The Pacific Northwest Trail: Anacortes to Coupeville

Описание: A three day adventure exploring the Pacific Northwest Trail in Washington, hiking from ferry terminal to ferry terminal through the Puget Sound. I begin the journey in Anacortes, disembarking from the San Juan Islands route and walking south through quiet neighborhoods to join the PNT at Cranberry Lake. From here, the trail winds through community forest-lands on Fidalgo Island, eventually reaching Deception Pass State Park, with its remarkable fern speckled cliffs and high-perched bridge. After crossing to Whidbey Island and camping on a busy Memorial Day weekend, I continue to hike south following white-lined road shoulders through farmland and past a military base. Finally the trail meets the western shore of the island and joins the beach; waves greet me below towering bluffs and seabirds jostle endlessly with each other over the tidelands. I hike on to Fort Ebey State Park, then further still to Fort Casey, the smell of sand and salt and sulfur all around. Damp clouds and golden sunlight tangle across the sky in a spiral. Before long, the Coupeville ferry terminal comes into view, where the adventure comes to an end.

In moving to a remote archipelago in a corner of the Pacific Northwest this past year, it felt important to explore the place I now call home. What at first glance seems an unremarkable section of the PNT (when compared to the snow-covered peaks of the Cascades or the wild coast along the Olympic Peninsula) in fact offers a chance for true adventure. I often find the most profound part of hiking lies not with the breathtaking, but in the simple joy of being out there, of not quite knowing what may be around the next bend. Any walk, anywhere, has that limitless potential to change one’s day, one’s life. In this way, to step foot onto a path is perhaps the most human of endeavors.