The Skagit Valley in Bloom
The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival transforms a quiet patchwork of working farmland, tidal wetlands, and open sky into sweeping bands of color, drawing visitors from around the world. During the festival, beneath the distant silhouette of Mount Baker, the vast flatlands unfold in endless rows of vibrant red, orange, yellow, pink, purple, and white tulips.
Endless rows of pink and yellow tulips sweep across the Skagit Valley, framed by distant mountains and a brilliant blue sky
The Skagit Valley exists because of the Skagit River. Over thousands of years, the river carried sediment out of the North Cascades, building the broad, fertile Skagit Delta. Glaciers ground mountain bedrock into fine mineral sediment known as glacial flour, which meltwater and mountain streams carried into the river system. Glacier Peak has also been a major source of sediment carried into the Skagit Valley. Eruptions, landslides, and volcanic mudflows called lahars sent rock, ash, and sediment down the White Chuck and Sauk rivers into the Skagit, with some prehistoric flows reaching Puget Sound.