June, 2023
Another day in paradise … and another drive to explore the saltwater shores of Puget Sound.
This time, I first drove east, away from the water. I drove out of the Bay View campground, and then headed east over to Burlington, WA, and then turned north onto the road called Chuckanut Drive (the RED line in the photo below). I drove from Burlington in the south, to Bellingham in the north … and then, of course, I drove back south again. Except when I headed back south, when I got just past half way down, I left Chuckanut Drive and drove west to the village of Edison and then I drove down through farmland to Bay View and my campsite. What a wonderful drive!
I’ll share a few photos but first, what is a “chuckanut”? Darned if I know. Guess I better look it up online. Hmmm, well, I found out! Here’s a wikipedia article about the history of the road. The area along the road is the only area where the Cascade Mountains connect directly with Puget Sound, with no intervening low land or farm land. From the waters of Bellingham Bay (part of Puget Sound), the land travels east uphill all the way to the top of the Cascade Mountains.
And “Chuckanut Drive” is named after the nearby Chuckanut Mountains. A bit of interesting geology information is included in the article in this link. Chuckanut is a word taken from a native language, it means “long beach far from a narrow entrance” … and if you are familiar with the saltwater waterways here, that is exactly what it is. This water/bay is SO extremely protected from the ocean by dozens of islands, that it’s an extremely circuitous route to get from this waterway (Bellingham Bay and Padilla Bay) and then out to the ocean. So the original name is appropriate.
The four photos below were taken at a car pull-out along the Chuckanut Drive, while I was driving north from Blanchard. There are a number of places along that road where you can pull over, park, take photos, or even clamber down part of the HIGH bank there (no thank you!), or walk along a path that’s close to the top of the bank.
That’s my big white truck in the photo above.
And then, at another pull-out … this photo below. The ship is a container ship, likely heading out to the Pacific Ocean from the port of Bellingham, and likely around 1,000 feet in length (more than three football fields long). The photo below is looking west, directly at the Pacific Ocean except that there are all manner of islands in between where I was and where the Pacific Ocean is. Puget Sound is a VERY well protected body of water, and it’s huge, and it is a boater’s paradise.
At another stop along Chuckanut Drive, I found these two signs below. The photos in the second image below were taken circa 1920.
And now let me share two videos of my drive south from Bellingham. The first one below starts near the north end of Chuckanut Drive. I found a campground up there and drove through it to scope out future campsites (didn’t find any that I liked). As I was driving out of the campground, I set my video camera on the dash and pressed “go”. As always, click on the white rectangular thingy in the lower right hand corner to enlarge the video, or you can watch it on YouTube.
Early on in the video, you’ll see a sign on the right that says vehicles over 18,000 GVW prohibited … no semi trucks, none, not allowed! A bit later in the video you’ll see why. There is no shoulder, not even a ditch … just the two lanes with a rock wall on one side and a drop off on the other, and the road twists and turns. Even with just my pickup truck (obviously I didn’t have the trailer with me), even with just my pickup truck, I drove much slower than the posted speed limit through those twisty sections.
You won’t see much of the water to the west in this video, too many trees. I do love trees though. And most of Chuckanut Drive is high above the water. There are a few places to pull over and walk to the edge of the bluff/cliff in order to look out and see the water and islands (see photos above). This video is less than half of the entire Chuckanut Drive. Eventually, at the end of the video, I do get down to farmland level and then I pull over so you can see the water and the islands.
The music is Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 1, Op. 2 No. 2. The music starts right after we pass the orange markers on the right.
This second video starts in the small village of Edison, then shows a bit of driving on the lowland between Edison and Bay View while I was heading back to the Bay View campground. The water you see in the video off to the right is saltwater … that’s how low this lowland is. In fact, I’m told some farmers are having problems with too much saltwater in their fields as the ocean height is increasing these days. But it sure is a pretty area, and the farms are gorgeous.
So that’s your tour of Chuckanut Drive! I hope you liked it. I loved it. 🙂