COWEN PARK'S RESTROOMS ARE OPEN

Dear Diary,

Sorry to shout, but isn't this big news?

I've now used the new men's room twice; everything is fine, the dryer giving an unusually long time to dry one's hands, except that I haven't yet gotten soap from the dispenser.

Sorry about no photos.  But it's a good thing that now that the most photogenic set of locked doors is unlocked, there's only one set left.

Oh, I don't know that.  For all I know today's the day of Burke-Gilman Playground Park's weekly restrooms closure.  Or someone has rendered the ones at mid-Golden Gardens Park unusable.  But actually vandalism usually only closes one restroom at a time.  And BGPP's set close only one day a week, usually.

So I think it's pretty likely that the list of intentionally closed park restrooms in North Seattle now stands like this:

• University Playground
• Magnuson Park, Brig
• Green Lake Park, Bathhouse Theater
• Matthews Beach, shower set
• Any that might be closed in Woodland Park Zoo

In other words, if things are as I expect, University Playground is now the only park in North Seattle that has restrooms, but no open restrooms.  While for a large number of homeless people this is bad news, it's a huge improvement on last March.

In a couple of days, I'll write in you again about restrooms closed and open, dear Diary.  Until then!

Amazing Water Fountain News

Dear Diary,

You won't believe this, but as of yesterday, Wednesday, July 29,

all water fountains in Ravenna Park and Laurelhurst Playfield were RUNNING!

I saw Laurelhurst Playfield's unique fountain - the one near the tennis courts - turned on myself.  I did not see the nearer of the baseball diamond water fountains turned on, but it was on when I checked that morning, so it must have been turned on the day before (Tuesday, July 28) or earlier.

I had last checked the Laurelhurst Playfield fountains Tuesday, July 21, and the lower Ravenna Park fountain Sunday, July 26; at those days' ends, all were shut off.  I haven't actually verified that the upper Ravenna Park fountain is still running in the past 24 hours, but I last checked it Friday, July 24.  I also expect to get my water for today from it, since it's inconvenient for me to get to University Village today.

Most of the newly running fountains - the baseball pair at Laurelhurst plus lower Ravenna - are double fountains.  In each of these, one tap draws water relatively weakly, but the other overshoots the bowl.  So be wary.

Rachel Schulkin of the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation told me some time ago that the water fountains were shut off to forestall the spread of COVID-19.  Evidently the department has been reading the news enough to know that metal objects outdoors are unlikely vectors.  Yay.

The only other fountain I know to be running in the area is the street fountain at 15th Ave south of 43rd St, which I did verify last night.

Surely it's just a coincidence that in my local area, the water's restoration came first to the parks with money around them, as reflected by their 6 A.M. to 10 P.M. schedules (as against the more usual 4 A.M. to 11:30 P.M. ones).

I checked the following fountains after 7 P.M.  None was running when previously checked, and none was running tonight, either.

Bryant Playground
Burke-Gilman Playground Park (only recently shut off)
Christie Park (actually, park still not open)
Cowen Park
Ravenna-Eckstein Park
University Playground
View Ridge Playfield

I didn't check in the past 24 hours:

upper Ravenna Park (as noted above)
Magnuson Park (but something a park employee said in my hearing suggests that the fountain attached to the beach restrooms may now be running)
the street fountain on the Burke-Gilman Trail near 30th St.

I can't travel this much daily, but will see what I can tell y'all going forward.  Exciting times, dear Diary; you'll be at least as shocked by the news of restrooms I expect to write in you later today.

Momentous News

Dear Diary,

Burke-Gilman Playground Park's water fountain HAS STOPPED RUNNING.

The reason this is important is that it's the first time I've observed a water fountain in North Seattle change states this year.  I've seen the restrooms at Little Brook and upper Ravenna Parks open, and those at lower Ravenna Park and BGPP close unpredictably, but up to now water fountains had been unchanging.  The exceptions, in my experience of this year, are all south of the canal - Roanoke and Cal Anderson Parks' fountains have started, and the Capitol Hill street fountain stopped, in my observations.

So this is bad news for me in the short term - I think BGPP's water tastes a bit better than University Village's - and if the fountain stays shut off, probably for the duration.  But as evidence that the Department of Parks and Recreation hasn't forgotten that it has water fountains in North Seattle, and even remembers how to control their flow, it's wonderful news for the far-off day when they get turned back on.

