Ferries in the Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest crossings on this site span the whole range of the ferry business. The Keller Ferry, on the dry side of the mountains, is a piece of State Route 21 that WSDOT runs itself, free and on demand, over Lake Roosevelt, a reservoir whose elevation, set by the Bureau of Reclamation, decides where and whether the boat can land. It is not part of Washington State Ferries at all, and the state was running it more than twenty years before it bought its Puget Sound fleet. The Port Orchard foot ferry is the Sound at its smallest: a Kitsap Transit route across Sinclair Inlet, sold at the bus fare, leaving every half hour and timed around shipyard shifts and the fast ferry to Seattle at Bremerton. Its oldest boat, the Carlisle II, was built in 1917 and is one of the last working vessels of the Mosquito Fleet.

Stehekin, at the head of Lake Chelan, has no road to the rest of Washington, so the boat is how most people arrive: the Stehekin Ferry runs from Field's Point Landing and the Lake Chelan Boat Company from the Chelan dock, both selling one-way tickets only. In Oregon, Marion County keeps the Buena Vista ferry going over the Willamette, a cable-guided electric boat on a crossing that dates to the first years of American settlement in the valley, with a small toll paid on board and closures when the river runs too high.

On Puget Sound itself, the Seattle–Bainbridge run from Colman Dock takes about 35 minutes. Walk-on passengers pay $11.35 for the round trip, collected on the Seattle side only, while a car under 22 feet with its driver pays $20.25 each way.

Puget Sound, Lake Roosevelt, Lake Chelan and the rivers