The sun sets at 7:04 tonight in Poulsbo. A week from now it goes down at 6:49, and a week after that you will be driving home from things in the dark. We are losing about two minutes of evening a day right now, which is the fastest the light ever leaves around here, and it is the whole reason this issue is what it is.

So: the views. Four places to stand and look at the peninsula from above it, with what each one actually costs you in drive time, boot leather and parking passes, because that is the part nobody tells you until you are already in the car. One of them you can drive to the top of, and that road gates on November 1. This is the good window. The summer haze has gone and the snow has not arrived.

Also: round one of the burger bracket closed last night, and the quarterfinals open today.

The Rundown

Kingston's Newest Brewery Is About To Be A Year Old

Friends and Neighbors Brewing opened on Highway 104 on October 2 last year, in the room where Downpour Brewing had been making beer since 2014. Taking over an eleven-year-old taproom is a harder trick than opening a new one, because everybody already has an opinion about the place before you unlock the door. They play the anniversary on Friday October 2 with The Lumberjax doing eighties covers, 5:30 to 8:30, no cover, all ages.

The Last Sunset Market Of The Year Is October 3

The Kingston Sunset Market runs the first Saturday of the month at Kiwanis Park by the port, 4 to 8pm, and it has done since May. October 3 is the last one of 2026, with Tropical Sensation playing it out. A market that ends at eight in October is a market that ends in the dark, which is sort of the point of the name and sort of the end of it.

If You Are Driving To Any Of That, Kingston Still Wants A Boarding Pass

The signal and vehicle boarding pass system at the Kingston terminal is on daily from 8am to 8pm through October 12. The pass holds your car's place in line and you get it before the ticket booth; it is not the ferry ticket and having one is not the same as having the other. Two separate things, one queue, and the people who find this out on the dock are always the ones in a hurry. More in Ferry Watch.

Best Burger of the Peninsula

The round of 16 is counted: 143 votes, and eight burgers are left. Voting is open now, and the quarterfinals close Wednesday October 7. Tap the one you want in each matchup. One vote per person, and you can skip any matchup you have no opinion about.

Quarterfinals

Winners are announced in the next issue and the semifinals open the same day. The one still standing on November 4 gets the 2026 seal for the front window.

Best Views on the Peninsula

The visual above is the version to keep on your phone: four viewpoints, the drive, the walk, the pass. Here is the part that does not fit in a table.

1. Mount Walker, Quilcene · you can drive it · free

This is the one to do first, and the reason is a date. Forest Road 2730 is gated from November 1 to March 31, so you have about five weeks. It is four miles of steep gravel off US-101 to a summit at a little over 2,800 feet, and Mount Walker is the only peak facing Puget Sound with both a road and a trail to the top. There are two viewpoints. The north one sits where a fire lookout stood from 1931 to 1967 and the trees have grown in around it, so the view is real but partial. Go to the south viewpoint. It is another four tenths of a mile along the summit road and then a tenth of a mile on foot, and it opens onto Quilcene Bay, Dabob Bay and the Toandos Peninsula, with the Kitsap Peninsula behind them, the Seattle skyline past that, and Mount Rainier on the days it decides to exist. No pass, no fee, about an hour from Poulsbo. There is also a steep trail up if you would rather earn it.

2. Hurricane Ridge, Port Angeles · $30 a car · bring your own lunch

Seventeen miles up from Port Angeles and still the best paved view in the state, looking straight into the Bailey Range with the Strait of Juan de Fuca at your back. Two things to know before you commit the two and a quarter hours from Poulsbo. First, it is $30 per vehicle, good for seven consecutive days, and Olympic National Park is cashless, so buy it ahead on Recreation.gov or bring a card. Second, and this catches people every single time: there is no lodge. It burned in May 2023 and what is up there now is temporary trailers with restrooms and a visitor contact station. No cafe, no rentals, nowhere indoors to warm up. Pack the thermos. Above five thousand feet in late September, the difference between a good afternoon and a short one is a coat.

3. Green Mountain, Bremerton · Discover Pass · the local one

Forty-five minutes from Poulsbo and the only one on this list you can do after work, which in about three weeks will stop being true until March. Park at the Gold Creek trailhead, which has a big lot and actual restrooms, and walk the Gold Creek Trail up to the Green Mountain Vista. Give it a couple of hours round trip and do not race it. The view is the whole Kitsap Peninsula laid out with Seattle on the far side, the Olympics stacked up behind you and Rainier south on a clear day, and the strange, good thing about it is how domestic it looks: you can pick out the water you drive past every day. A Discover Pass is required to park, sold anywhere that sells fishing licences, and the rangers do check.

