Hood Canal and Theler Wetlands

Visit Dates: May 22-24, 2026

It’s been a while since I’ve posted and the pictures of a quick trip we made up to Hood Canal (not river) on the Washington Sound were calling to be shared. Mary Ann was in Minnesota watching her oldest grandson graduate from college; but she graciously opened her house on the Canal to us and the Lees.

Here is a screen grab from Google Maps giving some context to where we were.

As you can see we were south west of Seattle in the heart of Puget Sound.

I’ll mostly let the pictures speak for themselves.

We were treated to a beautiful sunset on our first night there. Beautiful sunsets there are the norm.

View from our spot on Hood Canal

The water ebbs and flows with the tides. When the tide is out the oysters become visible. Most of those brown bumpy bits are oysters. The rectangle above the boat with the tarp is an oyster farm.

Oyster beds in Hood Canal

A company regularly comes around to responsibly harvest oysters for the local restaurants.

On Saturday we made our usual short trip toward Belfair to walk the Theler Wetland trails

Mama bear and cub carved from an old tree trunk

Floating bridge through the estuary.

About ten years ago a dike was breached to restore the wetlands back to more or less resemble their past.

Theler Wetlands. Belfair, Washington
The tide is out an the floating platform rests on the ground

Green abounds. These pictures illustrate why I love living in the great Pacific Northwest. It so different (green!) than where I grew up in the desert (which has its own beauty).

When trees fall they are quickly (well, relatively) reclaimed.

Mushrooms doing their mushroom thing on a fallen tree

There are plenty of other colors breaking through the green.

Spring flowers are abundant!

Regular readers know that Hood Canal is a regular vacation spot for us. Lucky for us our great friends Mary Ann and Jay have a place up there and they invite us on the regular. Sadly, Jay died around Memorial Day in 2023. You can eavesdrop on our visits here.

Want some more foliage and landscape pictures? Check out my album on Flickr. (opens in a new tab)

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