A campground with walk-able access to 2 Beaches, a fishing lake with sandy beach and roped off swimming area, easy, beautiful hiking trails and a spectacular view – what more could you ask for!
Deception Pass State Park is located on the Northern tip of Whitbey Island in Washington, USA. It’s a scenic drive, easily accessible from the I-5 and nestled in the pacific northwest forest right by the ocean.
Deception Pass Bridge is a popular place to stop as it’s one of those ‘photo opportunities’ that you just can’t drive by without stopping to investigate further, but the park itself is worth a visit too. The main beach at the day use area is long and rocky but there is a sandy beach by the swimming lake for those who just have to build sandcastles! My kids love making forts out of driftwood and there’s plenty of material to choose from along this shore! Fishing seems to be popular here and there was quite the crowd of boats offshore as well as fishermen on the beach when we were there in early September so bring your rods!
The North beach is the quieter of the two as it’s as obvious to the day use crowd and it can easily be reached from the campground. Here you’ll find great tidal pools to explore as you walk along towards the bridge.
Deception Pass Bridge
Sites vary quite a lot in size, so if you are making a reservation, take time to read the site descriptions or you might find yourself perching on a ledge (many of the sites have the picnic tables lower than the car / tent pads which is a bit different.
Trail to the Beach
Our site was facing the swimming lake and it was a really beautiful spot: plenty of sun and shade with a great little ‘den’ for the kids to move into (which they did, almost immediately, announcing that they were going to eat in there) and a convenient little access path that joined the trail to the beach area.
Only downside was that it was a quite a trek to the washroom block (showers and flush toilets – which were clean!) but considering that there were only 2 for the whole site, that’s not so surprising! More washrooms would be a plus but if you don’t mind the trek, it’s kind of nice to have it further away from the sites! I would recommend that if you have smaller children, however, you keep washroom locations in mind when reserving a site!
The campground feels quite open despite the trees and plenty of sunshine can get through to most of the sites we saw which is nice – we get far too much rain on the West Coast!
Swimming area and sandy beach, just a stones throw from the day use area at the beach
Enjoy the beautiful sunsets
At the Day use area you’ll find a concession (nothing healthy here so be warned!) and a canoe rental shack, which was doing a roaring trade while we were there, so go early in the day if you want to take a paddle out on the lake!
We first came to Deception Pass on our way to Seattle one rainy day. We’d decided to take the scenic route of the old Chuckanut Highway followed by Whidbey Island and finally the ferry to Seattle (it makes a really refreshing change to go this way and the scenery really is beautiful) and we decided to stop at Deception Pass for lunch. I have to say that I felt so sorry for the campers on that very damp day in May and I suppose that put me off going back there until this year but I’m so glad we did and we’ll be back again for sure!
Campermamas 