Ebey's Landing on Whidbey Island is part of Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve, a year-round favorite of hikers. In addition to scenery that drenches the senses, the reserve provides historical background with interpretive signs describing early explorations of the region and the Native Americans who lived on Ebey's Prairie before settlers arrived.
The reserve is a puzzle of interlocking pieces of federal, state, county and private property managed so the region's historical essence is not lost.
Ebey's Landing is protected by the heralded rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains and by several land-management agencies, including The Nature Conservancy, the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife, Washington State Parks and others, which are helping to restore rare plants and remove non-native species such as English ivy and gorse.
You also will find a cornucopia of other parks within or near the reserve, including Fort Casey State Park, Fort Ebey State Park, regional parks and other historical sites and landmarks.
Perego's Lagoon and Ebey's Landing are the favorite of most everyone who has ever hiked on the island -- a 3.5-mile loop with sweeping views of the Olympic Peninsula, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Mount Rainier (on a clear day).
The reserve is home to unusual plants, including golden paintbrush, a rare Indian paintbrush known to exist in only a few sites, and the brittle prickly pear cactus (Optunia fragilis). This hike also gives visitors a good opportunity to watch for gray whales, eagles and seabirds. Look for scoters, hooded mergansers and harlequin ducks near Perego's Lagoon, and alligator lizards, another unusual inhabitant.
Begin the loop from the beach or from a trail that climbs to windswept bluffs, where the trail skirts the edge of a lowland Douglas fir forest as it winds along tawny bluffs overlooking Perego's Lagoon and a beach that can be walked for miles when the tides are right. Without having to move your car, you can extend the loop by including a side trip to Sunnyside Cemetery, a pioneer burial ground.
The landing was our starting point for this Mountaineers club hike led by Gregg Pilgreen. The tide was going out, so we headed north along the beach toward Perego's Lagoon, one of the least-disturbed coastal wetlands in Washington.
You also can hike closer to the tide line, where the lagoon is bordered by driftwood of various shapes and sizes. Let your imagination go and conjure fearsome or magical shapes cast up by the sea. One piece of driftwood looked like a crocodile. Great root balls have floated from afar and come to rest, and artistic hikers have enhanced some of these root monsters with stones and pretty shells.
On this cold November day, it was hard to tell where fog ended and water began. Mats of kelp drifted toward shore as armadas of waterfowl patrolled the shoreline. The mournful toots of foghorns accompanied us the entire day, as the fog never lifted. Though the expansive views were obscured, we were not disappointed, for there were views at our feet.
The beach was a colorful kaleidoscope of boulders, seaweed, driftwood, kelp and stones of every shape, size and color imaginable. We marveled at the intricate stone designs, some so smooth they seemed polished, others rough conglomerates sparkling with minerals -- a geological candy store. Some were jade green, others rose-colored, others obsidian black with a white blaze running through like a bolt of lightning -- no two alike. In contrast, great yellow coils of kelp lay on the beach like knotted and tangled ropes.
In about 1 3/4 miles, we'd reached the north end of the lagoon, where a trail climbs to the bluffs for hikers making the loop. Instead of hiking the usual loop, Pilgreen made a figure eight by continuing along the beach toward Fort Ebey State Park. The topography grew wilder as crumbling sandy bluffs towered above us and footing became awkward where the beach was covered with seaweed and kelp. Hiker John Walenta described the crumbling bluffs as "sandalanches," as they resembled snow avalanches with their alluvial fans.
It was about another 3/4-mile or so to the "notch" Pilgreen described, where another trail climbs to the bluffs. About half way between the beach and the bluffs, Pilgreen pointed out the brittle cactus, though at first we thought he was joking. The cactus is not one you'd want to touch, with its large spines and broad, fleshy stems.
Trails lead toward the heart of Fort Ebey State Park, which originally was built as a coastal defense in World War II. Concrete gun platforms and bunkers remain from 1942.
The park includes three miles of saltwater shoreline, several miles of hiking and mountain-biking trails. Though it wasn't picnic weather, several picnic tables can be found throughout the park, including the Gun Battery Beach Area, Point Partridge and Lake Pondilla. Other trails with enticing monikers -- Cedar Hollow, for one -- extend into lands around the park.
The region inside and near the park is known for its "kettles," a geologic term for large depressions left in the earth by receding glaciers. A network of trails winds through the kettle lands that abut the park, but we didn't have time to explore them.
After viewing the gun batteries and bunkers, we hiked to the park's main entrance and followed a short trail to Lake Pondilla, one of the largest "kettles" in the region. To that point we had hiked about five miles and were ravenous, so we bundled up and spread out our lunches at the picnic tables near the lake.