4. Cape Flattery, Neah Bay · $20 Makah pass · give it the whole day

The northwest corner of the lower forty-eight, and we are going to be honest about the cost: it is three and a half hours from Poulsbo, each way. This is a whole Saturday, not an afternoon, and anyone who tells you otherwise has not driven Highway 112. What you get for it is three quarters of a mile of boardwalk and stairs through Sitka spruce that drips on you even when it is not raining, then a set of platforms over sea stacks and sea caves with Tatoosh Island sitting offshore and nothing but the Pacific past it. A Makah Recreation Pass is required, $20, good for the calendar year, bought in Neah Bay on the way through. You are on Makah land the entire time. Buy the pass, read the signs, stay on the boardwalk.

One we left off on purpose. Obstruction Point Road and Deer Park Road both climb past five thousand feet on gravel and both have views that beat three of the four above. They also close for the winter without much warning, and the park's own road page has not been updated since August 7, so we are not going to tell you they are open. Call the recorded road line, 360-565-3131, on the morning you go.

This Weekend

Port Townsend Film Festival  ·  Downtown Port Townsend · Sep 24 to 28 · Ticketed

Seventy-plus films and the people who made them, in a town that shuts its main street for it.

Funktober Fest  ·  Rainy Daze Brewing, Poulsbo · Sat Sep 26 · 6 to 9pm · Free

Planet Groove playing soul and funk, all ages, and the first of two entirely unrelated Funktobers this fortnight.

6th Annual Ciderhaus Oktoberfest  ·  Bushel & Barrel Ciderhouse, Poulsbo · Sun Sep 27 · From noon · Free entry

The Hometown Band plays actual oompa from 2 to 5. A cider house doing Oktoberfest is a small act of defiance and they have got away with it six years running.

Bremerton Boardwalk Night Market: FUNKtober  ·  Bremerton Boardwalk, 2nd and Washington · Fri Oct 2 · 5 to 9pm · Free

Makers, food and a glowstick party, timed to the First Friday art walk. It is a few steps off both the Seattle and Port Orchard boats, so this is the rare one you can do without a car.

Applestock Festival  ·  4043 Sequim Dungeness Way, Sequim · Oct 2 to 4 · Benefit

Three days of local bands in an orchard, Saturday running 10 to 8. Proceeds go to the Salvation Army food bank, Volunteer Hospice of Clallam County and Coats for Kids. About an hour and twenty from Poulsbo.

Pacific Northwest Fiber Arts Expo  ·  Vern Burton Center, Port Angeles · Oct 2 to 4 · Marketplace free

Fifth year. The marketplace and the demonstrations cost nothing and the workshops are ticketed separately, which is a fair way to run a craft show.

OysterFest  ·  Sanderson Field, Shelton · Oct 3 to 4 · $15, 17 and under free

The 45th year of the Washington State Seafood Festival and home of the West Coast Oyster Shucking Championship. Saturday 10 to 6, Sunday 10 to 5, parking is free and $25 covers both days. OysterFunk, the Friday night warm up, is 21 and over and $5. Straight down SR 3 from Bremerton.

Bainbridge Island Oktoberfest  ·  The Boathouse at Waterfront Park, Bainbridge · Sat Oct 3 · 2 to 9pm · Free

Second year, free, all ages. A stein-holding contest for adults, a root beer one for kids, plus yodeling and pie eating, which is a lot of competitive activity for one afternoon. Food from the Hitchcock Group.

Kingston Sunset Market, season finale  ·  Kiwanis Park, Kingston · Sat Oct 3 · 4 to 8pm · Free

The last one until May, with Tropical Sensation playing. Go to this one rather than meaning to.

Poulsbo Beer Run Oktoberfest  ·  Downtown Poulsbo · Sat Oct 3 · 8am to 2pm · Ticketed

About four miles on foot through six stops including Valhöll, Rainy Daze, Ty's Wine & Brew and JJ's Fish House, and you pick which one you start at. Running and drinking, in that order, allegedly.

Norwegian Pancake Breakfast  ·  Sons of Norway, 18991 Front St NE, Poulsbo · Sun Oct 4 · 9 to 11am · $15

Two hours only, and the line is part of it. Fifteen dollars and you will not need lunch.

Markets still running: Port Orchard Saturdays 9 to 2 through October and Kingston Public Market Sundays 10 to 3 through October 11. Port Orchard's midweek market at South Kitsap Helpline ends Wednesday September 30.

