Striped Creek Trail in Washington

Striped Peak Trail is in Clallam County Park is located near Port Angeles, Washington on the grounds of a World War II-era US Army camp, Camp Hayden.  The trail offers panoramic views of the Strait of Juan de Fuca (and Canada across the water).  We park and head into the forest of towering cedar, fir, and hemlock trees.

The park

Views along the trail

Starting along the trail

First view of the water

Continuing along the trail

Hiking along the strait

The Strait of Juan de Fuca is a channel extending east from the Pacific Ocean between Vancouver Island, British Columbia (Canada) and the Olympic Peninsula, Washington (USA) to Haro Strait, San Juan Channel, Rosario Strait, and Puget Sound.  The strait is about 96 miles (154 km) long and is the Salish Sea's main outlet to the Pacific Ocean.  The international boundary between Canada and the United States runs down the center of the strait.

Digging deeper, we find that the Salish Sea is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean, located in British Columbia and Washington State, including the Strait of Georgia, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound, and an intricate network of connecting channels and adjoining waterways.  The sea is partially separated from the open Pacific Ocean by Vancouver Island in Canada and the Olympic Peninsula in the US and the region is anchored by Vancouver to the north and Seattle to the south.  Other principal cities on the Salish Sea include Bellingham, Port Angeles, Port Townsend, Everett, Tacoma, Olympia, and Bremerton in Washington and Victoria and Nanaimo in British Columbia.

Returning to the reality of hiking along the strait, back at the trail head we note that a black bear and cubs have recently been sighted on the trail.  Luckily, we don't meet them today and move on.

Notice

This has been a brief exploration of a short piece of the shoreline of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, showing off its beauty (but, this time, not its bears).