The Interurban Trail is a

rail trail A rail trail is a shared-use path on railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed, but may also share the right of way with active railways, light rail, or streetcar ...

Whatcom County Whatcom County is a county located in the northwestern corner of the U.S. state of Washington, bordered by the Canadian Lower Mainland (the Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley Regional Districts of British Columbia) to the north, Okanogan Cou ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

. Built for bicycle and hiking recreation, the trail runs between Fairhaven and

Larrabee State Park Larrabee State Park is a public recreation area located on Samish Bay on the western side of Chuckanut Mountain, south of the city of Bellingham, Washington. It was created in 1915 as Washington's first state park. The park covers and feat ...

in the Bellingham area.

Route

The trail's northernmost trailhead can be accessed in downtown Fairhaven, connecting to Boulevard Park, downtown Bellingham and onwards to Fairhaven Park, Arroyo Park, and Teddy Bear Cove Park. Additional access includes North Chuckanut Mountain Trailhead, Hiline Road, Fragrance Lake Trailhead, and Clayton Beach Trailhead. Interurban Trail runs parallel to Chuckanut Drive through the

Chuckanut Mountains The Chuckanut Mountains (from "Chuckanut", an Indian word meaning "long beach far from a narrow entrance"), or Chuckanuts, are located on the northern Washington (U.S. state), Washington state coast of the Salish Sea, just south of Bellingham, Was ...

. The trail follows the shoreline of the

Salish Sea , image = PNW-straits.jpg , alt = , caption = The Salish Sea, showing the open Pacific Ocean at lower left, and from there, heading inland: the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the narrow Puget Sound at lower ri ...

and

Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected ma ...

, with views of

Bellingham Bay Bellingham Bay is a bay of the Salish Sea located in Washington State in the United States. It is separated from the Strait of Georgia on the west by the Lummi Peninsula, Portage Island, and Lummi Island. It is bordered on the east by Bellingha ...

, the Lummi Peninsula,

Portage Island Portage Island is an island in the western part of Bellingham Bay in Whatcom County, Washington, United States. It is separated from the Lummi Peninsula by Portage Bay and from the central part of Lummi Island by Hale Passage, in Whatcom County. Po ...

Lummi Island Lummi Island lies at the southwest corner of Whatcom County, Washington, United States, between the mainland part of the county and offshore San Juan County. The Lummi Indian Reservation is situated on a peninsula east of the island, but it d ...

, Chuckanut Bay and the distant

San Juan Islands The San Juan Islands are an archipelago in the Pacific Northwest of the United States between the U.S. state of Washington and Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. The San Juan Islands are part of Washington state, and form the core of ...

History

The trail is constructed on the bed of the old Bellingham & Skagit Interurban Railway, an electric railway line that connected Whatcom County and Skagit counties from 1912 to 1930. A northern trail section follows the rail bed of the Fairhaven & Southern Railroad that ran coal trains to and from

Sedro-Woolley Sedro-Woolley is a city in Skagit County, Washington, United States. It is part of the Mount Vernon– Anacortes, Washington Metropolitan Statistical Area and had a population of 12,421 at the 2020 census. The city is home to North Cascade ...

in the late 1800s through the turn of the 19th century.

References

External links

Whatcom County Parks & Rec. - Interurban Trail
{{Rail trails in Washington Bellingham, Washington Parks in Whatcom County, Washington Tourist attractions in Bellingham, Washington Rail trails in Washington (state)