1922 Deception Pass Land Becomes a State Park [6]“The Deception Pass area was recognized in the middle of the nineteenth century for its potential as a location to defend against an enemy wishing to enter Puget Sound. The federal government set aside about 1700 acres of land on both sides of the Pass as a …
Tag Archives: Deception Pass State Park
Traversing the Tursi Trail
A pair of butterflies (possibly Papilio rutulus) fluttered along beside me as I neared the Tursi Trail head along Donnell Road on Fidalgo Island a few weeks ago. As I began my hike along the dusty trail, a garter snake slithered off to safety. Thimble berries and trailing blackberries lined the primitive path during the first …
Leave it to Beavers
Hear that sound? It’s a call to action for North America’s largest rodent to make it stop: running water. Of all of the species of rodents in the world, Castor canadensis is second in size only to Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris, the capybara. My curiosity about this creature began while I was running. During a morning trail …
Eaglemania
Bald eagles are found only in North America. In Washington state, “The early summer bald eagle population when white settlers first arrived in Washington may have been around 8,800…Persecution, the cutting of forests, commercial exploitation of salmon runs, and finally the use of DDT reduced the state’s population to only 104 known breeding pairs by 1980…The population …
North Beach, West Beach and Cranberry Lake at DPSP
There are several locations within Deception Pass State Park that a person could spend an entire day: Bowman Bay, Cornet Bay, and Rosario Beach (plus the satellite sites: Kikutali Preserve, Dugualla State Park and Ben Ure Island), but most folks wanting to check out the “4,134-acre marine and camping park with 77,000-feet of saltwater shoreline, and …
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Rosario Beach, Head and Tide Pools at Deception Pass State Park
Shh…Don’t tell anyone. Arrive on any non-summer-visitor-rush day at Rosario Beach and you will likely be alone. I know, right? Unfortunately, most folks must visit during the summer months, which are also awesome, as long as you don’t mind sharing. And I don’t. First, the tide pools, also known as the Urchin Rocks, for reasons …
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Scrapy Sounds, Stinky Smells and…Serenity
If my same-size sister and I had known that the canoe our neighbors agreed to loan us weighed nearly as much as one of us, we’d have handled things differently. Our plan: to lift, load and transport the dark green Coleman X Scanoe to our destination seven miles away: Cornet Bay, part of Deception Pass State …
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Wild About the Islands’ Flowers
Two years ago, I came upon a plant while doing what else, running, on the Lighthouse Point trail in Deception Pass State Park. I had never seen the flower before but suspected it was an orchid. I was right. It was a Calypso bulbosa, common name: Fairy slipper orchid. From that day forward, this plant …
Spend the Day at Bowman Bay
Bowman Bay is one of several great locations within Deception Pass State Park where a person, couple, family or group could easily spend an entire day. Others include Cornet Bay, West Beach, North Beach and Pass Lake. According to the Deception Pass Park Foundation site, “Before receiving its modern name, Bowman Bay was known as “Reservation …
Visiting Kukutali Preserve
I’ve studied the Deception Pass State Park map many times in order to prepare for trail runs and hikes, envying Kukutali Preserve (Kiket Island) visitors because indicated below the name is this disappointing phrase, “access by reservation only.” Fortunately, as of last spring, the note no longer applies. According to information available at the Kukutali Preserve link on …
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