McCollum Park Forest Loop

Of Sights and Smells: Big Gulch's Big Day

The curtain rises on another western Washington Trail: the Big Gulch trail system. Located right off Mukilteo Speedway, Big Gulch trail can be accessed at its southern trailhead at the Mukilteo Library. The trail may also be accessed at its northern trailhead, which is located at 92nd Street Park. While the former trailhead has highway access, the latter is easily accessible to Mukilteo residents, making it a great hotspot for hikers and joggers. When we hiked the trail, we began at the southern trailhead and continued down the western fork of Big Gulch trail, which leads to the Puget Sound. ...is what I would say if the trail actually led to the shore. Instead, it leads to— and get this — a wastewater treatment plant. Yeah, you read that right. More on this below.

Hello, Old Friend: Meadowdale Beach Park Revisited

We arrived back to the scene where it all began, now armed with the trash collecting skills of previous hikes. Being the cynics that we are, we of course expected the trail to once again be polluted with myriad bags of dog poop, water bottles, and other miscellaneous waste that wouldn't have otherwise been on the trail if society didn't suck. What we found—or rather didn't find—blew us away; there was actually not that much trash. Since we've already elucidated this spot before, we won't bore you with the same details. A Mountain to Climb, a Hill of Trash This time, the beach was even nicer due to better weather; the same goes for the amount of trash—albeit not due to the weather because that's kind of not how things work. Rather than finding almost thirty water bottles on our excursion, we only happened to find two. None of them were even filled with pee! In addition to the water bottles, there were precisely ten bags of dog poop. While not nearly as many bags...

Carkeek Park: A Must-See for Seattleites

Ah, Carkeek Park, next to the Carkeek Creek (actually named Piper's Creek, but that doesn't sound as cool), home to one of Seattle's more popular parks and trail systems. On one fine and sunny morning, TrailsBro and Co. headed here to pick up the trash that we all believed would be strewn along the trails. However, much to our surprise and pleasure, the amount of trash that we collected was limited to only two bags. It seems to be that Seattleites are more conscientious of their impact on the environment, or perhaps the higher population meant that there were already people that had collected garbage prior to us. How to Deal with Needles One discarded item that some of our members found and that we are cautioning people to look out for is used needles. Seattle has a large homeless population and some of those people are known for being drug addicts. When you spot an unsheathed needle, never touch it, even if it is interfering the aesthetics of the surrounding nature. Handl...

TrailsBro

Search This Blog