Deception Pass State Park 5/19/07
“No other spot in the northwest, and perhaps the nation, offers a more pleasant combination of marine, forest and mountain environments.”
This park gets a rare “10 ” rating in Pacific Northwest Hiking by Judd
& Nelson. It was a great place for a Navigation hike/field trip.
The park is split into 4 parts by roads and bodies of water. We
sampled 3 of the parts: Goose Rock peninsula, North beach, and
Bowman bay. We also split our class of 27 students into 3 parts to spread them out a
bit. Starting cold and windy, but not wet, the day proceeded to get
better and better with some sun, variable clouds, the wind dying down,
and the temperature rising to almost 60. We hiked, stopped to do
compass bearings, hiked more , did more exercises , etc ......
Lunch was in the ampitheater at the end of North beach where the
students took a written test and did map work. Our most striking scenery came at the end of the day on the Lighthouse Point trail
in Bowman Bay. All trails were in good condition with no washouts
and downed trees cut and moved.
FLORA: Some flowers were in the forest, some in sunny openings, and
some on the rocky summit of Goose Rock. By color:
White: saskatoon, wild strawberry, bramble, thimbleberry,
foamflower, death camas, cow parsnip, small flowered alumroot
Yellow: sedum, wooly sunflower
Orange: indian paintbrush, honeysuckle vine
Blue: sweet pea, larkspur, camas
Purple: naked broomrape
Pink: starflower, rhodadendron , hookers onion
Some of these are common only to the San Juan islands area.
Five were new for me. I didn’t get many photos since I left my
good camera in the car because of the threatening rain in the
morning. Minature point and shoot came along in a safe
pocket so I wasn’t totally shut out.
Stats: 7 miles, 600 ft. gain
Robert Michelson