Live Music

THU Sep 24 · Wyrdoz  ·  Tracyton Public House, Bremerton · 6 to 9pm · 21+ · Free

FRI Sep 25 · Rye & Barley, Irish and Celtic  ·  Bushel & Barrel, Poulsbo · 6 to 8pm · Free

FRI Sep 25 · Jack Dwyer & the Rodeo Dendrons, honky tonk  ·  Finnriver Farm & Cidery, Chimacum · 6 to 8pm · $5

FRI Sep 25 · Lucky Town, Springsteen tribute  ·  Beach Rock Music & Sports, Suquamish · 8:30pm · 21+ · $15

SAT Sep 26 · Massy Ferguson, Seattle twang rock  ·  Treehouse Cafe, Bainbridge · 7pm · 21+ · $35 plus fees

SAT Sep 26 · Kitsap County Ramblers, acoustic Americana  ·  Hood Canal Brewery, Kingston · 7pm · Free

SUN Sep 27 · Combo Choro, Brazilian  ·  The Old Alcohol Plant, Port Hadlock · 11am to 1pm · 21+ · Free

THU Oct 1 · Dearheart, Seattle post emo  ·  The Charleston, Bremerton · 8pm · All ages · $10

FRI Oct 2 · The Lumberjax, eighties covers  ·  Friends and Neighbors Brewing, Kingston · 5:30 to 8:30pm · Free · one year old

SAT Oct 3 · Infinity Project, Journey tribute  ·  Beach Rock Music & Sports, Suquamish · 8:30pm · 21+ · $15

Our listings run to October 3. If you have a show after that, tell us.

Spotted

Two entirely separate Funktobers six days apart, one at a Poulsbo brewery and one on the Bremerton boardwalk, neither of which appears to know about the other.

The Smokestack's open mic listings still have Downpour Brewing at 10991 Highway 104 in Kingston, which is the address Friends and Neighbors has been brewing at for nearly a year now.

Wyrdoz are playing roughly half the peninsula this fortnight on a tour the concert calendar spells both "Lego My Ego" and "Let Go My Ego", on the same page, and we have decided not to pick a side.

The Tides

Nothing to send you out for this fortnight, and we would rather say so than dress it up. The deepest minus tides are at Seabeck and they run September 30 through October 2, bottoming out at -1.77 feet on the 1st. Every one of them falls between 1:42 and 3:22 in the morning. That is a headlamp expedition, not a Saturday.

Predictions from NOAA. Hood Canal has spent a lot of this year under a biotoxin closure, so whenever the daylight tides do come back, check the beach you are actually standing on first: Washington DOH Shellfish Safety Map.

Hidden Gem: The North Summit Bench

We told you to skip the north viewpoint on Mount Walker and go to the south one, and that is still the right advice if you are only doing one. But if you have the extra twenty minutes, walk the north one anyway. A fire lookout stood up there from 1931 to 1967, staffed by people whose entire job was to sit at 2,800 feet and watch the Olympics for smoke, all summer, alone. The trees have closed in since and the view west is mostly gone, which is exactly what makes it worth standing in. Thirty-six seasons of somebody watching this same gap in the hills, and now the forest has quietly taken the job back.

Ferry Watch

The fall book is in. It started Sunday September 20 and runs to December 26, so the sailing you have half-memorised since June is gone and the one that replaced it is the one you have now. wsdot.com/ferries has the timetables.

Kingston's daily boarding pass window closes October 12. Daily 8am to 8pm until then, pass first and ticket second, which matters if you are driving up for the last Sunset Market on the 3rd. The Puyallup's passenger elevator is also out of service on that run, with crew assistance available via the freight elevator.

Port Townsend to Coupeville drops to one boat on October 5, a week earlier than planned, for vessel maintenance. If the film festival has you crossing that way, you still have both boats, but reserve for Sunday the 27th, when WSF expects Oyster Run motorcycle delays; it is the week after that gets thinner.

Bainbridge and Bremerton have no alerts as we write. Full schedules and live alerts: wsdot.com/ferries

What each viewpoint costs to park

Four viewpoints, four different pieces of paper, and none of them accepts the others. This is the part that turns a good morning into a forty minute detour, so here it is in one place.

Mount Walker	Nothing at all. No pass, no fee, no box to feed.
Green Mountain	Discover Pass, $45 a year or $10 a day, from discoverpass.wa.gov or anywhere that sells fishing licences. This is the state land pass and it is the one most people on the peninsula should just own.
Hurricane Ridge	$30 per vehicle, good seven consecutive days, or $55 for the Olympic annual. The park is cashless. Buy ahead at Recreation.gov and skip the booth queue. A Discover Pass is no good here.
Cape Flattery	Makah Recreation Pass, $20, good for the calendar year, sold in Neah Bay. Not a state or federal pass and nothing else substitutes for it. Buy it on the way through, not at the trailhead.

One date worth putting in your calendar now: Tuesday October 27 is a fee-free day across the National Park Service for Theodore Roosevelt's birthday. That is Hurricane Ridge for nothing, on a Tuesday in late October, which is either the best or the worst weather gamble on this page.

