Orcas Island Campground Search

Last Wednesday afternoon Mike P and I drove to Anacortes and took a ferry over to Orcas Island to meet up with the Young Men that were on their high adventure. We arrived right on time to catch the ferry but when we got there we heard an announcement that the ferry that we were going to catch was going to be an hour late. This was actually a good thing because it gave us enough time to get our tickets and pay a trip to a real bathroom before we headed off to the land of camping.

Once the ferry arrived we rode on and tied our bikes up in their allotted places. This allowed us to wander upstairs and sit with the rest of the passengers. It was a nice ride over to the island.

Once the ferry docked at Orcas we pedaled off and headed out to the campground on the other side of the island. The ride starts with a short uphill section followed by a pretty decent descent. It was nice to fly down the hill as all of the traffic sped by us. For some reason they let the bikes off first and then let the hoards of cars after. This meant that all of the cars that were on the ferry passed us while we were riding. It probably would have been better to let the bikes off after all of the cars but it worked out anyway.

The next hill of the ride was a killer. It wasn’t that bad of a hill but for some reason once I got into the meat of it I was really sucking wind. At this point I thought I was really in trouble but by the top of the hill I was starting to recover.

During the ride we looked over into someones yard and saw three deer. Two of them were bucks. Mike P told me that they were 2 pointers. I’m not sure how that works but I’m sure that he does.

As the ferry was an hour late we were riding later than we had expected. During the end of the ride it started to get dark. This came on really sudden and before we knew it we were riding in the dark.

We found the campground but couldn’t find the specific site. After riding around in the dark we had to knock on someone’s door to ask where the biker/hiker sites were. They pointed us in the right direction but after a second or two we were lost again. It’s easy to get lost in the dark on a bike.

Lucky for us the Bro W had come out looking for us in his car and led us to the campground. Mission accomplished.

Stats:
14 miles
~1500 feet of elevation gain