The Best Things to Do on San Juan Island in Washington

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  • Опубліковано 23 сер 2024

КОМЕНТАРІ • 41

  • @christinesmichelle
    @christinesmichelle  Рік тому +3

    If I could go back I would love to either go sea kayaking or go on a whale watching tour! I’m determined to see some whales next time I go!

    • @user-sk7zc1fc5u
      @user-sk7zc1fc5u 4 місяці тому

      It is also enjoyable to rent a canoe and go to Mountain Lake and Cascade Lake on Orcas and walk the trails. I still have the bed that I got from Little Mountain Lookout Tower that was being taken down. It was south of the one people now visit.

  • @shadyberero6809
    @shadyberero6809 2 місяці тому +2

    Fabulous video, some really beautiful scenes, relaxing and lovely watch

  • @user-sk7zc1fc5u
    @user-sk7zc1fc5u Рік тому +3

    Nice photography. I graduated from Friday Harbor High School in 1963 in the new school where I had been a Freshman but was an eight grader in the old school where I think the court house is now. In the late 50's, my parents and their square dance club danced just outside of the Lime Kiln Lighthouse. The blond haired lighthouse keeper and wife danced with us. Visiting on and off until 1980 when my wife and I moved back permanently until 1993 when we moved to Idaho. I enjoy seeing the changes since 1954 where my parents built a log house on 40 acres, a farmer sold to us for $2000, because he thought that parcel was worthless to him but my parents loved looking at Vancouver Island and the ship traffic.. I have seen many killer whales plus I knew well the lady who started the whale museum. And when someone says Anacortez rather than Anacortes, like you did, Christine Michelle, I know they aren't local.
    While living there I, like my classmates, couldn't wait to get off the rock but I'm glad I got a chance to grow up there and raise our daughter there

    • @christinesmichelle
      @christinesmichelle  Рік тому

      It’s so wonderful to hear your story about growing up there and how the times have definitely changed but also how somethings never do. I am envious of your killer whale sightings as I have yet to see one!
      I will now pronounce the town properly, thank you for the heads up! I am glad you enjoyed the video!

    • @user-sk7zc1fc5u
      @user-sk7zc1fc5u Рік тому

      @@christinesmichelle I've seen whales around the Island, but when I was 12, I was able to name a 44-foot fishing boat, that was built at Jensen's Shipyard in Friday Harbor. I named it the "Pat", but my parents wouldn't let me go north with my brother, the skipper, until I was 17. Too dangerous, they said. During 7 seasons from Seward to Ketchikan and trips up and down the Inside Passage, while I would stand near the bow, I could get within 6 feet of a killer whale. Scared me, but my brother said that the whales just thought of us as another big fish.
      One year, when I was in High school, many Islanders were able to sit in bleachers at South Beach while the U.S. Army did maneuvers from landing units to shore. Exciting for us kids, and for lots of adults. One year before my fishing adventure in Alaska, I worked on a reef net boat off Sunset Point but only earned $50 for the summer. My first real fishing season lasted 18 days and I earned $2600 which was a lot in those days and paid for my first year at WSU.
      I still miss the ocean, but I enjoy the mountains here and Idaho's 3 largest rivers run through our county as major tributaries of the Columbia, so I see water most anywhere I go. I left the Island because of how fast it was growing and Idaho did not grow until a few years ago and is now the second fastest growing state in the country.

    • @christinesmichelle
      @christinesmichelle  6 місяців тому

      I’ve only ever driven through Idaho but I would love to explore the state more. Where would you recommend going?

