Lime Kiln State Park — Wednesday, Apr. 17, 2013

Puget Sound and Islands > San Juan Islands

We had Lime Kiln State Park to ourselves on this mid-week visit in April. In summer there would be hordes of tourists with binoculars pressed to their faces, scanning the water for whales. No whales today, so we headed north to the lighthouse and past to the old lime kiln. The lime kiln is an impressive structure, and it's easy to envision the workers stoking the fire to 2000 degrees and tossing in football sized chunks of limestone. The boat backed up to a long-gone dock and hauled away the finished product. The kids most enjoyed a small beach below the lime kiln, where a cliff-face, now weirdly white with limestone run-off, extends down to the water. There's an unusual bright green algae that has formed on the beach, which must be caused in part by the lime. We made the trail a loop and headed back on a different trail to the upper parking lot and then down to where we parked by the restrooms. And incidentally, these have to be the sweetest smelling outhouses that I've ever encountered. They are composting toilets, and all I could smell was cedar. Now only if State Parks was funded well enough to turn the water on and/or provide hand sanitizer.