The Olmsted Vision Stairway Walk - Seattle - January 13, 2013

One of several sets of stairs that we walked.

This was a really fun urban walk that I did with a friend. The walk comes from a book called Seattle Stairway Walks An Up And Down Guide To City Neighborhoods. The name of the walk is The Olmsted Vision. This walk takes you through three parks; Washington Park Arboretum, Interlaken Park and Volunteer park. More about the walk in a minute. An interesting Washington State History tie in to my last post about Northern State Hospital. The Olmsted Firm (a very historically significant landscape architecture firm) designed both the grounds of Northern State Hospital and the three parks above as well as other parks and grounds across the country from 1857-1979. Okay, enough history. I just thought it was interesting and had to share.

The whole idea of urban stairway walks is new to me. I had no idea that such a book existed. It's a great way to be able to get your exercise walking in the city, but it's also very similar to hiking with all of the stairs you go up and down.

We parked on a neighborhood street near the Montlake Branch of the Seattle Public Library. We went on a Sunday, so street parking didn't have a time limit. There are public transit options and other parking options listed in the book. If you decide to do this walk or others in the book you will definitely need the book for the maps and details. My local Snohomish County Library has the book and I'm on the waitlist for it now, although I'm thinking about purchasing it.

A beautiful bench along the route

We followed the map and route from the book, walking for a while and then stopping at the Volunteer Park Cafe for a delicious snack (I had coffeecake) and tea. After we finished our snack, we headed back out along the route.

We climbed more stairs...

Soon we arrived at Volunteer Park.

We saw a peek-a-boo view of the Space Needle through a sculpture.

 There wasn't much color out on this cold, winter day, but I spotted these and had to take a picture.

Another, natural set of stairs.

Which brought us to the Volunteer Park Water Tower with more stairs and beautiful views!

Climbing the water tower stairs.

View of the Space Needle from the water tower.

Seattle Skyline from the water tower

St. Joseph Catholic Church in the distance

A beautiful home outside Volunteer Park

Who knew there was an urban mountain bike skills park right under I-5?

A little more winter color I spotted:

Anyone have any idea what this is?

We walked past the Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery. A Civil War cemetery.

Another beautiful view of the Seattle Skyline with the mountains in the background.

Another set of stairs to climb.

 A couple of fungus pictures, just because I couldn't help myself. ;-)

And a pretty piece of glass that I spotted in someone's garden along the way.

I highly recommend giving one of these stairway walks a try. There's no better way to spend a dreary winter day than exploring an interesting area that's close to home.

I'm going on another Stairway Walk this weekend. Stairway Walks Day is happening on Saturday and I'll be going on the Maple Leaf and Thornton Creek walk. I'll blog about it soon and let you know what I thought.

Happy Trails!

Carkeek Park ~ September 29th 2011

Carkeek Park is another great urban park with hiking trails! It was a beautiful fall day and we enjoyed being outside! This is another place that it is helpful to have a map so that you can figure out where you want to go. Some of the trails are marked with signs, but others aren't. I printed my own map from the link above, but I did notice that they had some pre-printed at some of the information signs as well. We didn't walk too far today as we had some younger kids with us, but we enjoyed a leisurely stroll along some of the trails. This would be a perfect place to introduce kids to hiking without having to drive a long way. Another benefit is being able to stop and head back to the car whenever your little one is tired. We followed the Lower Meadow Trail from the main parking area towards the beach access. From there we meandered along the North Bluff Trail, checking out the viewpoints along the way.

A little incline along here, but nothing too challenging.

From there we cutoff onto the North Meadow Hillclimb Trail until we reached the Grand Fir Trail. We followed the Grand Fir Trail until we reached the North Traverse. We walked down the 12th Ave. Hillclimb until we came back to the main parking area. We crossed through the parking area and wandered down the Piper's Creek Trail until we reached Piper's Orchard.

We saw a lot of these in one area along the Piper's Creek Trail. They appeared to be some
sort of art. They were made out of corrugated cardboard glued together and seemed to be
in a shelf fungus or hive shape.

A bridge along the Piper's Creek Trail

This is a beautiful old orchard full of heirloom variety apple trees. Lots of apples on the ground and in the trees. We had a lot of fun walking around and looking at the different trees.

This was a really interesting apple tree. It had two "tracks" worn into the trunks
that were just perfect for rolling some of the fallen apples down.

Here is the bottom of the track where the apples landed.

Some of the artwork that is scattered throughout the park with the orchard in the background

I saw a few mushrooms and other fungus.

This shelf fungus was beautiful!

Lots of beautiful colors out:

Stinging Nettle

Snowberries

A few of the yellow fall leaves in the creek

Happy Fall Trails!