My wife, Rachel, and I gave our two kids, Maya and Leon, the choice of where to camp this weekend. The kids’ decision was unanimous: Wingehaven, a small strip of a park on the northern tip of Vashon Island.
I had been hoping for somewhere in the San Juan Islands, but a deal is a deal. The kids had their reasons for preferring Wingehaven. Maya wanted to see if the owner of a loose dog collar she had found on our previous visit had ever returned to claim the collar. Leon wanted to see if the toy dumptruck he remembered playing with two summers ago had been forgotten here. Wingehaven it was.
Route map. The ferry terminal offers free overnight parking uphill of the dock.
The most challenging part of the trip was the launch. There is a small concrete boat ramp at the ferry terminal, but the tide was so high we had to launch from the ramp itself rather than the beach, an unpleasant prospect. Barnacles growing on the ramp were a menace to our hulls. Breaking waves from boat wakes forced us into a wet and hasty loading procedure.
Prospects improved as soon as we shoved off from the ramp. The weather was hot, calm, and clear, a classic summer day. We handrailed the shore at a docile pace, chatting and singing.
Rachel and Leon kayaking off Vashon Island ferry terminal. There was only one ferry in service during our crossing to Vashon, which made for a long wait in West Seattle.
Alex and Maya kayaking off Vashon Island ferry terminal. The water was so shallow Rachel spotted a clump of splendid iridescent seaweed well offshore.
Leon kayaking off Point Vashon. Currents were negligible at all times.
Rachel kayaking past Mount Rainier. From the water, we could see Mount Baker to the north and Mount Rainier to the south, a two-volcano day.
Wingehaven used to be a private estate, a vacation home for the wealthy. Vestiges of its 1930s glory are still discernible today: concrete balustrades and gargoyles, now cracked and broken. The main attraction for today’s visitors is the large, grassy field, where we set up our tent in the shade of a giant cedar.
Wingehaven is accessible by land, although cars are not allowed to descend the hill to the park itself. Day-hikers came through both days, although their numbers were low, no more than half a dozen or so each day. The only people allowed to camp are kayakers, so by dinnertime, the hikers cleared out and we had the park to ourselves for the evening.
Leon on stairs at Wingehaven. At the highest tides, the water reaches all the way to the base of the steps.
Maya resting in grass. We might have slept out under the stars, but the arrival of a handful of mosquitos drove us into the tent.
Bench at Wingehaven Park. The bench is not one of the original fixtures of the estate but rather a more recent addition to the park.
Ballustrade at Wingehaven. Leon, age four, wondered whether these were intended to be chess pieces.
Forest at Wingehaven. The flora is a mixture of native and invasive species.
July is usually the worst month of the year for birdwatching, and this July was no exception. The seabirds had mostly departed for the outer coast or the arctic, while the passerines were mostly hidden on their nests. I had to content myself with a few chickadees and nuthatches in the forest and a few cormorants and guillemots in the water.
We were sitting in the grass the morning of the second day, when I spotted, way across the water in East Passage, closer to the mainland side than the Vashon side, a black fin that broke the surface of the water for a few seconds before it disappeared.
“Orcas, orcas!” I cried. We all grabbed binoculars and cameras and peered across the channel. Every few seconds, one whale or another would breach the surface, visible from this distance as tiny, pointy, black triangles. Some half a dozen whales cruised slowly southward, followed half an hour later by a whale-watching boat frantically trying to catch up. The Orca Network identified these individuals as transient whales, not the famous southern resident killer whales. This identification is unsurprising. Transient killer whales have all but completely displaced southern residents as the dominant killer whale ecotype in the inland waters of Washington State.
Chestnut-backed chickadee, Wingehaven. Both species of lowland chickadee were present in Wingehaven this weekend.
Anna’s hummingbird, Wingehaven. The hummingbirds put on a display of aerobatics for one another’s benefit, with us humans as appreciative onlookers.
Canada goose, Wingehaven. This species is more commonly seen on freshwater, but it has no qualms about foraging for seagrass on saltwater.
Transient killer whales, East Passage. The individual with the tall, pointy fin is an adult male, T49C (“Nielson”), born in 1998.
The kids made up all sorts of games at Wingehaven. Many of the kids’ games involved pelting their dad with handfuls of grass, or jumping on him when he was trying to take a nap, or stealing his hat, or poking him with twigs from the forest.
Even more enjoyable, especially for their dad, was the “Chips game,” which Maya had invented some three years earlier on a kayaking trip to Strawberry Island. Her little brown dog, Chips, would “hide” somewhere in the park, and everyone would have to help find him. Whoever found Chips would get to hide him anew for the others to hunt.
Rachel and I were a little worried about the landing. Thanks to the mixed tides of July, there would be no real daytime low tide. We would have to land directly on the ramp again, barnacles and all. Rachel and I strategized various convoluted scenarios for landing two heavy boats on a narrow, waved-washed ramp, but in the end, the evolution went off without a hitch. The landing was so gentle Leon did not even wake from his nap.
Maya playing in the grass. Maya dispatched me and Leon to the forest to fetch sticks for the construction of a doghouse.
Leon throwing rocks on the beach. Leon was interested in the shore crabs hiding under the rocks, but he declined to pick up any crabs on the grounds that they were “too pinchy.”
Maya and Leon overlooking water. Even the rambunctious kids were grateful to sit in the shade during the hottest part of the day.
Sidles family having dinner at Wingehaven. This was the kids’ third time at Wingehaven, and we have yet to encounter any other kayakers here.
Leon asleep on the boat ramp. The combination of rocking waves and his mama’s sweet lullabies would have put anyone to sleep.
There was no sign of the dog collar from our previous visit, so perhaps the owner had recovered the collar after all. There was also no sign of Leon’s old toy dump truck. In truth, he was having too much fun to notice.
During the ferry ride back to West Seattle, the captain came over the intercom to announce another pod of orcas to the north. A stampede of passengers ensued. Through the smudged windows, we could see only the faintest, distant glimpses of whale fins and splashes. Despite the poor view, the passengers were thrilled. One man told us he had ridden the ferry “a hundred times” and had never seen a whale until now.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that at Wingehaven, you can sit in the grass in the shade with your family and watch whales on parade: no windows, no intercom, no crowds, just the glorious scenes of summer.
—Alex Sidles