I recently learned that there is a national scenic trail that practically goes past my house. The Pacific Northwest Trail was designated as a national scenic trail in 2009 and goes from Cape Alava, Washington, to Glacier National Park, Montana. I've decided to try to day hike as much of the Washington part of this trail as possible, starting with the section that crosses Whidbey Island, known as section 8. If you are interested in knowing where the trail is go to www.pnt.org and there are maps you can print out of the trail. The hike today was from map 08-09 and 08-08. I drove to the Coupeville Ferry and parked across the road. I hiked through the Fort Casey campground and took the walking trail up to Fort Casey. The map shows to just follow the beach, but I like the view from the top of the bluff. I continued past the lighthouse and took the trail back down to the beach. From there I followed the beach until I got to Ebey's Landing. I was the only person on the beach from Camp Casey to Ebey's Landing and I saw two bald eagles in this section, one sitting on a large rock on the beach and the other sitting on the bluff. I stopped to eat my lunch at Ebey's Landing. Ebey's Landing is one of the most popular hiking trails on Whidbey Island, and for good reason. As I sat eating I saw almost 20 people start up the bluff trail. I eventually followed them up. There are beautiful wildflowers along the trail right now and the views were stunning. When the trail descended back down to the beach I continued north. Once again I encountered no other hikers until I reached Fort Ebey State Park. This beach section was not as fun as it was mainly rocks, gravel and driftwood and the walking was difficult. You MUST hike this section during low tide ONLY. Be sure to consult a tide chart before doing this hike. At Fort Ebey I refilled my water bottles and gave the dog another drink. There is a very nice restroom facility a short ways up off the beach to the left. After resting awhile on a shady picnic table we set off back down to the beach and continued north up to Libbey Beach. Again, this is a LOW TIDE ONLY hiking section. We took the stairs and walked up to Libbey Beach Park. From there I walked home and dropped off the dog, and then I flagged down the #6 bus (public buses are free on Whidbey) on Libbey Road and rode it back down to the Coupeville Ferry and picked up my car. Estimated mileage today around eight miles. For me this took about six hours. Be sure to allow yourself enough time before the tide changes.

This was a short section of the Pacific Northwest Trail, now a National Scenic Trail. The trail is marked with white blazes, just like the Appalachian Trail. I started at the Squires Lake trailhead, which is a Whatcom County park. It's two miles north of Alger on Old 99. There were a couple of switchbacks up to the lake, then the PNT took off uphill in a southerly direction. At first the PNT was a trail with a few good views west. Then it followed some logging roads up past Little Baldy, then down to Cain Lake Road, coming out about a third of a mile east of Alger. I walked into Alger for lunch at the Alger Bar and Grille, which is very handily positioned! Then I retraced my steps back to Squires Lake. For a bonus I also walked the loop hike around the lake. Total about 8.5 miles, around 4 hours including lunch. Someone has been marking and maintaining this trail...thanks! You can find a good map of this trail section on the Pacific Northwest Trail web site, pnt.org.

This is a favorite loop hike this time of year. I took three holiday visitors hiking on Chuckanut Mountain. We started at the Samish Overlook, took the PNT to Max's Shortcut, went to Lily Lake and North Butte, went to the Oyster Dome and Bat Caves, and took the Samish Connector trail back to the Overlook. It's about a 6.5 mile loop. We encountered a dozen other hikers on the trail. It was raining on the way there, but it stopped when we started hiking. The fog was too thick for any views at North Butte, but we could see across the Sound at the Oyster Dome. It started raining again on the way home. Our timing was good. My friends from Utah enjoyed the hike and I had a good workout. That's good for my last (and 91st) hike of 2011. Happy Hiking New Year, Geezerhiker

With the hot weather we have been having lately, we were in the mood for a cool, shady forest hike to a lake. We had made plans for another hike, but Walks Ahead remembered skipping Oyster Dome and enjoying going to Lily Lake and Lizard Lake on Blanchard Hill/South Chuckanut Mountain last year. I have an excellent trail and road map available from Pacific Northwest Trail Association, PO Box 1817, Mount Vernon, WA 98273. Following this map, we took Exit 240 from I-5 to Barrel Springs Road going west and south and then turning left on Road B-1000, which has another designation; it might say Samish Overlook. You can continue on this road past the Lower Lily Lake trailhead (with toilets; N48 37.067 W122 22.804) and turn left at an intersection with Road B-2000 to the parking lot at Samish Overlook (N48 36.582 W122 25.562), enjoy the view of Samish bay, and hike from there. We, however, skipped this turn and kept going north at the intersection with Road B-2000 for a short distance to the Upper Lily Lake trailhead parking (no toilets; N48 37.006 W122 23.144, elev. 946'). From here we hiked 1.6 miles through cool, shady forest (the whole hike today was in cool, shady forest) to a junction with the Larry Reed Trail (unsigned) on the left. Stay right for 1.6 miles past some benches (where we stopped for a rest) until you come to a T junction with the Pacific Northwest Trail (PNT). Here you can go left to a junction to Lily Lake, but we continued right on the PNT for 0.6 miles to a junction with the Incline Alternate Trail to the right. Stay left. In 0.3 more miles we arrived at the entrance to the Lizard Lake horse and hiker camp (N48 37.856 W122 24.296, elev. 2092'). There is supposed to be a toilet here, but we didn't find it. We at first continued on the PNT to explore the length of the lake but returned to the horse and hiker camp, where we found a geocache under a tree stump, and, after looking at that and signing the log, we found a nice spot by Lizard Lake to have our lunch and work on the crossword puzzle. Lizard Lake has a lot of lily pads and gives the impression of being almost marshy in a lush, lovely way. It was late in the day, so we returned exactly the way we came. However, you can form a partial loop by following an obscure trail south from Lizard Lake to Lily Lake (on our trip last year, we followed the same obscure trail north from Lily Lake to Lizard Lake) or by going left on the PNT and continuing past the turnoff for Lily Lake on a section of the PNT known as Max's Shortcut, then left on the Larry Reid Trail to join up with the Lily Lake Trail back to the trailhead. The route we took afforded a good measure of solitude. On the way in, we encountered two couples, plus a cyclist at the lake. On the way out, we encountered no one.