Two Yet Anothers

Hello, dear Diary,

I've missed you so much!  Have you missed me?  Let me explain my silence:

Yet Another Thief

Last Thursday, I lay down on the bench I've mentioned to you, dear Diary, before, and fell asleep, unfortunately having first decided that my new trousers' pockets were too small to fit my charging phone into.  As a result, I now have a much smaller phone, which will certainly fit in my pocket while charging.  Isn't it wonderful how that sort of thing works out?

As a side effect, I'm having to write in you from the Northeast branch of the Seattle Public Library, instead of from campus.  I saw a sign en route that I liked:

Sorry about the flash burn, but part of the reason I'm writing this page in you, dear Diary, is to test the new phone's camera.  Anyway, I should know fairly soon whether the hike to Northeast will become an ongoing change.

Yet Another Park Not Parks'

Even before the theft I'd gotten lazy about visiting parks, as I've previously mentioned to you, dear Diary.  So my dishes were piling up, and today I finally went to Laurelhurst Community Center to wash them.  This trip for the first time I noticed something funny about the north side of 45th St, especially from 43rd to 45th Avenues:

So on my way back, I crossed the street and investigated.

I once, briefly, was a geography major, but you wouldn't know it from how long I spent wondering whose this park was.  It is, of course, actually the main campus of Seattle Children's Hospital.  But this campus's southern edge really does, for several blocks, do a pretty good imitation of a park.

Starting from 45th Ave, the least parklike bit is where tall trees and such are planted to hide parking lots and a bus stop.  But west of that, we get this:

Huh.  The flowers' colours came through better than I'd expected.

The part of the Trueman Katz Sculpture Garden that isn't behind a currently locked fence is two sculptures, neither of which really worked for me, but the walk is pleasant and there are wooden benches to rest on.  I don't know, only hope, that there are more sculptures behind the fence.

Beyond 43rd Ave, another locked fence blocks access to a playground, but by that point the hospital buildings are easily visible despite the trees, and this park not Parks' is pretty much over.  I saw no water fountains or restrooms.

Dear Diary, I lost all photos I'd taken, a handful of personal ones and dozens meant for you.  I'm probably going to redo some of the long hike to replace them; you'll remember, of course, that I needed to revisit one of the remaining parks anyway.  But we'll see.  Until we meet again!

Cal Anderson Park and Its Closure

Dear Diary,

Yesterday I finally got south to shower and wash my masks.  (I didn't get permission from the gods of the parks, though.  I've been cheating, sleeping much closer to Safeway and University Village and relying on their plumbing.  Stay tuned to find out whether the gods of the parks punish me.)

Anyway, my storage is one block east of Cal Anderson Park, while my other destinations are west of it.  So I walked several times along the park's northern edge.  Knowing restrooms to be in short supply downtown and on Capitol Hill, I didn't drink or eat much, and on an unrelated errand passed through Denny Park, which now, surprise, not only has a water fountain, but one that's actually running, where I filled my bottles.  So I didn't go further south in Cal Anderson Park.

Back when I was housed in Seattle, I didn't pay much attention to Cal Anderson Park, too close to my place and too simple.  To the extent that I focused on parks at all, it was on mysteries like Freeway, Volunteer and Peace Parks.  But in the two years I spent homeless in that area, Cal Anderson Park became much more important to me.  I liked the water fountain, and although I didn't like the restroom, it was sometimes open late on summer nights when nothing else was, sometimes sweetened by the reason for the lateness, a co-ed soccer game I could watch.

Yesterday, however, was one week after the park was closed through a pre-dawn storming by police.  Apparently it's still closed for cleanup, but when I saw the big signs reading "Temporarily Closed" all over the place, I thought it was probably closed so as to deny protesters all that space in their further struggles with the East Precinct of the Seattle Police.

This would, of course, be completely reasonable.  People have made all sorts of strange complaints about these police.  For example, they complain about "flash-bang" grenades.  Now, in a year when public fireworks have been cancelled, the police provide private fireworks to small groups of protesters, and then people criticise them for it.

Similarly, there have been lots of complaints about "tear gas".  In a year when we have so many pandemic deaths to mourn, and in a movement dedicated to mourning deaths at the hands of the police, I should think anything that assisted crying would be an unalloyed good.  But no, people are really mad about this one.

In particular, they complain about it violating the Geneva Conventions.  But this is seeing things backwards.  The Geneva Conventions restrict what our big, strong men can do to other countries' big, strong men.  They were never intended to protect puny weaklings, women, and other such types who protest.  Honestly, why don't people understand things like this?

Police have every reason to deploy such weapons against protesters.  Without them, they'd only have guns, armor, and millions of dollars' worth of other equipment.  It would be far too close to a fair fight.

