On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
PaulB
Welcome to stage 10 of “Washington’s Ultimate Road Trip,” the Cascade Loop. Today, we’ll be spending a short time taking a look at Deception Pass, which connects Whidbey Island to Fidalgo Island and, hence, to the mainland. The reason it’s called Deception Pass, according to Wikipedia, is:
A group of sailors led by Joseph Whidbey, part of the Vancouver Expedition, found and mapped Deception Pass on June 7, 1792. George Vancouver gave it the name ‘Deception’ because it had misled him into thinking Whidbey Island was a peninsula. The ‘deception’ was heightened due to Whidbey’s failure to find the strait at first.
For this part of the trip, I was staying in Anacortes, at the northern tip of Fidalgo Island, having returned from a day trip to Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands the day before. I was heading south to Meerkerk Gardens on Whidbey Island, which you’ll see more of in a future post in this series.
Note: You can see full-size versions of these photos here.
This was my first view of the bridge, taken from the side of the road. It’s a beautiful spot and an often-photographed bridge, as a web search would demonstrate, should you be so inclined.
I stopped to take a closer look at the bridge, and to walk out on the bridge to get some pictures from the bridge itself. It’s a popular stopping place and the main parking spot near the southern end of the bridge is usually packed, with a dozen or more cars patiently waiting for someone to leave. I ended up pulling off to the side of the road, turning on my flashers, and rushing to take these pictures, hoping that I’d be able to return before I got a ticket. Thankfully, it worked.
There are walkways on both sides of the bridge and lovely views from both sides. This is the western side.
A look at the bluffs on Fidalgo Island.
And now the eastern side. The small island in the center of the photo is known as Strawberry Island, so named because, according to Wikipedia:
Charles Wilkes, during the Wilkes Expedition of 1838–1842, found wild strawberries on the island and gave it the name Hautboy, after the variety of strawberry. In time, the more common name Strawberry became official.
(A “hautboy” is also another name for an oboe. I kinda like the idea of an Oboe Island.)
There is an island, Pass Island, between Fidalgo and Whidbey Islands. The Deception Pass bridge connects Whidbey Island to Pass Island, and then Canoe Pass Bridge connects Pass Island to Fidalgo Island. This picture was taken on Pass Island.
From the eastern side of the bridge looking down at a seal in the water below.
I should add that the previous picture was taken at a magnification level that strained my phone’s camera. This is a picture of the same spot at a 1:1 magnification. The seal is barely visible as a small blot in the bottom center. The seal moved on just seconds after I took this picture.
raven
Ah, many moons ago I camped on Orcas Island before we did the Cascade Loop!
Winter Wren
Beautiful photos. I remember visiting 40 or so years ago. I took a similar picture of the bridge under-structure!
Wapiti
I was once on the bridge over Deception Pass when the tide was going out. It was an impressive flow of water. The water behind Whidbey Island had to go through the strait, and it had to do it in the next few hours (before it would turn around and go back up through the pass). Glancing at the internet, the flow is about 8 knots at peak flow.
PaulB
Thank you. Next up will be a visit to Greenbank Farm, and the lovely gardens adjacent to it, followed by a visit to Meerkerk Gardens, a stunning rhododendron garden. There was so much beauty everywhere on that last one, that I ended up with multiple OTR posts to cover it all.
hitchhiker
That bridge and the park around it was built under one of FDR’s 1930s programs, the CCC. On election day in 2020, we’d been living on Whidbey for just a couple of months, having built a little house and moved over from Seattle during Covid.
We spent election day driving up to the pass, where it was misty and beautiful, feeling so grateful and hopeful. Somehow we’d made it through. My friend Judy Bentley writes books about Washington history that are grounded in the hikes she’s still leading at almost 80 yrs old. There’s a chapter about Deception Pass that we read in writing group, in which she describes how a group of young men from Brooklyn came to the island, ready to work and more than that, ready to eat regular meals. They lived in tents while they built camps for themselves and then eventually the trails and picnic areas in the park. And the bridge. :)
Randal Sexton
Mt. Erie, on Fidalgo island has super stunning views – Including a nice view of Lake Campbell and Goodin island on that lake. Which always gets me thinking of the nesting of islands. Goodin Island is an island on a lake on an island. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursive_islands_and_lakes
I live on Lopez Island, which has a lake, but no island on it.
StringOnAStick
We’re headed to Whidby island the last week’s September for a music festival, so your hints about the area are quite appreciated!
SeattleDem
Looking down from the bridge during tide race, you see some pretty impressive eddies. The 8 knot current is the average across the small channel, in some places it is reversed and is some spots it can be a lot more than 8. Going through in anything but a white water kayak at peak flow is risky.
ab_normal
Delurking to say Mr. ab_normal crossed the Deception Pass bridge from below when he was young and dumb. Twice. Amazing he lived to pass on the daredevil genes :D