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

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Skagit Island Marine State Park

north of La Conner, Washington

visited 19 June 2021

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Your own private island (for a little while, anyway)? That was my experience when I visited Skagit Island earlier this summer. I had the island to myself for the hour or so that I visited this park.

Getting there is half the fun. I put in from Ala Spit County Park, north of Oak Harbor. It’s a little less than two miles across the water from Ala Spit to the landing site on the northeast side of Skagit Island.

Signs at the park warn of difficult currents and tides. I was fortunate not to encounter any challenges getting to Skagit Island, but do be careful and be aware of tides, currents, and wakes from nearby boats.

The blue bow of a kayak glides across the calm, rippled waters of Skagit Bay toward a small forested island with rocky, grassy bluffs and a crown of evergreen trees, under a wide sky of soft gray and blue clouds.

First sighting of the island from Skagit Bay.

A calm, dark-green stretch of water meets a rocky, driftwood-strewn beach backed by a dense wall of evergreen conifers at Skagit Island Marine State Park. In the distance a forested hill and a few shoreline buildings sit beneath a wide sky filled with dappled, mottled clouds.

A blue and gray single-person kayak rests on a gravel beach strewn with pale driftwood logs, with a dense stand of evergreen trees to the left and calm blue water stretching toward distant forested hills under a partly cloudy sky.

Landed on Skagit Island.

A weathered gray wooden plank forms a makeshift bridge or step from a gravel and crushed-shell path up over moss-covered rocks toward a large tree trunk, with a large piece of driftwood and scattered pine cones in the foreground and dense green summer forest behind.

“Walkway” to the picnic area.

There’s a hiking trail around the island; it gets sketchy in some places, but worry not … it does go all the way through!

A dirt trail winds along a forested bluff overlooking calm blue water, framed by tall evergreen trees and a weathered dead snag, with a wooded shoreline and distant hills under a sky dotted with wispy clouds.

If you squint hard enough from around here, you can catch a view of the Deception Pass Bridge.

A calm blue-green bay viewed from a rocky shoreline, with evergreen tree branches overhanging from above and framing the scene. Forested hills and a distant shoreline with scattered houses line the horizon under a blue sky dotted with wispy clouds.

A narrow dirt footpath winds along a moss- and lichen-covered bluff lined with evergreen trees and madrona branches, overlooking calm blue-green coastal water with a forested shoreline on the horizon under a partly cloudy sky.

From the south side of the island, you can see Hope Island State Park, which I visited next.

A wide panoramic view over calm blue-green water from a dry grassy bluff dotted with evergreen trees, with forested islands and hills along the horizon and a small white boat anchored on the right beneath a vast sky of scattered clouds.

A tangle of dark, bare, twisting branches silhouetted against a bright blue sky dotted with wispy clouds, overlooking a calm stretch of water with a forested shoreline on the horizon, framed by dry golden grass in the foreground.

Skagit Island is close to Kukutali Preserve, which I had visited earlier in the day. It doesn’t look like it’s feasible to kayak from Kukutali to these islands. (At a minimum, it would involve a long portage from the parking lot to the channel and I wasn’t prepared for that.) But, there’s a nice view back to Kukutali from the east side of Skagit Island.

A calm channel of blue-green water fronts a forested island covered in dense evergreen trees under a dramatic sky filled with mottled, rippled clouds. In the foreground, dry golden grass and dark seaweed-covered rocks line the shore of Skagit Island Marine State Park.

A calm green bay laps against a pebbly beach and forested shoreline at Skagit Island Marine State Park, where tall evergreen fir trees rise against a deep blue sky with a band of wispy clouds and distant wooded hills across the water.

One last look back at Skagit Island as I paddled on to the next destination.

A forested island with dense evergreen trees rising above a rocky shoreline, seen across the rippling blue water of a calm channel under a clear deep-blue sky, with distant hills on the horizon to the left.

For more information:

State Parks web site

Hope Island Marine State Park (of Skagit County)

Kukutali Preserve

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Skagit Island Marine State Park

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