Tag Archives: Deception pass state park

Deception Pass Bridge Maintenance

While on our trip to Whidbey, we made a short stop at the North beach in Deception Pass State Park.  This is the beach that is closest to the bridge across the pass.  I was hoping it might be possible to get a nice shot of the bridge but I was disappointed to realize that the maintenance work underway on the bridge has resulted in the structure being covered in a ton of material.  No chance to get anything exciting from that.  If you looked closely, you could make out some of the maintenance team up on the bridge in their hi-viz clothing.  That is not a job for which I would be well suited.

Tranquility By the Shore

The walk along the beach in Deception Pass State Park starts out in amongst a lot of people.  The West Beach near the parking lot had a lot of people enjoying themselves while we were there.  However, they didn’t want to go too far it seemed as, when we started walking along the shoreline towards the North Beach, we rapidly found ourselves a lot more isolated.  There was the occasional person passing the other way but we were, for the most part, on our own.  Standing on the shore and looking out across the water on a sunny afternoon was really relaxing.

The Bridge Over Deception Pass

Before we knew we were moving to the Pacific Northwest, we took a vacation up here.  Ironically, we did it because it was relatively close and we thought the next move might take us away.  Guess we got that one wrong.  On that trip we jumped between the islands a little and part of that involved driving up Whidbey Island and crossing Deception Pass.  Consequently, this post exists which describes my brief exploration of the bridge as we were passing over it in weather that was a little less than great.

Our recent visit to the Deception Pass State Park allowed us to walk along the beach and up towards the bridge.  This was a different perspective to the previous visit.  The shoreline is quite long and, for a while the bridge does not look that impressive as you are seeing it from quite a distance.  However, as you get closer and start to make out the traffic on the bridge, you get to appreciate how large it is and how high over the water.

Since it is actually two bridges, it lends itself to a panoramic format when you are looking from a distance.  It is only as you get closer to the bridge that you can start to compress the whole thing into something that fits the normal frame a little better.  This was the third leg of a day trip so I was beginning to get a little worn out so I didn’t go and explore all of the possible angles.  I will definitely be back and will try that another time but, given that I still had to walk back to the car, I decided I would save that for another day and focus on the trip home.