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Chuckanut to Bellingham

Day 10 · Completed

Chuckanut Drive

Chuckanut Drive at California Street, Bellingham, Washington

Chuckanut Drive and Washington’s first state park

This day on the route

Date
The day
Walking
Walked
8.6 miles

Day 10, September 16: 8.6 miles walked, from the pullout above Samish Bay past Larrabee State Park to California Street and Chuckanut Drive in Bellingham. She spent the night at the Lighthouse Mission.

Route overview, not turn-by-turn directions.

Gouache and ink illustration of a narrow road curving around sandstone cliffs above blue coastal water, with fir trees and low islands beyond.
Illustration inspired by Chuckanut Drive corridor at Larrabee State Park, Whatcom County, WA.

On September 16 Jeana walked 8.6 miles over Chuckanut Mountain, past Washington’s first state park, and down to California Street in Bellingham. Water-line construction at the park was under way.

Chuckanut Drive follows steep ground above Samish and Chuckanut bays. WSDOT’s historic-highway account records its opening to automobile traffic in 1916 and describes a narrow roadway with limited shoulders and restricted sight distance. Its short distances on a map follow a coast where the road has little room to spare.

Larrabee became Washington’s first state park when the state accepted a land donation from Frances Larrabee in November 1915. It was initially called Chuckanut State Park and received the family’s name in 1923. State Parks also records that a landslide delayed the planned road dedication, an early reminder that this coastal setting has always shaped access.

Water-line construction had begun at the park the day before, on September 15, 2026, and State Parks notices differed on the closure details: camping was closed, and day-use access could change.

She was awake around five, broke down her camp above Samish Bay and was walking by half past seven, on over Chuckanut Mountain and down to her stopping point at California Street and Chuckanut Drive. With nowhere else to stay, the firefighters at Bellingham Fire Station 2 paid for a cab to the Lighthouse Mission, and she spent the night in a large room of mattresses on the floor with the unhoused of Bellingham. She asked for one thing to be passed on from that night: do not keep up the myth that people are on the street through their own fault.

From the road

Over Chuckanut Mountain, and a night at the Lighthouse Mission

She was awake around five, breaking down the camp above Samish Bay, and walking by half past seven. The road went on over Chuckanut Mountain.

Larrabee State Park was just under three miles on, and as she entered the park she came on a group training in trail first aid. She explained what she was doing, and a good number of them took the QR code there and then to join the registry. What she noticed was the speed of it — no persuading, just I want to help. All of them young, all of them healthy, which is exactly who the registry needs.

The ranger at Larrabee is called Amber. Jeana describes her as Quan Yin manifested as a park ranger: an inherent quality of awareness and compassion. She read afterwards that the local Buddhist community holds a water ceremony at Larrabee every year.

She walked the whole way down the mountain to where California Street meets Chuckanut Drive, and a woman called Deanna gave her a lift into the middle of Fairhaven to look for food and a bed. A mile and a quarter of that stretch is owed, and she intends to walk it.

The Firehouse Arts and Events Center fed her a quiche and what she calls the best ever brown sugar caramel latte, with kindness and some real enthusiasm about joining NMDP thrown in. Patrons there pointed her towards the nearest fire station.

The firefighters and the captain at Bellingham Fire Station 2 were interested and wanted to know more, but a new policy stops them putting anyone up for the night. She is sorry about that one: a fire station reaches a lot of young, healthy potential donors at once, and crews tend to carry what they learn into future training and out to others in the field.

So the firemen paid for a cab to the Lighthouse Mission, and she spent the night there, in a large room of mattresses on the floor with the unhoused of Bellingham. Men along one side of a barrier made of folded tables, a small section for women, more men beyond. She felt safe. She was careful with the backpack, because she needs that gear to keep going.

What she took away was the quiet in it. Strong currents of silence, she says, unspoken pain in the middle of all the noise, and a great many people with nowhere to call home for a great many different reasons.

She asked for one thing to be passed on from the night, and it is not about her. Do not keep up the myth that people are on the street through their own fault. The gaps are ours: mental health services, work that disappears, foster children who age out with nowhere to go, and a hundred other routes to the same place. What she is really pointing at is perception, and what colours it.

There, but for the grace of God, go I. It can happen to any one of us. So love that neighbour, and be generous of heart, especially with the most vulnerable among us.