Also, the protesters are just wrong.  Our wonderful mayor agrees with them that black lives matter.  And our wonderful mayor understands that we don't need to do anything concrete on the basis of black lives mattering.  (See, yet again, "Two Hours and Two Hours" on how declaring an emergency eliminates the need for action.)  The sooner the protesters get this through their thick heads, the sooner they can all go home.

Anyway, yesterday the closure was just as porous as the closures at 8 P.M. of various big or famous parks.  (In fact, Cal Anderson Park is one of these, and the parks department website claims this is the park's only closure, in a post updated today.  That post also says, not 8 but 9:30 P.M.)  Capitol Hill is a pretty white neighbourhood, so I wasn't too surprised that most of the people I saw entering the park were white, but I did wonder whether, in particular, black people would encounter a different sort of closure.  Many of these people also had an excellent signifier of a temporary visit, a leashed dog.  And most looked housed.

This helps explain the claim that police had slashed homeless people's tents.  At first glance this looks like reckless cruelty, but in reality, the police were depriving these homeless people of tents because tents are great big signifiers of homelessness, and those police knew such things wouldn't help those people enter the park while it was officially closed.

And they've had reason to re-enter the park.  During the trip south in June on which I changed my cart's wheels, I also visited both the street water fountain on Broadway just north of John, and the fountain in Cal Anderson Park.  Both were working when I started writing you, dear Diary.  However, in June I found a very different situation:  the street fountain had stopped, while Cal Anderson Park's had been replaced by a fancy new all-year triple fountain, as if deliberately to make up for the loss of the all-year street one - and yes, it was running.  Also, the Capitol Hill Seattle blog post linked to above seems to say that Cal Anderson Park's restrooms had finally opened.

So maybe the real reason the park remained closed for a week was to begin to redress the imbalance between all the running water fountains in central Seattle and the paucity of them in North Seattle.  Speaking of which, I still haven't told you, dear Diary, about one more running water fountain around here.  Now that I'm somewhat more presentable, I hope to re-visit that one tomorrow, and then tell you all about it.

A Thief

Dear Diary,

Before I went on the long trip I haven't finished telling you about, I received all the new wheels for my cart.  A few hours later one of the old rear wheels irretrievably broke.  I'd hoped, of course, to make the trip on the old wheels, but no, I changed them all that day instead.

During the trip, they were all on their best behaviour, but once I got back, they became concerned that I was used to trouble with my wheels, and here they were not giving me what I was used to.  So the right rear wheel started acting up in a very familiar, but temporarily manageable, way.  A few days later, the right front wheel discovered that it could make contact with the cart's basket, and that when it did so, it could only turn backward, as when pulling the cart, and not forward, as when pushing the cart.

So I stopped hiking as much as usual, spending more and more time in the particular place on campus to which I go on rainy days.  One of this place's drawbacks is that it has no place to sit comfortable for someone of my height.  On the other hand, it has a bench, outside the sheltered area where I spend most of my time, that's pretty comfortable to lie on, and however rainy most days recently have been, there's usually been a sunny spell in the afternoon.

On the Fourth of July, which was a Saturday, I got a big box of cream cookies as usual, but also had occasion to go to QFC, and got some day-old doughnuts.  Therefore, when I lay on that bench in the afternoon, I hadn't opened the cookies yet.

Well, when I got up, they'd been opened, by a human hand but not in my way, and seven or eight cookies taken.  What's more, both my water bottles had been drunk from.  Now, I'd drunk some from one myself, but not both.  So "out of an abundance of caution", as most inconveniences are explained these days, I discarded both bottles.

The only place around here that sells the bottles I prefer (20 oz Gatorade) individually is the Chevron station at Roosevelt and 45th.  So this thief was clearly sent to get me up off my behind to check Ravenna, Cowen and Christie Parks and University Playground.  Which I did the next day.

Momentous news, dear Diary.  See, I found no changes, but that's now four days ago.  So by now the water fountains in lower Ravenna Park and University Playground could have been turned back on.  By now the restrooms at Cowen Park and University Playground could have been opened.  (The new lights I mentioned at Cowen Park's restrooms have now been lit a long time.  The one in the women's room has burned out; that in the men's is sadly dimmed.)

By now Christie Park could have opened to the public.  For that matter, by now thieves could have finished disabling the water fountain on 15th Ave.

And that's all leaving aside Cowen Park's water fountain, which I forgot to check yet again.  The possibilities are endless!

