San Juan Islands with Backroads

Previous: Lewiston/Clarkston & Lake McMurray

 

Our hiking trips with Backroads have been terrific, and the San Juan Islands was no different.  With Backroads, we first did Alaska in 2018, then Scotland in 2019, and in 2021 we did a 6-day trip to the San Juan Islands and Olympic National Park.  We made some good friends along the way, but none better than John, Ann, Charlie, and Luise.  We have been together on these trips since we met on the Alaska trip.

Backroads trip leaders have been consistently great in terms of knowledge, friendliness, coordination, and flexibility.  Each day the trip leaders provide a one-sheet itinerary for the following day.  I have included a pic of each day’s itinerary.  The back of these sheets also includes some great insights on the history or other relevant nature on the things covered that day.  I only include here the front page, the itinerary itself, in very brief outline.  These are discussed with the group each day by the leaders in more detail.

July 11

San Juan Island

We met up with our Backroads leaders and our Backroads friends John, Ann, Charlie, and Luise at the Majestic Inn in Anacortes. The leaders loaded the Backroads vans with our luggage and we shuttled 5 minutes to the Anacortes ferry bound for San Juan Island. The ferry ride was smooth and provided good opportunity to catch up with our Backroads hiking pals who we hadn’t seen for two years because trips were cancelled the prior year due to COVID.

Upon landing via ferry, the Backroads leaders shuttled us to a short, easy hike so we could get a hike in before it got too late.  The 4-mile hike started at American Camp which is a National Historic Park on the southeastern point of San Juan Island, and we hiked to South Beach along the coastline of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The strait is part of Puget Sound, and the Canada/U.S. border line goes down its center, basically it divides Vancouver Island, Canada from Washington state. Beautiful views abound.

After the hike we shuttled to Friday Harbor, the hub of San Juan Island, and checked in to the awesome Friday Harbor House hotel. This is a swanky hotel in the middle of town and directly overlooking the harbor.

We had an excellent dinner on the hotel patio where we got to meet some of the other folks on the hiking trip, and then we enjoyed drinks on the front lawn with fire pits and a beautiful harbor view. Weather was perfect.

July 12

Orcas Island

We had breakfast at the Friday Harbor Inn with the Backroads hiking group, and then we went outside and packed a lunch from the lunch table items provided by Backroads.  Then to the ferry terminal within walking distance down town for a 30-minute private water taxi ride to Orcas Island.

The hike for the day at Moran State Park on Orcas Island was to the summit of Mount Constitution, the highest peak in the San Juan Islands.  This was a tough hike to start, with a bit of steep elevation, but overall not a very hard hike.  It was challenging in distance at 4 miles up the 2,000 feet of elevation, for a total of 8 miles.  We were treated to some fantastic vistas of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and snow-capped Mt. Baker in the distance. At the summit we had our lunch and enjoyed the scenery.

At the summit there was a cool stone tower to climb and explore.

After the hike we headed back to the awaiting water taxi.

Back at Friday Harbor we went in to town for dinner.  But, before dinner I enjoyed a jet-tub bubble bath in our room. Though, as I am not too familiar with bubble baths, I put just a tad too much bubble gel in the water and Emilie had to soon rescue me from the ever-growing blob of bubbles which were consuming me and the bathroom.

As with everywhere else this second summer of COVID, getting seats at a restaurant required patience.  We found only a 45-minute wait for a table for 6 at the good, but not great, San Juan Island Brewing Company where we could have beers in the beer garden while waiting for a table. The dinner was made more entertaining by our young server, who was very nice, but obviously very new at this kind of work and he was making some unintentionally comical errors with our order.  But the funniest thing was the very next morning when we went into a local gift shop and found our server behind the counter of the gift shop! He was much better at gift shop clerking.

We spent the end of our final night on Friday Harbor at the fire pit overlooking the harbor from the hotel.

July 13

Whidbey Island

Emilie and I woke up to our 30th wedding anniversary.  Hard to imagine a better place to be, or better people to be with!

After a great breakfast at the Friday Harbor Hotel, we left our bags outside our room for the Backroads leaders to gather and get onto the shuttle van for us.  We went into town to walk around and explore a bit before embarking on the ferry back to Anacortes, and shuttle to Whidbey Island, our final island destination (though not technically part of the San Juan islands it’s close enough for an amateur blog to include it).

The ferry arrived at Ebey’s Landing State Park on Whidbey Island around 1:00 P.M., and then embarked on the 3.5 mile Bluff Trail, a loop trail with some short-distance steep elevation gains, but nothing too difficult.  We got some great views of Puget Sound, and walked along the beach for the second part of the hike.

After our hike we shuttled to our hotel for the evening.  We stayed at The Inn at Langley, one of the finest boutique inns ever!   The room and the private balcony overlooking the Saratoga Passage (an off-shoot of Puget Sound) were top-notch.  This is where everybody should spend their 30th anniversary!

Before settling, I really needed an appetizer before dinner.  So, I walked to Sprinklz Ice Cream and Coffee Shop nearby in town.  I had noticed this place from the shuttle van on the way to the inn.  It did not disappoint. Lots of cool retro candy, too.  While I was getting ice cream, Emilie enjoyed a bath in the room. I have a picture of that but Emilie said I couldn’t use it for the blog. Trust me, she enjoyed it.

Our Backroads leaders had secured dinner reservation for us all at Prima Bistro just down the street from the inn. Between us all, we ordered everything on the menu, and it was all excellent.

 

After dinner, a relaxing night at the inn, then off to bed. A fantastic 30th wedding anniversary!

July 14

Emilie and I opted to do the early morning short hike before breakfast.  About half of the hiking group opted for this.  It was a very easy hike but the pacific northwest woods are usually pretty nice to walk through regardless of difficulty or length.  This hike took us to the Pacific Yew Trail in Saratoga Woods. This was so casual we didn’t need backpacks. The highlight was the Waterman Erratic, a huge moss-covered boulder smack in the middle of the forest.

Back at the Inn around 8:30 a.m. we were soon greeted by room service with our pre-ordered breakfast.  We ate our truly decadent breakfast out on our balcony before being pulled away kicking and screaming from the Inn at Langley. This ended our time on the San Juan Islands.

Next: Backroads Trip: Olympic National Park