Rachel and I used to open the kids’ camping season in May, when the days are long and the air is warm. As the kids have grown older and more robust, we’ve been moving up the opening each year. Lately, we’ve begun opening our camping season as early as mid-April.
It’s getting harder each year to find camping islands the kids haven’t already visited. For this year’s season opener, we spent the weekend on Skagit Island. I had camped here a couple times in years past, but it was a new island to Rachel and the kids.
Route map. Free overnight parking is available at Snee-Oosh Beach on the Swinomish Indian Reservation.
Currents in Skagit Bay are dominated by the nearby Deception Pass, site of Washington State’s fastest tidal rapids. It is wise to kayak Skagit Bay with the currents as opposed to against them, but even with the currents, an easy passage is not assured. Large, slow-spinning whirlpools form throughout the northern reaches of the bay, pushing and pulling kayakers off-course. We were fortunate to only encounter one such whirlpool on this trip.
Our route to Skagit Island took us past Hope Island, where Maya and I had previously camped with our friends, James and Chelsea. Although Hope is a larger island than Skagit, Skagit is the better island for hiking. The hiking trails on Hope Island have been deliberately limited to preserve that island’s unique, undisturbed dry-climate old-growth forest. On Skagit Island, an easy hiking trail wraps all the way around the circumference.
Rose riding in a kayak, riding in the car. Rose is one of the principal members of Maya’s dog pack, who accompany us on every kayak-camping trip.
Launching kayaks at Snee-Oosh Beach. I had harbored a faint hope of seeing a gray whale during the crossing, but the gray whales’ main foraging grounds are well to the south of here, and we did not see any on this trip.
Leon riding in kayak. Although Leon denied that he ever falls asleep in kayaks, he did, in fact, fall asleep in the kayak during the return paddle from Skagit Island.
Rachel and Leon arriving to Skagit Island. Conditions were calm during the outbound paddle, but on the return paddle, a five-knot beam wind kicked up enough chop to slop a few waves over our gunwales.
Mid-April may seem early in the season for purposes of camping, but it’s well into spring as far as the birds are concerned. With the exception of a single red-throated loon that was still in its transitional plumage, all of the birds we saw were in their full breeding plumages: common loons, red-breasted mergansers, pelagic cormorants, Bonaparte’s gulls, pigeon guillemots, and, most strikingly of all, horned grebes.
The horned grebes had sprouted magnificent yellow tufts on the sides of their heads and had ditched their drab black-and-white wintertime plumage for a dashing red-and-black. Regrettably, these new, glamorous grebes had also turned wary of humans. In wintertime, horned grebes are quite approachable by kayak, but as soon as they don their summer plumage, they turn shy and flush at the first sign of a kayaker’s approach.
Ashore, we discovered a rufous hummingbird nesting in a Douglas-fir next to our campground. The nest was some twenty feet (6 m) overhead. It was no larger than a walnut. We only noticed it because we saw the female hummingbird fly in.
Other land birds of note included red-breasted nuthatches, a hairy woodpecker and northern flicker, Pacific wrens, Oregon juncos, and my first orange-crowned warbler of the season. On the water, we saw half a dozen harbor seals, two California sea lions, and a single harbor porpoise. On the island, we found signs of deer and raccoons, but we did not see the animals themselves.
Common loon, Skagit Bay. One loon, unaware of our presence, surfaced right next to our kayaks, spotted us, and went thrashing away across the water in alarm.
Red-breasted merganser with fish, off Skagit Island. This was the most abundant seabird species of the trip.
Glaucous-winged gull with cockle, Skagit Island. The gulls would pick up clams from the beach, carry them into the air, and drop them upon the rocks to shatter them open.
Black oystercatcher, Skagit Island. This was the only shorebird species we saw this trip.
Rufous hummingbird nest, Skagit Island. The females are solely responsible for rearing the young.
In imitation of the gulls, the kids went down on the beach to look for shells. Whereas the gulls were able to pull up live clams after only a few minutes’ searching, we humans never did find a single live clam on the surface. We would have had to dig in the mud for our clams, because we found only broken or empty shells.
The beach did offer up many other objects of interest to the kids, including great colonies of Hemigraspus shore crabs hiding under rocks. Leon in particular was skilled at identifying rocks that were likely to harbor crabs, although he had to call in grown-up assistance to move the larger boulders.
The hiking trail around the island was too long and rugged for the kids. Rachel and I did make it all the way around and discovered a wonderful meadow on the south side of the island. Here was a steep, grassy slope bursting with wildflowers and mushrooms, including Pacific starflower, small-flowered penstemon, desert parsley, prairie star, sea blush, and both common camas and death camas, the latter indeed a deadly poison, especially to livestock.
Fairy slipper, Skagit Island. Sharp-eyed Rachel spotted this, the only orchid on the entire island.
Leon smelling madrone blossoms. The kids enjoyed peeling back the paper-like bark of this tree species, which is encountered only rarely at home in Seattle.
Maya in camp. Whenever the rain blew through, the kids would retreat to our giant, six-person tent to listen to audio books and play with their stuffed toys and action figures.
Leon running toward camp. Newly turned five years old, Leon now possessed speed and agility that made him nearly uncatchable.
Maya climbing rocks near camp. A few slips and falls on the rocks and a big stumble over a tree root in the forest were the only mishaps of the trip.
Leon collecting clamshells on the beach. The north side of the island offers the only easy landing location for kayaks.
Leon in sleeping bag, Skagit Island. Our arctic-weight down sleeping bags kept the kids toasty warm during an otherwise chilly April night.
Alex on Skagit Island beach. Kiket Island, in the background, is a recent acquisition by Washington State Parks, although the island is managed for day-use only, not camping.
Deception Pass seen from Skagit Island. Powerful tidal currents flow through the pass beneath the two bridges.
Skagit Island was perfect for a family-sized adventure: just a couple miles from the launch beach, large enough to offer hiking but not too large to explore, teeming with birds, and surrounded by beautiful views. It was only the first trip of the new camping season, but it will be a hard one to beat.
—Alex Sidles