Bellingham captures the spirit of the great outdoors

BELLINGHAM — Put your ear to the ground on the railroad tracks down by Boulevard Park, and you can hear it.

No, not the 5:30 Amtrak Cascades from Seattle.

The 'hamster spring stampede.

Everywhere you look on a sunny, early spring afternoon, Bellinghamsters are on the prowl: Climbing rocks below Chuckanut Drive. Feeding waterfowl at Lake Padden. Rollerblading around the net sheds at Squalicum Marina. Soaking up rays on pieces of outdoor, uh, sculpture on the campus of Western Washington University. It happens every year around this time, when the slightest sliver of spring sun finally blows the damp soggies northward, from whence they came.

Shaking hands with that long lost friend — sunshine and clean, fresh air — is a welcome rite of spring around the Northwest, indeed, most of the country. But few places in the Lower 48 relish it as much as Bellingham, a city of 70,000 that's about as far north as you can go in the contiguous states without whipping out your passport.

And fewer places present such a diverse palette of springtime colors and fresh-air activities.

The sun sets behind the statue "Safe Return," a memorial at Zuanich Point Park depicting a commercial fisherman casting a line into eternity. (RON C. JUDD / THE SEATTLE TIMES)

If you've only seen Bellingham while passing through on Interstate 5 en route to Vancouver, you've never seen Bellingham, one of those rare places where an outdoor-hungry populace is blessed with enough recreational manna to keep it close to home.

Jewel in a beautiful setting

Bellinghamsters poking their heads out after the region's occasionally harsh winters don't drive very far for world-class kayaking, hiking, camping, picnicking, cycling, mountain biking, rock climbing, fishing or scenic photography. Some of them don't drive at all.

To understand why, just glance at a map. The city is surrounded by water, islands, big trees and big peaks. Samish Bay, Blanchard and Chuckanut mountains, Larrabee State Park and scenic Chuckanut Drive beckon to the immediate south. Bellingham Bay, Lummi Island and the San Juans lie to the west. The Nooksack River tumbles toward Cherry Point to the north. Sprawling Lake Whatcom, acres of forest lands and a spectacular, rugged stretch of North Cascades peaks, crowned by Mounts Baker and Shuksan, loom to the east.

But, just like a big cinnamon roll at Tony's Coffees in Fairhaven, the center portion — the town itself — is a treat to be savored. The city park system is first-rate, offering a mix of traditional, picnic-and-playfield parks and wild, creek-and-bay-oriented waterfront sites perhaps unrivaled in the Northwest for a city of its size: One of every seven acres is a greenbelt, park or natural reserve. And the town is blessed with a 29-mile urban/rural trail system that should — and does — make mayors all over the nation drool.

An American dipper, aka water ouzel, takes a break from his submarine-diving for food in Whatcom Creek, which flows through Bellingham's Whatcom Falls Park. (RON C. JUDD / THE SEATTLE TIMES)

Add to the mix the requisite cultural affinities that come with hosting a university, and you've got a first-rate outdoors haven on your hands — a distinction noted recently by Outside magazine, which last September (OK, with a personal endorsement from yours truly, among others) named Bellingham one of its 10 "dream towns" for a healthy, non-frenetic, outdoorsy lifestyle.

The magazine wasn't even here for Ski-to-Sea, the annual May multi-sport race that begins on Mount Baker and ends in Bellingham Bay — with seemingly half the town participating, the other half cheering at the finish line.

The point, if it isn't already obvious: People in the Greater Seattle Sprawlopolis can be honorary Bellinghamsters for a day with a drive of less than 90 minutes (or a scenic, 2.5 hours on the aforementioned Amtrak Cascades). That makes Bellingham the perfect spring weekend retreat for city dwellers who've hiked that same trail in Discovery Park one too many times in the past 12 months.

What follows is a basic primer in Bellingham's outdoor wonders — and increasingly diverse indoor lodgings. Bring good boots, a parka, sunscreen, some fleece, and a sense of adventure to these excellent starting points, all close enough together to be connected by a mountain bike's ride in a single day:

Waterfront parks

Bellingham has a mix of high-tech and heavy industry today, but seawater still runs through the veins of this old seaport and cannery town. The Port of Bellingham's lovely new Zuanich Point Park, on Bellingham Bay's north shore, is the current crown jewel of an ongoing waterfront makeover that soon will spread to unused portions of that big Georgia Pacific pulp and paper plant at waterfront central.

The sandstone, moss-draped bridge in Whatcom Falls Park was built in 1939 by the Works Progress Administration. (RON C. JUDD / THE SEATTLE TIMES)

The park has become the city's favorite place for view-gazing (Mount Baker and the Twin Sisters in one direction, Lummi Island and Bellingham Bay in the other), kite flying, roller-blading and summer concerts. Green lawns prevail. Great playground equipment tempts kids. Keep your eyes peeled for big, noisy sea lions lurking like Russian submarines offshore.