Jeana Moore
First light over the water through a stand of firs, the sky still pink and the sea flat.A cargo ship on the horizon at dawn, seen between dark branches from high on the hillside.Two young firs on a brushy hillside in front of a misty wooded headland reaching into a calm, pale bay, with bare branches and a big leafy tree overhead at the right.A wooded headland running out into a still bay, everything soft with morning mist.A yellow road sign showing a bicycle above the words ON ROADWAY, where the highway curves away downhill through trees.A grey handheld remote control left sitting on a concrete parapet, forest behind it.Tall firs standing above a bank of fog lying flat on the water below.Fir boughs hanging down into the frame above calm gray water far below, the sea fading into a pale, misty sky.A brown park sign in the undergrowth reading Entering Larrabee State Park.A madrona tree leaning across the path, its bark peeling to the smooth red wood underneath.A spray of leaves turned deep red and pink, lying on grey stone at the side of the trail.A green highway sign reading Entering Whatcom County, against dense roadside greenery.
Show all 27 photos from this dayShow fewer photos
Moss-covered trunks rising out of a forest floor thick with sword ferns.A heavily mossed trunk leaning right across the trail, sunlight coming through the canopy behind it.A gravel trail running straight into the trees, the canopy above it turning yellow.A gravel trail strewn with fallen leaves curving left through the forest, a big conifer and ferns on the right and yellowing leaves high in the canopy.A gravel trail running ahead between tall straight trunks, with a steep bank of ferns and undergrowth on the right and sunlight catching the treetops.A big moss-covered trunk beside the trail with ferns crowding the base of it.The trail running along the foot of a steep bank completely covered in ferns.Sunlight coming down through a stand of trees onto ferns and undergrowth.A narrow sunlit path winding away through the trees.The bay seen through a gap in the trees, deep blue under a clear sky.A wooded island out in the blue bay, with a mountain ridge on the far shore.A wooden trail sign reading Teddy Bear Cove, Beach Access, nought point two miles.A deer standing in the middle of a quiet residential street, with a parked truck alongside and the bay in the distance.Firefighting turnout gear and boots stowed in the open side locker of a fire engine.The side of a Bellingham fire engine, the city name in gold lettering above the open equipment bay.
Distance walked
8.6 miles
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Choose where you live

Continue to the official registry that serves you. It decides eligibility, handles registration and contacts you if you may match a patient.

United States — NMDP

NMDP accepts new registry members who are 18 to 35, live in the US, its territories or freely associated states, can meet NMDP’s health guidelines, and are not already registered through another US organization. Joining happens at home: you answer a few questions on NMDP’s site, they mail you a free cheek-swab kit, and you swab and send it back. Once you are a member you stay listed until you are 61 unless you ask to be removed — 61 is when NMDP takes you off, not an age at which you can join. NMDP makes the final eligibility decision.

Check the listed age range

Visit NMDP

NMDP — Join the registry · checked Sep 1, 2026

Prefer to text? Send JADA to 61474 and NMDP will take it from there.

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Eligibility rules can change. Confirm the current requirements with the official registry before joining.

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Sponsoring a mile, a day or a stop is a way of describing a gift to the Jada Bascom Foundation. It does not purchase anything on the route.

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Sources

Local history and background reading for this stop.

  1. Historic Highway SR 11 — checked Sep 5, 2026
  2. Larrabee State Park history — checked Sep 5, 2026
  3. Larrabee water system overhaul — checked Sep 5, 2026
  4. Larrabee State Park — July 1, 2026 construction alert — checked Sep 5, 2026
The flyer: STOP BLOOD CANCER set in tall letters over a dark plum page, a quote, and a QR code beside a text-to-join line for the U.S.One standing face of the table tent: the same headline and quote on the left, a large QR code on the right.

Take it off the screen

Print it. Put it where people already stand.

A coffee counter, a church foyer, a break room, a race table. Every sheet carries the code that opens Jeana’s walk, and a number to text for anyone who would rather not scan — no app, no wifi, nothing to hand back.Every sheet carries the code that opens Jeana’s walk — nothing to install, nothing to hand back. The number to text printed beside it is for joining NMDP, which registers people who live in the U.S., its territories and the freely associated states. If you live anywhere else, find your country’s registry.

Everything else for running a drive

Rather be the one at the table?

Host a registration drive at your school, work or place of worship, raise funds, or lend a skill. Tell us what you have in mind and we will help you plan it.

Ways to volunteerHost a registration drive