FREMONT, WEEK 7

6-29-2012
Fremont - Gas Works Park, Ballard Locks, Golden Garden Park.
Seattle SIFF - "Walking too fast" movie.

It took us a while to leave the house. A big while. And the day was kind of darken by some family problems. Still ... compare to other parts of country we enjoy nice weather (around mid 60's) and really pretty surroundings. We decided to drive around the lake into Fremont. We are avoiding floating bridge on the road 520 (it is toll road - the cheapest toll is 3.50).

We were going to explore and goof around Fremont (north side of Seattle). First we stopped at Gas Works Park on the Union Lake. Incredible view of Seattle downtown. Formal industrial site. All really interesting and pretty.

After this great beginning we drove less then couple miles into downtown Fremont. It was not easy to find parking spot. We ended on some small street. We walked around and enjoy really nice and charming town.
Shops.
Statue of Lenin.
Statue of troll.
Theo chocolate store.
Mischief distillery store.
Street art.

Walking tour map of Fremont:

Then we drove to Ballard Locks. I did not think it would be so busy, but it was. It got warmer and it was kind of nice to enjoy sunshine. We watched some boats to go through the locks and then we watched fish swimming in the fish ladder. We were in the viewing room at the time, when staff member was giving small presentation about salmon. Interesting

We continue driving along the canal until we got to Golden Gardens Park. Really nice park beach with huge number of picnic spots. There was party of people getting ready for wedding. Kind of weird. Some people playing beach volleyball. Really nice view of Olympic range and Puget sound.
Last event of our plan was a movie at SIFF, in the Seattle center (where Needle is). We were going to drive across old Ballard bridge (and got stopped because it is draw bridge). Oh well ... We parked in the structure and walked to the theater. Somehow the movie was free. Some waiting and then watching the theater getting full. It was Czech movie called "Walking too fast". Interesting, dark and kind of strange. Q and A with the director. And late drive home.
Nice day.

Space needle in the night ... what a symbol of the city.

LAKE TWENTYTWO

6-28-2012
Mountain Highway Loop
Granite Falls to Arlington

At some point driving to Granite Falls, I had to say that road work in here is as bad as in Michigan. Hard to say. We took smaller roads going to the mountains, so it was somewhat nicer then freeway, but as well worse with the construction. There is a lot of street / road stands with fireworks around here. Half way to the Granite Falls we started to see snowy mountains on the horizon. After almost an hour we stopped at the visitor center and got some maps there.

We were as well told, that there might be few people, because it is really nice day. Compared to the rest of country, it is around mid 60's (maybe 70) for the high. Really nice. Our plan was to drive on the Mountain Highway to Arlington. The only firm point was hike to Lake Twentytwo. The rest ... who knows. The trail was just few miles away from the center.

There was quite a few people already hiking. We saw some people getting ready (some stretching, getting backpacks and water) and I thought it was kind of funny. You know ... so much monkey business for 5 miles. The map we got from the visitor center had list of all trails, it included elevation gain as well. We were going to hike 2.6 miles with elevation gain of 1500 feet (one way). Hard to imagine how it is going to look like. The beginning of the trail looked really great. Old trees, mossy death trees, creek ... and trail. We started to walk and it was .... (surprise) uphill. We both were thinking it was really close to the beauty of Olympic forest. Kind of hard to describe (or take a photo) without actually being there. At one point we walked on the rocks outside of the forest. We got some sunshine (too hot) and as well some nice views.

And ... it was taking forever to get to the lake. When I read some stuff about this area, they were mentioning snow, but I thought it was just crazy. Then we met some people going back to the trail head and they said there is a bit of snow on the trail. Really? And then we started to see small areas of snow. I even made a snowball and named it "snowball":

And then:

Just crazy. The lake was relatively small, but the hills around and all that snow ... it was more then impressive. We were falling into the snowbanks, big parts of the trail around the lake were still covered with the snow. Just crazy (it is almost beginning of July). We tried to walk around the lake as far as we could, but at some point it just looked too dangerous, so we gave up. For a while we enjoy the view and spirit of the Lake Twentytwo. On the way back we were throwing snowballs at each other (and then snow was gone). It took over three hours to hike there and back. And it was nice to see spring just starting to come:

We wanted to stop by few short trails, but they were closed, so we just kept driving. Nice forest all around, many campgrounds (most of them still closed). For 14 miles we had to drive on gravel road (not too much fun). Some nice views but not short trail, so we just kept going. We stopped by one trail, but it was not very interesting and there was too many bugs.
At that point it was kind of late, so we decided to drive home.

(Our possible destinations. Short descriptions of Lake Twentytwo trail.)

(Trails of the Mountain Highway Loop, map from visitor center.)

View Larger Map

COAL CREEK PARK

6-27-2012

Not far from downtown Bellevue is Coal Creek Natural Area. As far as I understand it used to be mining area and they left small parts untouched by development. As you can see on the map, the whole park is surrounded by houses (some very serious houses).
Pretty nice weather, relatively cool and good day.

 

Pretty nice trail in the middle of the city. I made a plan based on the map above and figured out, that missing part of the trail will not be a problem to make a loop. After less then .3 miles I took a turn and walked up for over a mile. I would never imagine it would be there. There was even a tunnel - nicely build trail.

After all this climbing I finally saw a light. I got out of the "forest" and stood on normal residential street. I look around and found real million dollar view:

It has to be really hard to live here. For a short while the trail was relatively flat. It was quite nice. And then I started to go downhill. It was not too bad. After I hit Forest drive, the trail ended. I looked on the other side of the road and saw jungle. But I still decided to go forward and tried to get back on the trail. I had to go down to the creek and walked along / in it. I have to say it was not really pleasant. It was very long .25 mile. And it took me couple minutes to catch the breath after i got back on the trail.

And ... then I just walked back to the car. Enough was enough. But the view was more then worth it.