that. That means. If it's in a state winery, that that means that the grapes are grown on the property. 

Sure. That would make sense. 

That's what I'm saying. Yeah. And I'm So that's kind of cool, like grapes that are actually grown on the island.

It's not, it's not in Winslow, so you do have to drive to get there, but it's not very far. It's cool. Yeah. And then one other thing I wanted to, you know, wanted to just mention about Bainbridge, even though I could like. Talk about many other things as well is, um, kind of revisiting, like what you said about history.

There's a lot of history on the island. There's also, um, it's just off the island, but if you have a car, well, you could also take a bus there, but, oh, to 

um, 

to 

Seattle. 

Yeah, so Chief CELs grave, um, who Seattle is named for 

Yep. 

Is um, like just across the Eggitt Pass Bridge and also the Suquamish Museum is just a couple blocks away from that.

And so that's also kind of a cool thing for Seattleite, especially to check out. 

I have a whole chapter, uh, in my book this Urban, because I do little sidebars on history and culture, and I have a whole thing on, on Chief Selfs grave there. Um, yeah. And you, and, and the tribal center is definitely worth it to, to check it out.

And it's only probably a mile north of that bridge. Yep. Yep. 

Cool. Well, this is great. I am excited about. Going to Bainbridge. Not that it takes much for me to get excited about it, but it's fun to talk about. Thanks, Craig. 

Yeah, you're very welcome. 

See y'all next week.

 If you are enjoying the Washington State Hiking Podcast, Craig and I would love to have you leave us a rating and a review that helps other people find us. And if you wanna support us financially, you can leave us a tip through the show notes. No account, no commitment, nothing like that. Thank you so much for listening and see you next week.  

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Jennie Thwing Flaming

Host
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Craig Romano

Co-host