2 Days and 2 Nights on Orcas Island (Moran State Park)
From Mt. Rainier National Park, we had planned to go to Orcas Island (part of the San Juan Islands just northeast of Seattle). At the motel in Ritzville a few nights ago, we reserved our ferry tickets online for the Washington State Ferries ($20 for the reservation fee). It’s recommended that you make a reservation to ensure your passage on a particular ferry, especially during peak season. The alternative is to travel stand-by, but we didn’t want to waste more time than necessary. The drive was about 4 hours from Mt. Rainier, and we needed to arrive to the Anacortes ferry terminal about an hour in advance of the ferry schedule as recommended online, so we planned accordingly. We paid for the ferry at the terminal, which was $70 (the ferry system only charges for westbound travel, so there was no fee on the way back). The ferry ride was about 1 hour and 15 minutes long; the first stop was at Shaw Island and then on to Orcas Island. Overall, an easy, pleasant experience.
We had also reserved a campsite at Moran State Park on Orcas Island when we booked the ferry tickets. It turns out this was unnecessary since we were now outside of peak season and there were plenty of available campsites. The drive from the ferry port to the state park was about 30-minutes and the park rangers were very nice and helpful. We had booked site #74 (but had the choice to switch if we wanted). While this site has a view of the lake, the main road through the state park sits between the campground and the lake, so it’s not really lake frontage. There wasn’t much traffic though due to off-season crowds, so we kept the site. There are a few other campgrounds in the park that are located on the lake side of the road, so these would be better, but were full when we were visiting. The park also had pay showers ($0.50/3 minutes), which we planned on using. Dinner tonight was cheeseburgers over the fire since we were both tired from the day’s travel.
Initially we had planned on hiking up Mt. Constitution, but we realized that you could also drive to the top and we chose the lazy option. The peak offers great 360-degree views looking out over the San Juan Islands! It was a little hazy in the morning, but we could still see out pretty far. I’m sure the sunset from here would be beautiful! From here, we checked out Buck Bay Seafood to see if we could get some fresh fish for dinner. They had delicious looking king salmon and halibut, as well as fresh oysters, clams, crab, and prawns. We decided to come back later and enjoy some oysters but did pick up some smoked salmon to eat immediately. The small town of Eastside is the largest town on the island and had a cute breakfast/lunch place called Wild Island, which served bagels that we paired with our smoked salmon! We relaxed here for a while before heading over to the west side of the island to see Deer Harbor, West Sound, and West Beach. This side was much quieter than the east side but could have been due to the off-season timing. We walked around Deer Harbor marina and got ice cream (cookies and cream and pecan praline) from Lopez Island Creamery. Both delicious! On the drive back, we stopped at the north trail parking lot in Turtlehead Preserve and hiked out to the North Valley overlook (only 1-mile round trip with some elevation gain). It felt good to move our legs, but this was by no means a strenuous hike. Afterwards, we headed back to Buck Bay Seafood for our oysters. Buck Bay has a shuck your own oyster policy – they give you the tools for shucking and there are nice picnic tables outside with a view of the bay. We got 2 dozen oysters, some prawns, and a couple beers – well worth it! We also got some halibut trim (much cheaper than the king salmon and halibut at only $16/lb) and made fish tacos for dinner.
We had booked a 12 pm ferry back to Anacortes the following day. Beforehand, we stopped at Wild Island again for some cheap bagels and coffee. The ferry experience was just as easy on the return trip, stopping at Shaw Island and then reaching Anacortes.