I can't keep you going indefinitely just because hope springs eternal, dear Diary.  But keep that in mind.  Sure, peak park season is well under way without the changes it's supposed to bring, but there's always next year.  Or next decade.

On the way between Ravenna and Cowen Parks the sidewalk of 62nd St offered me many chances to change my cart-pushing ways, but I heeded none of them.  Finally, fed up with the continued recalcitrance of the right front wheel, I was so mad I actually bought into the nonsensical idea that if I put all the cart's weight onto it, it would start turning again.  Oops.  It did respond dramatically, but by breaking the cart's front axle.

So no, dear Diary, I can't keep you going all the way until a vaccine returns us, or specifically Seattle's parks, to something like normal.  I'll try to finish what needs finishing, but I'm now pretty sure you won't ever contain a cheerful "All Clear!"  Sorry, dear Diary.

This Is Getting Old

Dear Diary,

Soon, I have to go south.  My clean clothing, including my untorn pants, is in my storage unit, and I need to change; but much more specifically, I'm out of clean masks, so need to do laundry after I change.  Since my storage unit closes at 6 P.M., this demands a fairly tight schedule.

So it was unhelpful today to find this:

at Burke-Gilman Playground Park.  Those photos were taken at 8:55 A.M.  The doors still weren't open when I called the parks department for the second time today at 9:17.  I left soon after.

The first time I called the department today, at 8:57, when I asked to be transferred to the maintenance line, the voice mail system gleefully hung up on me.  The other two times, 9:17 and also 12:02 P.M., I was indeed connected to the maintenance voice mail system, which each time tried and failed to find a dispatcher, then offered me the chance to leave a voice mail, which would be answered the next business day.

Well, it must demand a lot of personnel to close Cal Anderson Park, especially while the voice mail system's self-introduction continues to insist that "All parks are open".  And it's not as though I'd been calling every time I found BGPP's restrooms locked.  I've figured it's OK to call about parks I'll never see again, Northacres or Salmon Bay, but closed local restrooms are your whole point, dear Diary, and I shouldn't encourage the department, by calling every week, to take special care of my preferred parks and distort my field of view.

So it was my hubris, in thinking I could pick the day I'd shower and change clothes, that caused the problem, and if I just accept that such decisions are better left to the gods of the parks, doubtless things will improve.  And improve they must, if, as seems increasingly likely, I remain stuck in this way of life until a vaccine is widely in use.

My next planned page in you, dear Diary, needs to be up to date, so demands either a bus journey or a rather long hike.  I may shuffle the order, or you may not hear from me until I get permission to smell better.

What Can a Hill Do with a Crown?

Dear Diary,

I thought "Crown Hill" surely the most aspirational neighbourhood name in Seattle, but no, it's named after the cemetery.  This, however, just defers the question.  There's a perfectly clear association between crowns and death in Christendom, but however did that cemetery come to hold any martyrs' remains?

Anyway.  Six parks to look at today, none big.  I first saw two the night of June 23, but looked again by day at those, and saw the others for the first time, June 24.  This page goes in June 24 order, so I start with where I slept.

Soundview Playfield

I reached this from the top of Golden Gardens Park by taking 85th St from 35th to 24th Avenues, hiking north to 90th St (for reasons that will soon become clear), then going most of the way to 15th Ave.  Once I found some benches, not so brightly lit that I'd be visible from the street, I settled.

In the morning I found myself facing the playfield; the playground was to my left (north), further away from 90th.  It took me a while to explore (at 10.5 acres it's this page's biggest park), and I had to ask a man working on the playfield about the restrooms, which were locked and therefore not my goal when I first tried their doors.

A small building well to the park's southeast, that is, towards 15th and 90th, has three doors.  On that day they were unmarked, but the two that opened (on a second try) were single-user restrooms.  One had a dryer, the other two dryers, the older one not working.

The water fountain which my memory claims is near the playground wasn't running.

There are five mosaicked pillars marking off the playground, easily the neatest thing I found.  I don't know who made them; there are no plaques, and if the info is online, I don't find it.  Here are photos from each end, but neither does the set justice.

Nature in North Beach

The neighbourhood behind the beach described in yesterday's page is named after it, and I assume these two parks, neither remotely beach-like, are named after the neighbourhood.

North Beach Ravine

This was supposed to be the next park after Golden Gardens, and on the 24th it was.  I considered its official address ambiguous, so I went up from 85th St on 31st Ave first.  This was the wrong way:

but I didn't regret the hike because 31st offers great views of the water:

In fact the proper dead end through which to approach this ravine is the one on 92nd St going west from 28th Ave:

although the view from 28th is mostly trees:

North Beach Park

This 8-acre park at 24th Ave and 90th St, was my first destination on the night of the 23rd; I figured it had to have something to offer to be called a "Park".  Well, it did:  it offered enough darkness that I could do Number One.

