Fort Ebey State Park

Some of the Trailblazers on today's hike

 Our leader today, Joe, took twelve Senior Trailblazers on a wonderful journey down to Whidbey Island and all the way to Fort Ebey State Park. I had never been there before, although I had gone to Ebey's Landing in the same general vicinity. We almost didn't go because the weather looked iffy, but often when it's raining in Bellingham, it's dry or almost dry on Whidbey Island. It's a long trip, but it was worth it.

Trails were signed and similar to this one

There were many different routes we could have taken, but Joe mapped out one he felt would give us a good idea of the park, covering somewhere around seven miles of terrain. It was a wide loop hike, starting on this type of trail, and then taking us on a cliff walk above the ocean, before we headed back to our starting point.

Indian Pipe or Ghost Pipe

One sharp-eyed hiker saw this Indian Pipe plant, which I've seen before, but it's so eerie looking and unusual that I had to share it with you. Indian Pipe is a parasitic plant that lacks chlorophyll, so it is unable to obtain energy from sunlight as most plants do. It is one of an estimated 3,000 species of non-photosynthetic flowering plants (from Adirondacks Nature.)

Our lunch spot (also known as Nirvana)

After lunch, we began the second part of our hike, where we headed toward the beach. Joe showed us on a map where we were and how far we had come.

Joe showing where we started

I could see that we were headed for the bay, south of his pointer, before we would head back to our cars. By this time, we had covered a good bit of mileage, but we still had more to come.

There it was, the beach

Finally, we got several good views of the beach below us, and a stiff breeze off the water made me don my jacket once again. We walked along the cliff side, protected from falling by lots of barriers. And then into history!

Fort Ebey 

Fort Ebey was built on Partridge Point in 1942 as a World War II coastal defense near the mouth of Puget Sound. The fort was named for Isaac Neff Ebey, a pioneering homesteader on Whidbey Island. The fort included a battery of two 6-inch guns. We all went inside, where if we hadn't had a few overhead lights, nothing would have been visible at all in a pitch-black scary, dank environment. But we all managed just fine, including me (thanks to Don's sturdy arm). When we emerged from the Fort, we all watched a paraglider try to get his canopy off the ground.

A paraglider playing with the wind

He did get airborne a few times, but I was glad when I watched him collapse the wing before he got too high off the ground. And then we hiked back to our cars, happy to have covered at least seven-ish miles, and stayed not only dry, but enjoyed a great outing, thanks to Joe's leadership. 

:-)