The park has a "working waterfront" feel similar to Seattle's Fishermen's Terminal, with active net sheds right on the property, and a sprawling marina (Squalicum Harbor, one of the state's largest) at its back door. Don't miss one of the park's most poignant details: A fisherman's memorial called "Safe Return," topped by a unique 1999 Eugene Fairbanks sculpture of a commercial fisherman casting a line into eternity.

On the bay's south shore, Boulevard Park, at South State Street and Bayview Drive, and smaller Marine Park, just south of the Alaska Ferry/Bellingham Cruise Terminal in Fairhaven, are grand spots to bring a picnic or watch trademark San Juan Island sunsets, which seem to occur in greater glory here than lands farther south. From Boulevard Park, the popular South Bay Trail leads walkers and cyclists 1.5 miles north to downtown.

Seven miles south of town, of course, is Larrabee State Park, Washington's first state park (1915) and still one of its finest, with easy access to rocky Samish Bay beaches below Chuckanut Drive, and a fine trail system on Chuckanut Mountain. The Fragrance Lake Trail leads from the park's entrance to a great viewpoint of the San Juans, just under a mile up the path.

Creek and lakeside parks

A day spent walking along the banks of Whatcom Creek in 241-acre Whatcom Falls Park, another fine city property, is never wasted. You might remember it as the site of the devastating Olympic Pipeline blast, which killed three people in 1999 when gasoline leaked from a pipe in the park and ignited Whatcom Creek for several miles downstream. The ugly scars from that incident remain, but thousands of volunteer hours of labor already have helped add a new coat of green to charred banks in the park's lower (western) portions.

Some friends enjoy a picnic at Larrabee State Park, looking toward the San Juan Islands. (RON C. JUDD / THE SEATTLE TIMES)

The park's upper portions, which were not affected by the pipeline blast, remain as picturesque as ever, with cool, shady, well-worn paths stretching for several miles beneath big firs along the creek. The creek, an outlet for Lake Whatcom, drops in a series of waterfalls and at one point cascades beneath the famous sandstone, moss-draped Whatcom Falls bridge, built in 1939 by the Works Progress Administration (remember when improving parks, rather than shutting them down, was considered progress?).

Immediately to the east, Bloedel-Donovan Park offers acres of green space, a boat launch and moorage, and other fine day-use facilities on Lake Whatcom.

A few miles to the south, Lake Padden Park, on Samish Way, is Bellingham's answer to Green Lake. A small, clear still lake with a ban on internal-combustion engines is flanked on two sides by playfields and picnic areas — and ringed by a 2.6-mile, mostly level walking/cycling path that gets heavy use (not yet by Green Lake standards) every day of the year. More than five miles of other, less-developed paths on the 1,000-foot ridge separating the park and an adjacent golf course from I-5 are popular with mountain bikers and equestrians. Padden is a great place to fish (the Opening Day crowd is a spectacle), picnic, paddle, swim, hike, mountain bike and bird-watch, all in one stop.

On the town's south boundaries, the Interurban Trail, a fine multi-purpose rail-trail conversion, links sprawling, woodsy Fairhaven Park and Arroyo Park with Larrabee, seven miles to the south, and the aforementioned Marine Park, about a mile to the west via an offshoot, the Post Point Trail. Trailheads are found in the parks and along Fairhaven Parkway.

Another 2.5-mile trail system of note is the sparsely used Sehome Hill Arboretum, a delightful refuge of second-growth forest right in the center of town, adjacent to Western's campus. A moose that wandered into the city took up residence here a few years back, refusing to budge from the soothing greenbelt.

We know how he feels. Give it a try, and you might, too. You don't know the true rush of a stampede until you're right in the thick of it.

IF YOU GO

Bellingham is about 85 miles north of Seattle on Interstate 5. For train information on Amtrak Cascades, which makes twice-daily runs to Bellingham, see www.amtrak.com.

Lodging:

Two fine, newer waterfront hotels are worth a look:

• Hotel Bellwether (1 Bellwether Way; www.hotelbellwether.com; 877-411-1200; rooms from $119), near Squalicum Harbor Marina.

• The new Chrysalis Inn and Spa (804 10th St.; www.thechrysalisinn.com; 888-808-0005; rooms from $149) in a quiet neighborhood on the bay's south side.

Another popular choice is the Fairhaven Inn (1200 10th St.; 877-733-1100; rooms from $99) in the city's historic, 1890s Fairhaven neighborhood.

Less-pricey alternatives include a pair of Best Westerns, the Heritage Inn (151 McLeod Road; 888-333-2080) and the Lakeway Inn (714 Lakeway Drive; 888-671-1011) and a wide range of other motels and B&Bs. For a full range of Bellingham-area lodgings (most offer spring specials through April 30), see www.bellingham.org and click on the "best buys" banner, or call 888-261-7795.

Camping: The leading campground in the area is Larrabee State Park (reservations: 888-CAMPOUT or online at www.camis.com/wa/.

More information: Bellingham/Whatcom County Convention & Visitors Bureau, 360-671-3990 or www.bellingham.org. The city's Web site, www.cob.org, has city park information. A private Web site, www.kulshan.com, offers additional visitor information.

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