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.