TrailsBro

On a downcast Saturday morning, a small group of boys set foot on the journey of a lifetime: a journey on the Japanese Gulch trail. Little did they know what daunting challenges awaited them. I say daunting, but in reality, the trail was relatively clean, so contrary to the idiom, we did not have our work out for us. Perhaps it was the fact that it was so rainy that almost the entire trail—no, the entire trail was covered in mud. It was so muddy, in fact, that my good pair of black sneakers that I had accidentally brought along with me had miraculously turned dark brown, believe it or not. The trailhead that we entered at, the southern trailhead, is located at the intersection of 76th St SW and 44th Ave W, deep within a residential area.  Similar to the main trailhead for Meadowdale Beach Park, both the northern and southern trailheads of Japanese Gulch are easily accessible by Mukilteo residents. There also several other locations along the western side of Japanese Gulch where the...

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.

When we first arrived at the scene, we did not expect to find nearly as much litter strewn about the trailhead as we had originally believed. Though, to be fair, this was also our first excursion, and thus we did not really know what to expect in the first place. Yet, in spite of our naiveté, we marched onwards down the length of the trail—trash bags and grabbers in hand—hoping to restore order and cleanliness to the woods that had since been tainted by human corruption. Thus, when the minute hand struck half-past nine, we embarked on our valiant journey through the local trail: the Meadowdale Beach Park. Of course, this is merely an embellishment of our activities. At the core of our efforts, we were simply picking up trash along and around the trail and maintaining elevated heart rates. However, we were truly shocked by the amount of litter, both human and animal, that we were able to gather during our hike. I myself remember encountering so many empty plastic water bottles along the...