The Oak Harbor Waterfront Trail (or The Shoreline Trail) starts at the Scenic Heights Trailhead on Scenic Heights Street, just off of Hwy 20, on the outskirts of Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island, and ends at Maylor Point, in sight and along Oak Harbor the whole way. To make it easy, the walk can be broken up into a couple sections.
See Section 1 here and Section 2 here.
To do Section 3, I picked up at Flintstone Park where I had stopped on Section 2, along SE Bayshore Drive. You can park on the side of the road here, or just up a half block off of Dock, in the free city lot. There are EV chargers that run free, but wether or not they are working is on the city (they quit working a few months ago when 3G was turned off…..).
Flintstone Park is across the street from the transit center as well, so is easy to take the free Island Transit to and from to save gas money.
It’s not a long walk this section – Flintstone Park to the Veterans Memorial Park, but it’s a nice leg stretcher. It’s all on sidewalks so is smooth walking. No driveways crossed, no side roads. It was .65 of a mile with just a bit of elevation gain. Where Bayshore ends at Pioneer Way, and you take a right, at low tide one could walk along the shoreline. There are a couple set of stairs (I saw 3 sets). Of those 1 is closed, the other 2 are tread carefully. But it is not a sandy bay and rather is rocks, and mucky sand/mud farther out.
Heron sitting on a rock above the low tide in Oak Harbor Bay.
Views across and of the Marina.
When there are no clouds, you can see Tahoma (Mt. Rainier) above the bay.
The trail heads uphill quickly to the Veterans Memorial Park and a kiosk about the trail. And a memorial bench in the shade. The building ahead was once Navy, but they gave it and a bunch of other bits to the local college so they could expand. The gate for the Navy base has moved farther down over the years.
The trail heads downhill from the park, and the pale concrete reflects back the sun quite hotly. I decided I would save the rest for another day.
History of the area of Oak Harbor to learn about – when Oak Harbor was an agricultural community, before the Navy came.
The back side talks about the period when the military came and how it changed the town.
Veterans Memorial Park is a small spot around the sidewalk at the top of the hill.
Just visiting this is worth the time. You can park just up the hill at the community college/public library lot for free, and walk down to see it.
At this point the sidewalk/trail heads downhill quickly towards the Oak Harbor Marina (where it ends, and then the trail picks up on Navy property to go to Maylor Point. Wether or not that part is open, well…….good luck).
Hopefully I will be able to fit in part 4 soon enough. Or another year. You never know.
~Sarah
Super nice walk review – thank you. I was there a few years ago and the path past the marina down towards Maylor Pt and the wetland area seemed to be gated off, you eluded to that in your write up. Do you know if there is some schedule or maybe it’s seasonal that the gate there is open so folks can walk out to the wetlands and spit area?
I know when I was looking at it, it was closed for Covid. I haven’t checked to see if they finally reopened though, this year.
~Sarah