Washington Park

Author's Comments

The loop road does most of the work for you, which is both the gift and the limitation of this park. You can drive the 2.3 miles in ten minutes and you will have seen something worth seeing. But the actual park lives at the pull-offs, and especially at Sunset Point, where the rock drops to the water and the San Juans arrange themselves across Rosario Strait in a way that takes a long time to read properly. I come here in late summer, an hour before the sun goes. The light comes in low across the water and the islands flatten into silhouettes - Cypress, Blakely, Decatur further out - and the strait turns the color of brushed steel before it goes to copper. On a clear evening the Olympics show up to the south, blue and remote, and the whole frame has a depth that is hard to find on the mainland. The rocky shore at the western edge of the park is where I set up. The madrones lean out over the water with their orange bark catching the last light, and there are tide pools below if you can find a way down. Long exposures work here because the strait is rarely still and the smoothing of the water lets the islands hold the eye. It is not a hidden place. The boat launch at the entrance keeps a steady traffic of people heading to the ferry, and the loop sees its share of cars on a summer evening. But the crowds dissolve at the pull-offs, and by the time the sun is actually setting, most of them have already left.

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