Orcas Island Biking Day 2:
28.92 miles, 2759 ft ascent, 7 hrs. 25 min.
Daily Drena: Scenic Stops
We enjoyed our morning breakfast in the balcony, taking in the last of the sight before packing up and heading off to our first destination of the day.
The beginning of the day was a steep hill climb out of Rosario up to the main road and was a fore shadowing of the day to come. We first came across Moran State Park and took a moment to admire the first lake we came across, Cascade Lake.
At the bottom of a long hill we ran into the Orcas Island Artworks, which used to be the old strawberry processing plant. From the late 1800s, most of the land around here was used for growing strawberries, which was then processed primarily into jam. However, there was also a strawberry growing contest and the record holder was in the 1910s where a strawberry of more than 9 inches in circumference was grown! I powered up with a pb&j I had bought at the market yesterday while Lorena wandered around the gallery.
Just down the road from the gallery was the town of Olga, which has a post office, co-op store, coffee shop and that’s it! We also found a potter’s home along the way which had a very pretty mossy fence. We hung out for a while just enjoying the view.
We wandered up some gravel roads to find Obstruction Pass State Park, where we decided to do a little 1.5 mile loop hike. The walk had some lovely specimens of the local madrone trees, which are unique in that they don’t form a hard layer of bark on the outside, but rather papery peels. It also has the best beach we’ve found where we settled in for a goodly amount of time, just relaxing and watching the waves.
We continued our journey over to the last outpost on the eastern side of the island, Doe Bay. There is a lovely old school family feel resort there with yurts, camping, and cute little cabins scattered near the shore, not to mention the amazing views. It would be a lovely place to spend a few days kayaking, swimming, boating, and enjoying the hot and cold pools.
With nowhere else to go, we turned around and started heading back the way we came. When we came to Moran State Park this time, however, we saw a path to the side that allowed bikes, so decided to explore. It was the Cascade Lake Loop trail and it led us to the Cascade Falls. Since the trail kept going, I suggested we continue following it for a bit and hence proceeded a lovely little singletrack adventure for a little over 1.5 miles. Some of us thoroughly enjoyed it. Others of us had their husband run back and bike the littler bike to the next section before proceeding with his own 😉 We had opted not to make the 5 miles, 1900 ft climb up Mt. Constitution this time, so will have to come back in the future to conquer that.
We slogged our way back up the road back to town and thought we would take the back way to our inn for the night, but no luck; as we cut across town from East to West, we were denied yet again with no trespassing signs with the added difficulty of a gate. *sigh* Back the way we came to the paved road to get across instead, but we ended up finding the Kangaroo House Bed and Breakfast in the end. It was a lovely place with a quiet sitting room, little library, and most importantly, a hot tub to soak our limbs!