    • @user-sk7zc1fc5u
      @user-sk7zc1fc5u 6 місяців тому

      @@christinesmichelleI'll just tell you what the state is like in most places starting where I live then north, etc. Even our region is beginning to grow. Yesterday I went to a local community hall in a town of 600 to listen to an old timer talk about his life in the back country. I expected to see maybe a dozen or so people there like it would have been a few years ago. But, I got there 40 minutes early and sat in the back of the room. Standing room only--500 people. People in the hall trying to just listen. I live in Idaho County, the largest county by area in Idaho, and this is probably the mildest weather-wise region. Weather is very similar to western Washington as the marine climate comes up three very big rivers.
      Lewiston is on the Snake River and is Idaho's only seaport with grain going downstream to Portland. In this region are the two largest tributaries to the Snake River (1000 miles long) which is the largest tributary to the Columbia. At Lewiston, one can take a jet-boat tour up the Snake River to the Brownlee Dam. I haven't been on the tour but I've been to points on land where it goes. This trip goes through Hells Canyon, the deepest canyon in North America and yes, deeper than the Grand Canyon, but not as spectacular.
      Above the canyon, after July, due to snow, one can drive from Lewiston on Highway 95 toward Boise, through fields of canola and wheat to Grangeville, then to White Bird (Named for a Nez Perce leader during the War.) then through the Salmon River Canyon past Time Zone Rapids to Riggins a town of 300 where white water enthusiasts go on the Salmon (Called the River of No Return by Indians helping Lewis and Clark.) upriver. Staying on H-95 go a few miles to Hells Canyon Forest Service station on the right. When in Idaho or any state be sure to pick up a "Delorme Atlas and Gazetter" It's a topo map of the whole state. I have one also for Washington.. There you will go on Seven Devils Road, gravel. Riggins is probably 700 feet elevation and you will go up to 7000 feet some 15 miles to Windy Saddle. From this site you can see the Seven Devils Mountains with several peaks over 9000 feet. You can't get lost because there are are very few roads at this elevation. From there you can see Oregon.
      I will go there this summer and I've been there quite a few times. A 2-mile drive will take you to parking lot and a half-mile trail to Heaven's Gate Forest Fire Lookout. It is manned each summer but you can go up the ladder and visit. Elevation here is 8,429 and from here you can see evidence of the big forest fire of a few years ago. Luckily I hiked there before the fire. I got too old before taking the 3-day loop trail. There is a lake there, too, but if you get there too early the snow melt will give you mosquitos that will carry you away. This are is good to see until the first week in October. Pretty then but winter snows begin to cover the peaks.
      There is another pretty area due east of here where I go often. Not quite as high but where I and Boy Scouts climbed with no effort to Gospel Peak at 8500 feet. Starting at Grangeville is a paved road for some 25 miles to a road which leads to the Gospel Hump Wilderness Area. This is on the Grangeville-Salmon Road, ending at the Salmon River, which will eventually cross the Salmon, go to a ghost town then the Payette Lake and the McCall famous ski area. Just before going to the Wilderness area is the Old Adams Ranger Station with 1930's forest service artifacts. Lots of pretty lakes to see and another lookout tower not in use but to be seen and stepped into.. If you have the map, all this is easy to find. All this is past gold mining country.
      Stopping there I will jump back to Lewiston. Going north you will drive through the Palouse wheat and yellow canola fields, past Moscow, the home of U. of I and companion school, WSU, a few miles west. From Moscow drive north on H 95 until you get to Plummer and then turn right on state highway 5 and go east to St. Maries a small logging town. From there turn northwest on state highway 3. (I'm looking at the map I recommended earlier.). stay on 3 until you take 97 which turns northwest. On 97 go til you reach the town of Harrison which is where you will begin to see the lake, probably Idaho's most famous. Follow 97 until you reach Interstate 90. This lake is -about 40 miles long---Lake Coeur d' Alene. This will be the east side and the only side with a real road. This area is the beginning Idaho Lake country. When you hit the interstate go left into the town of 50,000+, Coeur d' Alene and back to H95. Looking at the map you have a choice. When you reach Athol, you can go on either side of Lake Pend Oreille, which is so deep that during certain wars the U/S. Navy used this lake for submarine training. Either route will take you to Sandpoint where you can choose to either go to Priest Lake or to Bonners Ferry, the Kootenai River and the Canadian Border.
      If you want more I used to live in SE Idaho for three years so I know that area also and can do the same as I did for this Panhandle trip. Tell me.

  • @joseagarcia6799
    @joseagarcia6799 Місяць тому +1

    Awesome video you make me feel go to San Juan Island, Fabulous thanks for sharing

  • @user-sk7zc1fc5u
    @user-sk7zc1fc5u 7 місяців тому +2

    In the eighties, when we had to wait for the ferry on the Anacortes side, my daughter loved to go down to the beach and turn over rocks and pick up the little crabs and my little girl always called them crabbies, and we'd turn over pieces of driftwood and see the sand fleas.
    We enjoyed walking across the Deception Pass Bridge and taking a trail down to the beach on Whidbey Island. On a boat I worked on summers, called the "Neread", a fish buyer 65-feet long, we traveled under the bridge.
    In the fifties, rabbits were so plentiful that people would come from Seattle and fix an old car, and using a light, would net up to 500 rabbits a night and sell them in Seattle. When I was around ten when our family was working on the log home we lived in for years, my dad would tell me to go shoot rabbits for dinner. Looking along a fence one could see a dozen or so and I would shoot a few and bring them home where my mom would hold them by their back legs, after I had cut off the head, and I would gut them and skin them.
    All this island living was a bit different from our lives in Southern California, but it was fun living off the land eating rabbits, quail, pheasants, mallard ducks, deer, rock cod, ling cod, salmon a lot smoked and kippered), rock oysters, lots of crab taken at first from a flat-bottomed boat at False Bay at low tide, and later from pots in Mitchell Bay, and horse and steamer clams, and my dad even caught an octopus. I never thought my life was that great there but now I think I was pretty lucky.
    There were several abandoned farms with orchards so my mom and I would pick pears, and cherries and apples after we would walk a mile to get there. And we picked a lot of Himalaya and Evergreen blackberries and I even picked the little blackberries and sold them for $5 a gallon. And I picked a lot a teeny wild strawberries, salmon berries, thimble berries. And I graduated from HS there in the new school in 1963 and I was in the 8th grade the first year that school was built. When I began the 8th grade, our class was in the old school, I think where the courthouse is now. Sorry to ramble.

