Back to Cypress Island for Some Hiking

Laura Domela — Mon, 30 Nov 2015 00:19:00 +0000

Another sunrise. (Yawn. Literally. I just popped out of bed quickly for this one and then climbed right back in! Brrrrr.)

Ewing Cove on Sucia Island:

We left Ewing Cove this morning and headed back over to Eagle Harbor at Cypress Island. We really wanted to do the hike up to Eagle Cliff on Cypress Island (the one we didn't do last week when we were here because we were too busy socializing with friends…that one!)

Nice view of Mt. Baker from our new spot in Eagle Cove:

We dinghied to shore and set off up the hill.

More fungus along the trail!

We have done the hike up to Duck Lake and the Duck Lake loop, and done the up-up-up trail to Reed Lake, but hadn't done the Eagle Cliff trail. This trail came highly recommended by a Riveted reader, so we really wanted to do it before the trail closes in February. (Thanks Glen! Good tip!)

Here's a trail map:

We started at Eagle Harbor (sea level) and hiked up to Eagle Cliff. The hike was beautiful, but nothing super out of the ordinary, as far as hikes go….

…until you get to the end, where the really steep part gets a little steeper. But you know there's gonna be a big payoff, because someone hauled all this wood up here to build this little staircase to help you get to the top….

And pretty soon, this…an almost 360 degree view. Spectacular.

This hike was 4.3 miles round trip from Eagle Harbor, with a 752 feet elevation gain.

And it was frosty up there!

We enjoyed the view for a few minutes, and then trucked back down the hill. It was also frosty down on the beach! This is a piece of driftwood in the shade, covered with frost:

We caught a few Dungeness crabs at Sucia this morning, so we headed back to Airship to clean and cook them up for dinner.

Mount Baker, looking a little more pink after our hike:

Dinner tonight will be crab cakes and a salad. We're heading back to Anacortes tomorrow for a few projects and meetings, and then doing a fun surprise thing for Kevin's birthday this week.

Sucia Islands: We Moved to Ewing Cove

Laura Domela — Sat, 28 Nov 2015 20:15:44 +0000

Sunrise in Fox Cove on Sucia Island. (And lest you think, based on the past couple days of sunrise photos, that I'm up at sunrise every morning, let me tell you how this happens. In the stateroom up front there are two portholes…one on port and one on starboard. I can lift my head–or not–and see the light and landscape reflected in the chrome sides of the porthole and usually tell if it's good enough to get out of bed for. This one was.)

After breakfast we did a little work and then decided to give ourselves a slight change of scenery and go around to the other side of Sucia Island. We took the long way around (and by long way, I mean a loop around Patos Island…the next island over). Here's our map (8.6 nautical miles from Fox Cove, around Patos, to Ewing Cove). We're the hard-to-see orange line:

The Patos Island light house with a pretty good rip tide happening out front:

Here we are moored in Ewing Cove (tiny dot behind the sailboat):

There are three mooring buoys in Ewing Cove, and great beach access to the trailhead. We hiked the same trail we hiked yesterday…we just started at the other end today.

Hey look! We CAN get a bigger boat and still use the state park mooring buoys!

We had a great hike, and now there's only one more cove on Sucia where we haven't stayed: Snoring Cove! Love this island!

The weather is gorgeous (still) and for dinner tonight I think I'll make us something real "autumny": pan roasted chicken breasts with a shallot pan sauce, and maple roasted brussels sprouts with bacon and apple. Last night we cooked up some carne asada and served it with tortillas, lime, cilantro, and avocado.

Ewing Cove – Riveted

Back to Cypress Island for Some Hiking

Sucia Islands: We Moved to Ewing Cove