Around The Park

Pass Island is the most visited island in the park, simply because Highway 20 crosses it connecting Fidalgo Island and Whidbey Island.  A small parking lot is located on the east side of Highway 20 and there is also walkway access on both the north and south bridges.

Next to the parking area is a short, paved walkway to an interpretive sign about bridge history.  On nearby rocks, one will find a plaque that describes George Vancouver’s visit on June 10, 1792.  A stairway leads to a walkway under the bridge and to other various trails on the island.  Please watch your step as most of the trails are not maintained and have loose gravel, rocks, climbs, and cliffs.

As one of the best boat launch areas from which to explore North Puget Sound, Canada and beyond, Deception Pass Park also offers two easily accessible, fresh water lakes for boating, scenic views and sometimes challenging kayaking.

Cornet Bay has a six-lane boat launch with large parking areas nearby. From this launch, boaters can gain access to the Pass and nearby islands.

Bowman Bay has a one-lane boat launch offering access to Bowman Bay and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It is muddy and shallow at low tides.

Cranberry Lake has a car-top boat launch near West Beach for human powered or electric motor boats. The lake is popular for trout fishing.

Pass Lake is a quality fly-fishing lake and has an area for launching human-powered boats. Catch and release only.

Kayaking in the quieter waters of the park area is a great way to see the spectacular shorelines up close and personal. In addition the park’s two freshwater lakes, Bowman Bay and Cornet Bay are calm, saltwater inlets that are ideal for human-powered boating. Kayaking in the Pass itself requires high-level skills and an awareness of the inherent hazards.

For information about boating permits, please visit http://parks.wa.gov/fees/

Fishing in the Pass and nearby areas is very popular at certain times of the year. Trout, lingcod, salmon, shrimp, smelt, herring and crab can all be found in abundance.

The saltwater areas of the Pass and nearby bays and passages are very scenic, but also extremely dangerous due to strong currents, winds, and waves coming in from the Strait. Use caution and care while on the water, obey all safety rules, and know your limits and the limits of your vessel.

In the park, enjoy fishing at Pass Lake, Cranberry Lake, and for the best salt water fishing, try North Beach.

Fishing licenses are required in the park.  For information, please visit https://fishhunt.dfw.wa.gov/

Rosario Tide Pools Group Visits

Groups are rarely turned away. Reservations help us to spread out large numbers of visitors over multiple days and decrease the impact of big groups.

• Because the tide pools are very popular, the park cannot guarantee your first choice of date/time, especially in May and June.  The sooner you book, the better.
• Please stay within the rope trail system and ensure that your students/group members understand this, and (if necessary) that you have enough chaperones to keep your group under control.
• The tide pools are an excellent outdoor classroom.  Additionally, there is now an indoor classroom adjacent to the tide pools equipped with microscopes and other educational tools.  Please contact Interpretive Services, below, if you are interested in using the Rosario Classroom during your visit.

Without support provided by the Foundation, Deception Pass would not have the staffing to keep the tide pools open for groups and school visits.  For this reason, a donation of $3 is requested for each student/attendee.  This fee can be collected during your visit.

For scheduling please contact Deception Pass Interpretive Services at (360) 675-3767 ext. 231 or DeceptionPass.Interpreter@parks.wa.gov.

Tide Pool Prep Materials:

• Field Trip Registration Form
• Tide Pool Stewardship Agreement
• Tide Pool Resources for Teachers
• Discover Pass Information

It’s hard to imagine Deception Pass without the bridge.  But until 1935, the gap between Fidalgo Island and Whidbey Island could only be crossed by boat.

From 1924 until the completion of the bridge, a small ferry called the Deception Pass ran between Yokeko Point and Hoypus Point.  The ferry was owned and operated by Berte Olson, who was the first female ferry captain in the state of Washington.

Service on the small boat was, by most accounts, infrequent and the route was often canceled due to turbulent water conditions.  Patrons were able to summon the ferry by hitting an old saw with a mallet.  Fares were 50 cents for a car and driver, and 75 cents for larger vehicles.

Although she was barely five feet tall, Berte Olson was a force to be reckoned with.  To many she was known as “Little, but Oh My!”  For many years, Olson fought to prevent the construction of the bridge, even persuading Governor Ronald Hartley to veto a bill funding the construction of the bridge that had passed the state legislature unanimously.

Whidbey Island residents had called for the construction of a bridge to Fidalgo Island since the 1890s.  G. W. Morse, a local boat captain and state legislator, spent decades in the early 1900s unsuccessfully lobbying the state legislature to fund the construction of a bridge.  After years of broken promises and two vetoes, a bill was finally passed and construction of the bridge began in August of 1934.

The Wallace Bridge and Structural Company was hired to build the two span bridge at a cost of $420,000.  Much of the labor was done by local out-of-work farmers who did helped build the approaches and did concrete work.  Young men of the Civilian Conservation Corps also assisted with the approach routes, using dynamite to blast through the rock on both sides.  Construction took just under 12 months.  The bridge was completed on July 25th and dedicated on July 31st, 1935.  Construction would have been completed a day earlier, but when it came time to lower the final section, it didn’t fit.  An engineer quickly realized that the hot summer weather had caused the steel to expand.  At 4 a.m. the steel had cooled and the last piece was lowered into place.

A year before the bridge was built, local writer George Albert Kellogg had this to say about the possible effects of a future bridge:

“What will become, I wonder, of the mystery, the shaded quiet, and age-old charm of those deep swirling waters and the shores that confine them? The lone ferry, chugging in occasional passage; that sense of detachment from a prosaic world when once you’ve gotten across to the island?

 “Do you suppose the island roads, congested with traffic, will invite the outdoor advertising companies to erect their billboards? Will these winding highways of dignified rural beauty end in a sacrifice to the brazenly flaunted values of clothing, cigarettes, and gasoline?”

Facts about the Bridge

• Total length: 1,487 feet (Canoe Pass span: 511 feet, Deception Pass Span: 976 feet)
• Road width: 22 feet
• Sidewalk width: three feet each side
• Height: approximately 180 feet from the water (depending on tides)
• Style: cantilever
• Over 1,500 tons of steel were used to construct the two spans
• Roughly 15,000 cars cross the bridge each day

More Info

• South Whidbey Record: Story teller brings Berte Olson back to life at Deception Pass
• The Bridge via Satellite

On a geological timescale, Cranberry Lake is a relatively recent addition to Deception Pass.  Around 15,000 years ago, during the Fraser Glaciation, the Puget Sound region was covered by a lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet.  In some places, the sheet was over 3,000 feet thick.  The basin of Cranberry Lake was one of many regional geological features carved by the retreat of the ice sheet roughly 14,000 years ago.

Cranberry Lake used to be a saltwater inlet.  Over thousands of years wind action from the west created the thin strip of sand dunes that now separate the lake from nearby West Beach.  Evidence of the lake’s salty past exists in a pocket of saltwater at the deepest part of the lake.  Its name originates from the settlement days of Whidbey Island when farmers grew cranberries along the boggy edges of the lake.

During the summer, Cranberry Lake is a popular location for swimming, boating and fishing.  There is a sandy beach with an enclosed swimming area on the west side of the lake and water temperatures are typically between 55 and 60 degrees (much warmer than the ocean waters to the west).

German brown and rainbow trout, smallmouth bass, and perch can be caught from boats or from the shore.  Only human-powered or electric motor boats are allowed in Cranberry lake.  Fishing licenses are required.

A seasonally operated concession stand rents paddle boats at the west end of the lake.  On the east side of the Lake, there is a long wooden dock and several covered kitchen shelters built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.