If you grew up in the Puget Sound Area or visited during your youth, you probably have a host of memories about Mason County, in the State of Washington. Mason County was my outdoor playground for just about anything I could dream up.
The County covers 961 square miles of land with 275 of those square miles in the Olympic National Park and National Forest.
In 1961 Walt Disney Presents featured a narrative on the Olympic Mountains and the Olympic National Park. The stars of the True -Life Adventures were the Olympic Elk and the adorable Olympic Marmot. That episode of Walt Disney Presents launched my membership into the Boy Scouts of America. I was fortunate to be in a Troop that hiked each summer into the Olympics and I will never forget those adventures.
The County's topography is marked by Majestic Mountains, hills, beautiful saltwater shorelines, fish filled rivers, numerous lakes, green valleys and dense forests. Altitude ranges from sea level to 6,255 feet at the top of Mt. Washington. But it is Hood Canal that is so prominent within the County.
Hood Canal is a World Class treasure. It is long and narrow. The average width is about 1.5 miles and the depth is around 177 feet. It extends about 50 miles to the South from Admiralty Inlet of Puget Sound to the Community of Union where it takes a sharp turn (The Great Bend) to the Northeast for another 15 miles ending at the tidelands of Belfair.
Hood Canal separates the Kitsap Peninsula and Olympic Peninsula for its entire length. It's technically an American Fjord. It's no surprise to see why so many Scandinavian's have made the region their home.
My personal memories of Hood Canal are of camping and swimming at Twanoh State Park. The name of the Park is from the Native American Twana Tribes, known today as the Skokomish. The waters are the warmest saltwater beaches in the State. In fact, Hood Canal is one of the warmest saltwater bodies in the Puget Sound. In my youth they had a raft with a high dive platform. Reflecting back on it, how did we ever survive the dives from that platform...Saltwater bodies of water have outgoing tides! Needless to say the raft is long gone.
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