Instructor: Gabe Garms
Cost: $25
A Discover Pass is required for this walk

Come join us on a 3.5 hour plant walk at Deception Pass State Park near Oak Harbor, WA.  We'll help you identify seaweeds, trees, plants and shrubs along the trails at West Beach and Goose Rock. We’ll also teach you which plants are good for food, medicine, tools and attracting wildlife. We'll also look at the relationships that the plants have with the birds, invertebrates and other elements of the natural world.

We’ll meet at the Goose Rock parking lot on the west side of the Deception Pass bridge at 9am. This parking lot usually fills up by 10am, which is why we are meeting at 9am. From there, we’ll walk about 1 mile to a little known part of Deception Pass known as the Balds. It’s a place on Goose Rock where glacial ice receded thousands of years ago and took all of the topsoil with it, right down to the bedrock. Now, only a select number of plants can grow in it’s topsoil. We’ll see plants such as naked broomrape, paintbrush, camas, Menzie’s larkspur, gold-backed fern, chocolate lily and so much more. The Balds light up with color this time of year. I’ll show you how to identify them all.

Then we’ll head back to the parking lot and drive 1.5 miles to West Beach where we will spend the remainder of the walk on the loop trail. On this part of the walk we’ll learn about sea blush, beach carrot, sea rocket, Pacific yew, kinnikinnick, sand verbena and more. Bring your notebook and camera because we’ll be learning about A LOT of plants.

To register, click here.