The road swings through rolling hills with the flat expanse of the San Juan Valley visible, in the distance; well-tilled farms, many of them former pea ranches, dot the valley. During the 1940s, at planting time in the spring, each pea farmer was allotted a planting date: thus the crops ripen successively, assuring steady operation for the cannery at Friday Harbor.

Visible across the farmland, south of the roadway is False Bay. It is a shallow, sandy bay that appears deeper during high water but at low tides the bay is dry. In 1859, this descriptive name was charted by Capt. Henry Richards, British admiralty surveyor.