    • @christinesmichelle
      @christinesmichelle  6 місяців тому

      It does sound like you were pretty lucky. Thanks for sharing!

    • @stephanier2690
      @stephanier2690 5 місяців тому

      You could write a book and I would read it!. Sounds lovely

    • @user-sk7zc1fc5u
      @user-sk7zc1fc5u 5 місяців тому

      @@stephanier2690I hope to explore a lot of back country roads in the central Idaho Panhandle this summer. Yesterday, I drove to a place I usually go to in summer. Only 6 miles off a state paved road. I drove part way last Saturday and the snow was a bit deep. I wanted to stay overnight in the back of my Subaru to be sure that I was prepared for summer. The last two miles had deep trenches with ice and snow. I dragged a little on my car's under carriage, but I made it to where I would camp. Forest Service had a nice fairly new primitive restroom. No tables or places for fires and lots of snow all around except one spot. I backed up a kind of bank and relaxed in the sun. Saw 4 deer. Must have been about 70 degrees, but by 5PM it got chilly and with big trees around the sun was down. I was using a one-burner wood cook stove and had been drinking hot chocolate and reading. I was the only one in the area.
      I went to bed and it got pretty chilly. By 3AM, the back window was iced up. I got up at 6 and there was an inch of ice on my water jug. Those butane lighters don't work when it gets too cold. This I had learned on Boy Scout trips. My hands were numb and I could not even try to start my cook stove. I had brought pieces of firewood that I had cut into 2-inch pieces with my chop saw so that I could chop them into small pieces along with cut cedar kindling from home. I had to start my car and wait for the engine to warm up so I could use the heater to warm the butane lighters and was finally able to get my little stove going to cook my chocolate. Next time I'll take the 2-burner Coleman stove and make coffee. Colman fuel is alcohol and gasoline and it will start in cold weather.
      It was 8 before the sun came up over the forest. While there I saw two pickups loaded with big firewood rounds, and yesterday I met a small convoy heading up into higher country looking for lakes. One fellow said that his son with a car with more clearance than mine scraped on the ice, but I decided to go home over that same two-mile stretch. This time I drove slowly and tried to have both sides of the car on ridges and not go into the valleys of ice where I might get stuck. I had two small shovels and I took some gravel from my campsite to use in case. After I passed that road I looked off the road into a canyon around 1500 to 2000 feet deep. I learned what I needed and will go back there and try a few new roads. I'm a widower so I travel alone. I miss the oceans but the mountains can also be exciting.

    • @scottjohnson8328
      @scottjohnson8328 4 місяці тому +1

      Your incredible, keep rambling.

