I don’t know where I was there, for a while, but now I do. I mean I knew where I was, but I also knew I wasn’t writing. But now I am. I’ll explain later.
We took off last week for a six-day, five-night adventure at Belfair State Park in western Washington. We’ve been here before, but that was in late Fall and a little nippy. Quiet, though. This time, just a few weeks before schools are back in session, the place was packed. And not at all nippy.
By reserving precisely 9 months in advance we secured a “waterfront” site. I wanted to be able to do some kayaking without the hassle of carting the boat between campsite and launch point. Our site worked well for that, with a caveat: timing the tide.
Our campsite T30 at Belfair State Park, just an hour or so after high tide. The only thing between us and Hood Canal was a path used by approximately 1240 people per day. Also, at max ebb tide, about a half-mile of mud and exposed seagrass and a lot of oyster shells.
At low tide our waterfront campsite became landlocked. Well, mudlocked. Here we have an example of a bad time to launch or land a kayak. Too much carrying a 50-pound boat over slippery mud and grass and sharp oyster shells. Still… beats real life.
But, hey, this trip wasn’t all about kayaking. There was scenery to stare at, a promised meteor shower, the mandatory dog-walks, and probably some work for me to do (clients always call just before we head out on a trip — in fact, I’ve learned that scheduling a trip is a good way to stimulate client demand).
It was 90 degrees the afternoon of our arrival. We focused on setup and dog-walking, and while we did that the tide rose. The timing of our trip resulted in high tides at early morning and early evening.
Note: this is western Washington, right next to Hood Canal, a fjord extending from Admiralty Inlet all the way to Belfair, some 45 miles. It’s August, but regardless, it’s supposed to be kind-of green. But it wasn’t, and it’s not. We’re sharing a drought with the rest of the west coast, and brown is the new green.
You can see that we had plenty of space in our campsite. Space enough, even, for Sooz to pamper the pooches with bowls of fresh water, delivered directly to them in the lounge chairs that are supposed to be for us humans. But. Because the ‘waterfront’ campsites are themselves fronted by a waterfront trail, some campers felt the need to access the trail through our campsite. In fact some felt that our campsite to be some sort of day use area. Many of these same campers were, apparently, immune to stinkeye. Eventually Sooz created a tasteful fence out of the plastic step-stools we use to get Oscar Diggs up to his perch atop TinMan.
Should you plan a camping or RVing trip to Belfair State Park in Summer? Maybe. There are many many many many many children, of all ages, riding skateboards and bicycles and hideous loud plastic annoying pretend cars pulled by bicycles, careening through the campground on the road designed for cars and trucks and RVs and suitably courageous pedestrians, and also on the aforementioned Waterfront Path, or did I say Trail.
I would like to provide photographic evidence of the camping-loop carnage, but I think I would then have to get signed releases from those boarders/scooters/bikers and that’s a higher level of organization than I’ve achieved as yet. But here’s a sense of how things look if you’re not in a waterfront campsite:
Kind-of crowded. The farther from the water, the more oppressive it felt. Yet it was completely full, so people are happy to be here, I guess.
But look, if you have the kids, or the boards, or the scooters, or the plastic cars, and you’re looking for a place to deploy them away from your home neighborhood, this might work for you. It clearly works for others.
So, for the moment, let’s leave it at this. You can have a lot of wondrous moments camping at Belfair State Park in Summer. You have to time things right, and some patience is required. But that’s okay, no? Yes. One wondrous moment:
This little feller is a Killdeer, I think. He (or she?) and I met on the waterfront early one morning and actually communicated telepathically. Oh probably not.
There is much more to report about this trip, and then some other stuff. I’ll get right on it.
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We’ve never been to Belfair State Park, and may skip it for now! You two certainly take advantage of getting out and camping. We seem to have TOO much to do to make it happen and were retired! Time to do some reorganizing of our time. Maybe having a new Escape will help. So, do you take off in the winter? I guess the fact that we spend around three months in the SW helps. It’s been so beautiful up here in Port Townsend this spring and summer that we kinda hate to leave, and always so much going on in PT. It causes some great guilt if we take off and find out we missed another fun music event, or outdoor movie at Ft. Worden, or a run/walk at Valley of the Trolls in Gardner, Wa., etc. etc. However, maybe a trip to Crater Lake prior to the Ft. Stevens rally.
We liked Belfair well enough when we visited last November. Much quieter, and the winter waterfowl were beginning to arrive. But for midsummer, maybe not again.
I am guilty of having booked most of these trips nine months in advance, and I wanted to err on the side of “too many trips, let’s cancel one” as the time got closer. This is a higher-cost strategy that I won’t necessarily repeat. So far, we have cancelled only one this year.
I know what you mean about missing something “at home.” We have a lot of concerts and movies and whatnot here in Gig Harbor, too. We have missed a few. But…. we took many years off from camping, so maybe we’re just overcompensating at first. We’ll see what happens.
Aaaaand we’ll be up your way, at Ft Flagler, quite soon. Weather looks iffy, but we dare not complain about rain.