Archive for seals
Lake Washington sunrise [jatp]
Posted in Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel with tags British Columbia, Canada, jatp, Lake Washington, morning run, open water swimming, otter, outdoor swimming, Pacific North West, Puget Sound, seals, Seattle, sunrise, University of Washington, Washington State, wildfire on August 22, 2024 by xi'an
hiking the Dungeness spit
Posted in Mountains, pictures, Travel with tags Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge, Dungeness spit, gulls, heron, loons, Pacific North West, Puget Sound, sandpipers, seals, Seattle, Strait of Juan de Fuca, sunburns on August 16, 2015 by xi'an
We had a great hike while staying on the Olympic peninsula, walking a sand spit housing the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge, located at the end of the Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The sand spit goes into sea for five and a half miles, en
ding up at a decommissioned lighthouse that has been preserved by a local association, with voluntary keepers staying there one week at a time. Which is a great way to spend a retreat far from the maddening crowd… Except for the few hikers managing the walk to the lighthouse, of course!
The walk is quite easy, on packed sand, provided there is no high tide at the time, and few enough people embark on the eleven miles trip to make it quiet and peaceful. It is a wee bit monotonous, obviously, even though watching for birds and flotsam and jetsam enlivens the trip. Nothing extreme, obviously, but great views on the Olympic National Park peaks. With a cooling wind that hid the strength of the sun. As we discovered too late!
While there are many potential species of birds taking refuge on that preserved spit, we did not see many. Besides the obvious gulls and relatives, a heron, two types of sandpipers, and a loon-like bird at sea. Plus a few seals fishing at sea, clearly not bothered by the potential orcas around the spit. That we sadly did not see.
