Back in September a special friend from CA visited. We took a trip over to Fidalgo island, to tour around Anacortes. A simple 35 min ferry ride and about 45 minute drive delivered us to a neat little park I hadn’t been to called Sharpe Park.
A short walk (about a mile?) takes one to Sares Head overlook, 300′ above the water. Here, a pano photo looks across the Sound to the Olympic Mountains, over on my side of the water. The two smaller islands in the foreground, I believe, are Allan and Burrows. The San Juan Islands are the darkest in color in the background.
The San Juans, an archipelago of islands, were carved out by glaciers 18,500-10,000 years ago. Inching down from the British Columbia Mountains, Pleistocene glaciers ground south to somewhere around Tacoma, WA. This rounded out the land and carved out straits and fjords which all run parallel to the flow of the glaciers. Oddly, our “Hood Canal” is actually a fjord. These glaciers were up to 1/2 mile thick!
What’s unique about this little stretch of coastline is its exposure to the ocean, naked to the elements and exposed, high up, above even the snags the eagles perch on. This is not usually the case.
The Olympics’ silhouettes melting into the clouds across the way.
This is a fine little park to explore. I saw just a small part. Looking forward to returning.
The Knitting Nurse 