    • @user-sk7zc1fc5u
      @user-sk7zc1fc5u 4 місяці тому

      @@scottjohnson8328 When in high school on the Island, my classmates couldn't wait to get off "the rock" and go to the mainland. Sure we got to go to off-island basketball games but since our school was so small, we only went to small towns to play. My graduating class had 20 students. But in the late fifties the school bus picked up one student at Roche Harbor, who's dad worked for the lime and cement company there. There are still people living on the Island who remember what I do. I'm 79.
      My dad built a rabbit catching pen about 6 feet square with logs at the base and chicken wire up 3 feet or so. It had a sort of tunnel where rabbits would go to get edibles in the center of the pen. When they got the food, they would go around the edge of the pen trying to get out. They couldn't find how they got in the pen. Most of the time, these became my pets. My friend, Donny Johnson and I would scour the area in the spring looking for mounds of fresh dirt meaning that a young family was below. We would pull out baby rabbits. If they were too small we just left them there and covered up the mound area, but if big enough, we would take a couple home and begin feeding them with eye droppers until they got big enough to go in a pen and eventually we would let them go and they would stay around our houses for a long time as pets.
      Living in Idaho in the 90's was similar to living on the Island in the early 60's, but things change and people are now eager to move to our still very rural area. Alaska is about the only place one can still try to live off the land, but Alaska is a lot colder for a lot longer time. I began my living in Idaho when I was 48, similar to my dad doing that on the Island when he was 51, but it was a lot harder with bad clay soil in Idaho compared to sandy loam on the Island. In 1954, raw land on the Island for our family, was $50 an acre with trees, an alfalfa field, and a view of Vancouver Island and the Strait. In 1993, in the Idaho Panhandle, raw land with two power poles and recently logged, with trees, no view but a creek was $2200 an acre and locals thought we were being robbed. But now, raw land if even found is $8000 to $10,000 an acre. I saw this same change on the Island. I wanted to live the life in Idaho that my dad had done on the Island. Across a small canyon from my place, 5 acres with a 2000 square foot two-story home and some out-buildings on a steep road (I used to own it but sold that parcel because it had so little usable land and was so steep.) is on the market for $530,000 with a neighbor telling me that she thought it was underpriced.
      Remembering riding the ferry in the late 50's, tourists would look out the window and ask us if there were Indians on those islands. What a life and because I lived there, I was able to travel up and down Alaska's Inside Passage and work on that 44-foot wooden boat I was asked to name that had been built at Jensen's Shipyard just outside of Friday Harbor. Another story, another time. No time for rambling. Time to take a ride in some of the moderate back country today.

  • @benludlum9451
    @benludlum9451 Рік тому +1

    Thank you keep up the good work.

  • @lizstewart3418
    @lizstewart3418 Рік тому +1

    I wish we had more time on the San Juan's and were able to see some orcas. I would want to rent bikes and ride around the island.

    • @christinesmichelle
      @christinesmichelle  Рік тому +1

      And maybe visit another island!!! I also think camping on the island would be a lot of fun!

  • @xincen_photography
    @xincen_photography Рік тому +2

    My favorite place in the PNW 🥰

    • @christinesmichelle
      @christinesmichelle  Рік тому

      I cannot wait to go back! I’m determined to see some whales!

  • @kelechim-8406
    @kelechim-8406 5 місяців тому +1

    What month did you film this video? Asking so I can know if it’s chilly in summer?

    • @christinesmichelle
      @christinesmichelle  4 місяці тому +2

      This was mid June! The sun was definitely out but slightly cloudy and the ferry ride is very chilly! I recommend layers

  • @Koolkatt
    @Koolkatt Рік тому +1

    Visiting San Juan islands next week. Booked a whale watching tour. Any idea if that’s worth it?

    • @christinesmichelle
      @christinesmichelle  Рік тому +1

      That’s one thing I wish we had time to do! I’ve heard even if people don’t see whales that they see other wildlife that makes it worth it!! I hope you have a blast!

  • @josefinamorit5155
    @josefinamorit5155 Рік тому +1

    Did you book a reservation for your car? I am trying to book our car and 2 of us for August 18 and it costs US$141 (one way) is that right?

    • @christinesmichelle
      @christinesmichelle  Рік тому +1

      We did book a reservation! It all depends on where you are leaving from & going as well as your vehicle size. I’m looking right now for Anacortez to Friday Harbor and it’s $60 for the vehicle 14’ & under including the driver. Extra passengers are about $15 per person. It may also depend on the time of year. I found all my information from the Washington State Department of Transportation website :) Hope this helps!

    • @abhinayreddy7754
      @abhinayreddy7754 Рік тому

      i was looking for this information in the comments lucily got it, thank you.@@christinesmichelle

  • @ronlee8970
    @ronlee8970 10 місяців тому +1

    Unless you have been living under a rock, the "ferries" are, constantly, Breaking Down, Being Canceled or Running Aground . . . So, about that Fantasy of doing San Juan in a "day" . . . GOOD LUCK WITH THAT !!!

    • @christinesmichelle
      @christinesmichelle  9 місяців тому

      We had no issues booking our ride over & there were plenty of options. I’m sure it depends on the season ☺️

  • @lindsaysmith6105
    @lindsaysmith6105 Рік тому +1

    Are you sure that the snails weren't just tiny whales? 🤔

  • @lindsaysmith6105
    @lindsaysmith6105 Рік тому +1

    That "light" house looks pretty heavy to me 🤷‍♀️

  • @JazzyGinger1
    @JazzyGinger1 5 місяців тому

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    • @user-sk7zc1fc5u
      @user-sk7zc1fc5u 4 місяці тому

      After I really read and studied the Bible and the history of Christianity, I don't believe in those ferry tales about Jesus anymore. But I did enjoy growing up on San Juan Island

    • @krishannam1346
      @krishannam1346 2 місяці тому

      Inappropriate spam.