Such a great early morning, Christmas hike, no one was out except for me and my girl until we got back to the park. First time on this trail and I'll definitely be back. Beautiful views, different routes to choose from - very fun to explore. Easy trail but some of the cliffsides are quite narrow. Be careful :)

Today’s mountain forecast called for pouring rain and just-above-freezing temps. In addition, NWAC (http://www.nwac.us/) was showing considerable to high avalanche danger, which gave me a great excuse to stick to sea level and head to Deception Pass State Park. I did the route shown here: http://www.rainshadowrunning.com/uploads/2/6/1/4/26141050/9669597.jpg Even on an overcast day, the park is super scenic. The trails itself are in good shape. Not too muddy, although heavy rain over the next couple days will likely fix that. I ran into approximately half-dozen blow-downs; none were impassable. I've included a pic below of the worst one we encountered (we managed to get by just fine, even with the leash) That said, it was a very busy day at NAS Whidbey Island, and fighter jets were flying over every 10-30 minutes (not an exaggeration). I don’t think this is the norm, though, because I’ve been to Deception Pass State Park many times before and have never heard/seen so much air traffic. Last but not least, I somehow managed to escape the rain. I’m not really sure how that happened, as I hear it was pouring rain in Seattle all morning. But up at Deception Pass, it stayed dry until noon. Hooray! A few more details and pics here: http://evergreenendurance.com/2015/12/07/deception-pass-25k-course/

In a short space of time and in a relatively small hiking area you can experience a bit of solitude and quietness. Today, even the water was calm, nearly flat below the cliffs of the headlands. We saw kayakers and paddle boarders having an easy time of moving in and out of the many narrow inlets. It must have been a slack tide that made navigation easy this afternoon. Even though we met a few other hikers on the trails through madrona and salal forests the experience was of stillness and subtle images in an overcast light that brought out the colors in rocks, water and trees.

This is a great trail for families and kids. I wanted to get out but didn't wantba hard trail. Beautiful scenery, facilities, an easy hike

This is a great trail for families and kids. I wanted to get out but didn't wantba hard trail. Beautiful scenery, facilities, an easy hike