Hi, I'm Eric.

I’m an avid world traveler, photographer, software developer, and digital storyteller.

I help implement the Content Authenticity Initiative at Adobe.

ericscouten.com

Subscribe / Follow · Now

ericscouten.com

Subscribe / Follow · Now

Search Results

123
Moran State Park
123

Moran State Park

Orcas Island, Washington
visited 22–23 July 2023
Back to parks list

The San Juan Islands are rich with state parks (many of them islands I haven’t yet visited), but if there’s any one state park that stands out as the iconic park of the islands, it would have to be Moran State Park.

This park comprises a large part of the eastern side of Orcas Island and includes the islands’ highest point, Mount Constitution.

It was foggy yesterday morning when I came across on the ferry from Anacortes. So much so that the ferry had to slow way down for part of the journey for lack of visibility.

I first stopped at Cascade Lake, the point where the road to Olga village passes through the park. By this point, the fog was just starting to burn off.

A calm dark-green lake with rippled water in the foreground, its far shore lined with an evergreen forest partly obscured by low fog that rises off the water and drifts across a bright blue sky.
A rustic stone-walled building with a moss-covered shingled roof houses a closed ice cream stand, marked by a hand-painted sign reading “The Sugar Shack” and an “Ice Cream Shoppe” placard. Colorful triangular bunting hangs across the front, tall evergreen trees rise behind the building, and a gravel path runs in front under bright daylight.
A row of overturned kayaks and canoes in bright orange, red, and yellow rests on a grassy lakeshore beside a small “Kayak Rentals” sign, with mist rising off Cascade Lake and forested hills fading into fog under a blue sky.

Next up was the road to the summit of Mount Constitution:

A curving paved road crosses an old concrete bridge with mossy, arch-detailed balustrade railings, winding through a dense evergreen forest. Green ferns, shrubs and towering conifers fill the surrounding hillsides in dappled morning light.

I got to the summit around 9:30am, in time to catch some of the fog still on the water below.

A dirt hiking trail descends through evergreen conifers toward a sweeping view of blue coastal waters dotted with islands and low clouds, with distant mainland and mountains under a clear blue sky.

During the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps invested heavily in building infrastructure for us to enjoy the outdoors. One of their larger projects was in the recently-opened Moran State Park. Among many other projects in this park, they built an observation tower at the summit of Mount Constitution. The top of this tower offers some amazing panoramic views of the surrounding area:

An elevated view from Mount Constitution over the San Juan Islands, with forested slopes in the foreground descending to blue water dotted with small islands, a long band of low white cloud lying over the sound, and distant hazy mountain ranges under a clear blue sky.
A wide panoramic view from a forested mountaintop overlooking a calm blue sea dotted with green islands under a clear pale-blue sky, with evergreen trees framing the foreground and distant islands fading into haze on the horizon.

Heading back down the mountain, I stopped to explore the Cold Spring area:

A sunlit clearing of bright green grasses and ferns bordered by tall evergreen conifers under a clear deep blue sky at Cold Spring in Moran State Park, Orcas Island.
A dirt hiking trail winds through a dense conifer forest of tall evergreen trees, with dappled sunlight filtering through the canopy. A large fallen mossy log lies across the forest floor to the right of the path.
An elevated view over forested islands and blue water in the San Juan Islands, with a white ferry crossing the channel and a low band of clouds hanging along the horizon beneath a clear sky.
Cascade Lake Overlook

That was yesterday. Today I came back to explore a bit more.

(What other park has its own custom entrance arch?)

A white stone archway spanning a two-lane road reads “MORAN STATE PARK” with stars on either side, flanked by short white posts linked with chains and yellow-and-black striped barriers, surrounded by dense green forest.

There are 61 km / 38 miles of hiking trails in Moran State Park and to be honest, I don’t have time to explore them all. But I did do the 7 km / 4 mile loop around Mountain Lake this afternoon.

Lots of people were out kayaking and stand-up paddling around the lake and enjoying the little islands within the lake.

A person in a hat and life vest stands on a paddleboard on the calm, glassy water of Mountain Lake, surrounded by dense evergreen forest and a clear blue sky.
A view through tall evergreen trees on a dirt bank overlooking the deep blue water of Mountain Lake, with a forested ridge on the far shore under a bright blue sky with wispy clouds.
A dirt hiking trail winds through an evergreen forest, hugging a mossy slope on the left and passing a large cedar tree with deeply furrowed bark on the right, with dappled afternoon sunlight filtering through the trees.
Bare, weathered dead tree snags rise from the still blue water of Mountain Lake, with a densely forested evergreen hillside beyond and a bright blue sky streaked with wispy cirrus clouds above.
A small rocky island covered with tall evergreen trees sits in the blue waters of Mountain Lake, with a densely forested hillside rising behind under a clear blue sky. A few people are swimming near the island and small figures can be seen on its rocky edge.
A dirt hiking trail winds through a grassy, sun-dappled clearing bordered by leafy deciduous trees, with the blue-green water of Mountain Lake and a forested hillside visible in the background under a clear sky.
Bare, weathered dead tree snags rise from the calm blue water of Mountain Lake under a clear cloudless sky, with a small tree-covered island and evergreen-forested hills surrounding the lake.
Pink fireweed blossoms rise from a moss-covered, weathered log lying among tall reeds at the grassy edge of a calm lake, with a dark evergreen forest across the water in the background.
A dirt hiking trail winds through a forest of tall, slender evergreen conifers with moss-covered ground on either side, dappled with afternoon sunlight and revealing glimpses of the blue water of Mountain Lake through the trees.
A packed-dirt hiking trail winds through a sunlit evergreen forest, with mossy ground, fallen logs, and ferns along the sides and tall conifers overhead; a lake is faintly visible through the trees to the right.

For more information:

If you’ve enjoyed this …

Subscribe to my free and occasional (never more than weekly) e-mail newsletter with my latest travel and other stories:

Or follow me on one or more of the socials: