You can drive to the summit of Mt Walker (4 miles of gravel road after leaving the highway a few mile south of Quilcene WA). The view is different by the minute as the weather changes … in this case the clouds added to the drama. The brownish area in the foreground is the Bangor Naval Base … the water areas are both Puget Sound.
A quarter mile walk up an abandoned road takes you to the summit of Blue Mountain and a panorama of spectacular views. This is the view to the east, showing Mt Baker in the distance and Admiralty inlet in the middle of the image … this is where the Strait of Juan de Fuca meets Puget Sound (also known as the Salish Sea). What looks like an island in the right middle foreground is actually the north end of the Quimper Peninsula … location of my home town Port Townsend.
Note: while researching the course of the lower Gray Wolf River, I noticed that Green Mountain is west of Deer Park and the road above Deer Park climbs Blue Mountain. My mistake … I have called it Green Mt for years. Oops.
This is a view of Woodard Bay, an inlet off of Henderson Inlet (an inlet of Puget Sound) northeast of Olympia. If you look closely (clicking on the image to expand it will help here), you can see the bridge where Woodard Bay Road crosses the inlet. This is high tide. When the tide is out, there isn’t anything except mud from bank to bank … except for the little bit of water from Woodard Creek.
Below is a view of the inside of the canoe, showing the paddle and baskets of oysters and blueberries, and a kneeling mat.
Henderson Inlet is just outside Olympia, Washington and is one of the numerous inlets off of Puget Sound. This is looking northeast from the Woodard Bay Natural Resources Conservation Area … on Weyer Point, between Chapman Bay and Woodard Bay. The canoe on the left has a couple of baskets and a paddle on the inside … the baskets have oysters and blueberries in them (or depictions of such).
The image below shows Henderson Inlet from the other side Weyer Point, looking south.
Below is looking north again, showing the old dock that was used for the export of logs from back when there was a rail line (the Chehalis Western) running up to help feed the mills of Puget Sound. Notice how dense the pilings are on the dock … a requirement in order for being able to hold the weight of railcars loaded with logs and the engine.
Bull Kelp is a very common seaweed in Puget Sound and provides some important protection for young salmon … and important nutrients for the food chain. It is an annual … what you see here is just the top of a mass of kelp (you can see some of it in the water running down to the left lower corner. A lot of the bull kelp will wash up onto beaches where young kids try to play crack-the-whip with it.