Kid-Friendly Hikes and Nature Walks in Skagit County

The hike-on-a-dike Padilla Bay Shore Trail offers wide views of the surrounding farms and wetlands — and the Olympic mountains beyond. The graveled 2.25-mile trail (one way) meanders through mudflats and tidelands with blackberry picking in late summer and bird-watching (and brisk wind) in the fall and winter. I’ve even seen river otters in the sloughs here.

You can just as easily bike this trail as walk it, and the path is wide and open for plenty of space among users.

Find it: There is parking with port-a-potties at either end of the trailhead to the Padilla Bay Shore Trail. Your closest provisions will be in either Edison, Mount Vernon or La Conner; each town about 5 miles from either end of the trail.

Next stop: Kukutali Preserve (Kiket Island)