The rest of the music

The email carries ten shows. Here is everything else on between tonight and October 3.

Friday September 25

Hippy & the Squids at Deep Draft Brewing, Gorst, 6pm, free · Mark Soltys at Fletcher Bay Winery Coppertop, Bainbridge, 6 to 8pm, free · Michael Crain Band at The Garage, Bremerton, 6 to 9pm, 21+, free · Ten Strings & a Box at Olalla Vineyards, 6:30 to 8:30pm, 21+, $20 · Ferguson & Co at the Brownsville Deli, 6:30 to 8:30pm, free · Wyrdoz at Damn Fine Pizza, Port Orchard, 7pm, free · Silver Stallions at Brother Don's, Bremerton, 7pm, free · Dadband at The Bethel Saloon, Port Orchard, 8pm, 21+, free · The Autocratic$ at The Charleston, Bremerton, 8pm, all ages, $15

Saturday September 26

Isaac Olson Duo at The 19th Hole, Bremerton, 6pm, 21+, free · Tugboat Bromberg at Deep Draft Brewing, Gorst, 6pm, free · Deseo Carmin with Malo Castro at Finnriver, Chimacum, 6 to 8pm, $5 · Jack Dwyer at The Old Alcohol Plant, Port Hadlock, 6 to 8pm, 21+, free · Sol Frequency at Marketplace, Bainbridge, 6 to 8pm, free · Bad Neighbor at The Garage, Bremerton, 6 to 9pm, 21+, free · XLR8 at Brother Don's, Bremerton, 7pm, free · NW Chill at The Filling Station, Kingston, 7pm, free · Highway 3 Band at Manchester Pub, Port Orchard, 7pm, 21+, free · LTTRS at The Manette, Bremerton, 8pm, 21+, $10 · Psychotic Reaction at The Charleston, Bremerton, 8pm, a benefit show · The Northwest Tool Tribute with No Shelter at Tracyton Movie House, Bremerton, doors 8pm, all ages, from $15 · Felix at The Bethel Saloon, Port Orchard, 8pm, 21+, free · Whiskey River at Beach Rock Music & Sports, Suquamish, 8:30pm, 21+, $15

Sunday September 27

The Hometown Band at Bushel & Barrel, Poulsbo, 2 to 5pm, free, the Ciderhaus Oktoberfest · Cloudrail at Eleven Winery, Bainbridge, 2 to 5pm, free · Tide Flat 4 at Bainbridge Vineyards, 3 to 5pm, free · Laurovia at Taps at the Guardhouse, Port Townsend, 4pm, free · Luke Stanton at Ty's Wine & Brew, Poulsbo, 4 to 6pm, 21+, free · Randy Halberstadt with Mark Lewis at Remedy Speakeasy, Bremerton, 4:30 to 7pm, free

Tuesday 29 and Wednesday 30 September

Bryson Evans at Deep Draft Brewing, Gorst, Tue 6pm, free · Thys Wallwork at Eleven Winery Manette Wine Bar, Bremerton, Wed 5 to 7pm, free · Analisa Reyes at Ty's Wine & Brew, Poulsbo, Wed 6:30 to 8:30pm, 21+, free

Thursday 1 to Saturday 3 October

Wyrdoz with Two For The Apocalypse at Manchester Pub, Port Orchard, Thu 7pm, 21+, free · Michael McCurdy at Bushel & Barrel, Poulsbo, Fri 6 to 8pm, free · Thea Wescott with Luke Stanton at Olalla Vineyards, Fri 6:30 to 8:30pm, 21+, $20 · Batuka at Brother Don's, Bremerton, Fri 7pm, free · Wyrdoz album release at Bigfoots House of Vinyl, Bremerton, Fri 7pm, free · Hot Glue Guts at The Charleston, Bremerton, Fri 8pm · Non Jovi at Beach Rock Music & Sports, Suquamish, Fri 8:30pm, 21+, $15 · XLR8 at The 19th Hole, Bremerton, Sat 6pm, 21+, free · Mission Drift at Marketplace, Bainbridge, Sat 6 to 8pm, free · Wyrdoz album release at Brother Don's, Bremerton, Sat 7pm, free · Hippy & the Squids at Tracyton Public House, Bremerton, Sat 8pm, 21+, free

Standing nights, every week, no ticket: open mic at Bushel & Barrel 6pm Thursdays and at Hood Canal Brewery 7pm Mondays · Bainbridge Brewing Alehouse open mic 6 to 8pm Tuesdays · the Brother Don's jam 5pm Sundays and the Tammy Frost Trio there 7pm Thursdays · Twisted Trivia at Tracyton Public House 7pm Mondays.

Listings as of September 21. Rooms change their minds; ring ahead if you are driving more than half an hour for one of these.

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