Eastsound, WA
The smaller, quieter San Juan Islands airport. 2,900ft strip on Orcas Island just north of Eastsound village. No tower, no fuel after-hours — call ahead. Mount Constitution (2,409 ft) on Orcas is the highest point in the San Juans and worth the drive (or hike) for a 360 view of the islands and Vancouver Island beyond. The Rosario Resort on Cascade Bay was the 1909 mansion of Seattle shipbuilder Robert Moran. Crab Catcher and New Leaf Cafe are the on-island fly-in stops.
A horseshoe-shaped island four miles north of Orcas, all of it a state marine park. The sandstone formations on Sucia have been carved by wind and water into honeycombs, caves, and arches — geologists call them tafoni. From the air, the island reads as a green crescent with a long narrow bay sheltered inside. Accessible only by boat or kayak — no road, no infrastructure beyond pit toilets and trails. A pilot passing overhead sees something close to what Spanish explorers saw in 1791 when they named it "sucia" (dirty), referring to the dangerous reefs surrounding it.
The highest point in the San Juan Islands at 2,409 feet, crowned by a 1936 CCC-built stone observation tower visible from miles away. On a clear day the view from the top stretches from Mount Baker to Mount Rainier to the Olympics across the Strait of Juan de Fuca — and on rare days, all the way to Vancouver. Pilots flying in and out of Orcas Island Airport pass close enough to see hikers waving from the tower deck. The mountain's exposed granite shoulders contrast with the dense Douglas fir below; logging roads cut visible switchbacks up the eastern face. Moran State Park covers most of the mountain and forbids buildings, so the summit reads as a clean stone exclamation point in the middle of a green island.
172+ named islands in the Salish Sea between Washington and Vancouver Island. Emerald evergreens, rocky coves, blue water, and from May to September, J, K, and L pod orcas. From pattern altitude at KFHR or KORS the geography is extraordinary — peninsulas, kelp beds, lighthouses, and ferries threading between the islands. The major destinations: Friday Harbor (San Juan Island, biggest town), Eastsound (Orcas Island, biggest island), Lopez Village (Lopez Island, the bicyclist's favorite). The Rosario Resort on Orcas was Robert Moran's 1909 shipbuilder mansion. Lime Kiln Point on San Juan is the best whale-watching spot in North America from shore. Summer fly-in weekends are heavy — book tie-downs and rooms ahead. The islands sit in the Olympic rain shadow and get less than half of Seattle's rainfall; drier and sunnier than the rest of western Washington. The Pig War of 1859, a bloodless US-British border dispute, started on San Juan Island when an American settler shot a Hudson's Bay Company pig.
A historic harbor on the northwest tip of San Juan Island, built around the 1886 Hotel de Haro and the lime kilns that once made this the largest lime producer west of the Mississippi. The white-painted hotel, the long wooden colonnade, and the harbor full of sailboats and yachts make this one of the most photogenic waypoints in the entire San Juans. A short flight from KORS — visible across San Juan Channel. Sunset Color Guard ceremony every evening in summer is a local ritual worth landing for if you can swing it (Roche has its own private strip, but Friday Harbor is the public landing).