Located in the heart of middle Puget Sound, Blake Island State Park is easily accessible from several put-ins. Paddlers can choose between super easy short paddling distances to much longer trips depending on their skill level or time available for a trip.
During the first weekend in September (2012), my partner Christy and I had little time to escape work thus chose the shortest paddle to the island from the Southworth ferry terminal. While it did require taking the Vashon-Southworth ferry from Seattle, the paddle to the island from Southworth was about a mile.
Other access points to Blake:
- Southworth Ferry Terminal, 1 mile.
- Vashon Island ferry terminal, 1.5 miles.
- Manchester, about 2 miles.
- Fort Ward Park on Bainbridge, approx 2-3 miles.
- Fauntelroy (West Seattle) ferry dock, approx 4 miles.
- Ballard (neighborhood in Seattle), 8 miles.
Blake can feel like it's isolated and far away from the city on one trip, while on the other you may feel like you're camping in a city park. During the trip above, it was a hot weekend so we had a regular stream of island hikers walking through or by our site and canoeists and boaters drifting by. One guy even tried to buy a cup of coffee from me for $10. I thought he was kidding but later found out he was serious! The best way to avoid crowds is to go on weekdays in summer or 'off seasons'.
Raccoons can be problematic but the State Park recently installed metal raccoon boxes to store your food which we found quite useful.
There's three campsites for paddlers on the island. The WWTA Cascadia Marine Trail site is on the NW side, the 'primitive' site on the south side (our favorite), and in Tilikum Village on the northeast side. There's a great surf break there south of the marina for freighter and wind waves. I surfed it one day for 1 hour scoring on waist high peelers.
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| 'Primitive' Site on the south side. |
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| Shot with an Oregon Scientific ATC9K. |
