Skagit County

The county in brief

A traveler's read on Skagit County

Tulip bulbs in Skagit Valley cover 500+ acres of commercial cultivation across the Mount Vernon-La Conner-Burlington floodplain — the largest tulip-bulb production zone in North America per Washington Bulb Co. annual harvest filings — and the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival routes more than 1 million visitors through the rural farm-road grid every April per Skagit Visitors Bureau official counts. Traffic-management plans now include posted one-way loops, paid parking at all major field viewpoints, and timed-entry shuttle access from Mount Vernon during peak bloom; the rural two-lane roads simply cannot carry the volume otherwise. Skagit County covers 1,735 sq mi from the Puget Sound shoreline at Padilla Bay east to the North Cascades crest, wrapping the I-5 corridor between Everett and Bellingham, the western entrance to North Cascades National Park at Marblemount, and the lower Skagit River — one of the most productive natural salmon-spawn fisheries in the contiguous US, with all five Pacific salmon species (Chinook, coho, chum, pink, sockeye) plus winter steelhead returning annually per WDFW escapement records.

The valley produces roughly 50% of all US potato seed-stock per WSU agricultural extension data, plus the entire US commercial supply of beet seed. Newhalem inside the park boundary is a Seattle City Light company town (built to support the Skagit Hydroelectric Project at Diablo, Ross, and Gorge dams) — Goodell Creek Campground accepts rigs to 30 ft on first-come basis. Colonial Creek Campground further east on WA-20 inside the NPS unit accepts rigs to 36 ft (162 sites, electric hookups), the only full-service developed loop inside North Cascades NP. Chuckanut Drive WA-11 between Bow and Bellingham is the canonical saltwater-overlook scenic alternative to I-5 (12 miles of cliffside two-lane along Samish Bay, opened 1896 as the original Pacific Northwest coastal highway), with Larrabee State Park accepting rigs to 35 ft mid-route. Mount Vernon (population 35,219, the county seat) is the practical regional hub for tulip-season fuel, grocery, and propane resupply.