Like Cascade Pass, Ebey’s Landing was one of the first hikes recommended to me when we moved to Seattle in the 1980s. Since then, I have been to Whidbey Island many times–hiking, biking, and writing at Hedgebrook, a retreat for women writers. The landscape of prairies and bluffs above Ebey’s Landing on Admiralty Inlet has not changed, thanks to the creation of a National Historical Reserve,
But since I wrote Hiking Washington’s History, the trail has changed. The map in the book shows two legs of a walk from Perego’s Bluff to Sunnyside Cemetery. The westernmost leg is now the main route. It goes past a blockhouse and the carefully reconstructed house of Jacob and Sarah Ebey who named the place Sunnyside. The Ebeys were the parents of Isaac Ebey who made the first land claim here in 1850 on what he described as “almost a paradise of nature.”
The house opens for Summer 2016 on May 28th and will be open Thursdays-Sundays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., a good destination for a hike.