Our favourite base camp in the San Juans: tie up at Rosario, climb to the top of Mount Constitution, and earn the hot tub.
Mooring at Rosario on Orcas Island is our favourite adventure base camp in the San Juans. You can tie up the boat, lace up your shoes and be on the trail in ten minutes.
Up Mount Constitution
The trails start at the marina and climb through Moran State Park to the top of Mount Constitution, 2,399 feet above the sea and the highest point in the islands. Run it, hike it or ride it on a mountain bike. At the summit a stone tower looks out across the whole of the Salish Sea, and on a clear morning Mount Rainier floats above the haze well over a hundred miles to the south.
On the way down, take the loop past Cascade Lake. It is beautiful in sun and arguably better in the rain, when the mist hangs in the cedars and you have the shore to yourself.
Then the good part
Finish the day the way it deserves: a soak in the hot tub, a cocktail, and dinner in the old mansion at Rosario, built in the early 1900s by the shipbuilder Robert Moran, who gave the land for the park.
Words and photographs by Vendovi.