Pilgreen mentioned that he'd frequently observed considerable wildlife in the park, more so than in the mountains, but we still were surprised when five river otters swam out of the reeds to cavort on the other side of the lake. It was a privilege to watch them at play as they dove, throwing up plumes of water and submerging, only to pop up again a few feet away. They vanished as quickly and as silently as they came.
We headed back toward the bluffs, hiking past the Point Partridge beacon, and dropped down to Point Partridge Beach to head south, back toward Ebey's Landing. This gave us an opportunity to hike a stretch of beach most of us had never explored, and we were treated to more "sandalanches" and gargoyles of driftwood. We passed the "notch" at the north end of Perego Lagoon and climbed the trail to the bluffs to complete our figure eight.
This stretch follows the edge of the grassy bluffs, with windswept trees on one side and the lagoon on the other. The lagoon, sea and the sky were a cold gun-metal gray, and there were still no views other than the colorful checkerboard of Ebey's Prairie and the trailhead at Ebey's Landing, about 1/4-mile away.
We were not quite ready to end the hike, so we followed a grassy one-mile path along the fence toward Sunnyside Cemetery. The trail jogs sharply to the right and then left to avoid private property before turning left to enter the cemetery. There is also a bench placed midway along the path for an overlook of Ebey's Prairie, site of a once-upon-a-time glacial lake.
Sunnyside is a pioneer cemetery with burials dating to the mid-1800s. Native American tribes lived on the prairie for thousands of years and were the first to establish the burial ground. According to custom, they usually interred their dead in chests or canoes up in trees, but that custom was abandoned within a decade after the first white settlers arrived.
Headstones date back to the 1850s, though the first actual burial at the site was in 1865 -- the others were disinterred elsewhere and brought here for reburial. Those lying here include Isaac Ebey, a lawyer and the island's first settler. He chose the prairie as a homestead because of its beautiful setting overlooking Admiralty Inlet and the Olympic Mountains. During the Indian Wars of the 1850s, Ebey was killed by Haida Indians in retaliation for an ambush made upon their people by whites.
The historical Davis Blockhouse can be found here. It's one of many such structures built in the mid-1800s to provide refuge in event of attack by Native Americans.
We wanted to linger to read more headstones, but dusk was descending and it was time to head back. Walking several miles on a beach of wet sand, seaweed and stones is just as hard on the feet as hiking in the mountains and, by the time we got back to the cars, it was a relief to get our boots off and fumble with cold hands for that thermos of hot coffee.
If you go
- Getting there -- Catch the state ferry from Mukilteo to Clinton or drive around via Deception Pass on the north end of the island.
For the ferry: From Seattle, take Interstate 5 north and get off at Exit 182 for state Route 525 and follow signs to the ferry landing. From Clinton, take Route 525 north (it eventually becomes state Route 20). Continue through Coupeville on Route 20 and take the first left after the pedestrian overpass, onto Ebey Road. Continue straight -- do not take the curve to the left. As you approach the water, the road descends to the right to trailhead parking and a restroom on the right side of the road (no fee).
To drive around: Go north on I-5 past Mount Vernon to Exit 230 (state Route 20. Exit there and turn left at the light and continue on state Route 20 for about 15 miles. Near Anacortes, turn left at the sign for "Oak Harbor, Whidbey Island, Deception Pass" and continue on state Route 20 about 20 miles. As you approach Coupeville, turn right on Ebey Road (if you get to the pedestrian overpass, you've gone too far). Proceed as above. It is about two hours from Seattle.
- Trail data -- Ebey's Landing, 3.5 miles round trip (loop), about 200 feet elevation gain.
From Ebey's Landing to Point Partridge (including the two-mile round-trip hike to the cemetery), we estimate it is about 10 miles round trip, with about 250 feet of elevation gain.
- Information -- Refer to "Hiking the San Juan Islands" by Ken Wilcox (Northwest Wild, 224 pages, $13.95) or "Walks and Hikes on the Beaches Around Puget Sound" by Harvey Manning and Penny Manning (Mountaineers, 270 pages, $14.95). Call Washington State Parks at 360-902-8844 or visit their Web site at:
http://www.parks.wa.gov/parkpage.asp?selectedpark=Fort%20Ebey [1]. - For additional human and natural history of the region, here are some interesting Web sites:
* The Nature Conservancy -- nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/washington/preserves/art6824.html [2]
* National Park Service -- www.nps.gov/ebla/ [3]
* Sunnyside Cemetery -- www.sunnysidecemetery.org/ [4]
Karen Sykes, West Seattle resident and avid hiker, has been traveling Northwest trails for 25 years and is the author of "Hidden Hikes in Western Washington." She can be reached via e-mail at: hikes4life@yahoo.com.
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