See, if North Beach Ravine is the ordinary, hostile kind of Natural Area, North Beach Park is the marginally friendly kind with signs and trails:

But that's all it is.  There isn't even a bench, so I had to plan the trip to Soundview standing up.

Dude, Where's My Park?

Can you guess what these three parks have in common?

Crown Hill Glen

This is on 19th Ave just before it ends at 89th St.  It used to be called "Crown Hill Natural Area".  It's a third of an acre.

From here on, there are homeless people (other than me) at many but not all parks.

Crown Hill Park

This acre-plus on Holman Road east of Mary Ave abuts yet another old school turned into housing for non-profits.  One of these took over the school's offer of its playground to the public, but like Nathan Hale High School broke its promise during the pandemic:

I didn't find anything especially neat at this bland park, whose neighbourhood schizophrenic decided he wanted to fight me once I was safely distant, and no, of course its water fountain didn't work, but it does have one weird thing:  a sort of half-skatebowl it calls a "skatespot".

Baker Park on Crown Hill

If Crown Hill Park is the neighbourhood meeting place, Baker is more the boutique spot.  It's smaller, 2/3 of an acre on 14th Ave behind Safeway, more pretentious (it even has the 6 A.M. to 10 P.M. schedule, alone of this page's parks), and more peaceful.  Of course it has no water fountain.  It does have a totem pole, and even though I have doubts about the thing's provenance and placement, I was so starved for art by this evening that I photographed it anyway:

It can be, and is, prouder of its "butterfly garden", and if that means the slightly dull-hued plantings that face the street, contrasting strongly with Seattle parks' usual bright green, then I thought they were neat too:

I haven't played entirely fair here.  Ballard has Playground, Commons and Corners all in a row, with the Pool nearby, and I said hardly a word.  Well, but this kind of thing isn't fair.  Ballard can get away with such repetition, but when Crown Hill does it (or rather, the parks department does it on Crown Hill's behalf), mockery fits.

Next page, dear Diary, bad news.  But not tonight.

The Ballard Seacoast: Parks Not Parks', part II

Dear Diary,

Golden Gardens Park

is over three hundred feet tall.  It is just under 100 acres in area and about 100 yards in height.

I didn't know that on the evening of June 23 as I tried to thread my way through the crowds to explore the part of the park in which I found myself.  I took a picture pretty soon, as the park slowly revealed the reason for the crowds:

There are, of course, restrooms at the beach, off to the north end, but I never got a very good look at them - crowds again, but also sand, which for some reason disagrees with my cart's wheels.  I think there are two stalls in the men's room, and no dryers; what I'm sure of is lockable doors.  I found a water fountain near these restrooms and one at the south end of the beach, neither running.

Also, the man I'd met at Salmon Bay Natural Area had told me of showers there.  Next to the men's room entrance there are high and low spigots, right out there in the open, so a user is expected to keep on a bathing suit or equivalent clothing, and of course neither soap nor towels are provided.  There's enough sand on the walkways there to make these showers finitely useful for their intended purpose, but both times I visited there was enough water under them to show they'd had some use.

North of the restrooms, the beach gives way to more usual park stuff - a playground, some sports space, then a protected wetland and, furthest north, another beach.  That night, however, my attention was caught by a sign introducing the park:

It says the yellow sand is all home-grown, which certainly isn't true of the Midwestern beaches of my childhood.  It also has a map, which made me just a bit more confident than I should have been.

See, this sign, and this map, don't mention that Golden Gardens Park is 300 feet tall.

So, confident I'd explored enough, I looked for the beginning of a barrier-free trail up to the rest of Seattle.  And I didn't find one, and didn't find one, and ...  There is a pedestrian path to the next level, but I learned the next day that it's paved in poorly mortared bricks.

It was, of course, silly of me to expect such a path.  I mean, sure, there's a barrier-free path for cars.  But a similar path for people afoot, or using other kinds of wheels?  Why, that would amount to a, a sidewalk or something.  How could that possibly work?

(Of course, since then the road, which changes names from Seaview Ave to Golden Gardens Drive just within the park, has been closed to cars by the Stay Healthy program.  This is most obviously inconvenient to those who live on houseboats moored in Shilshole Bay Marina, but it also forces people driving to or from the beach into Seaview.)

Finally I gave up and did as the park's designers obviously intended me to, launching into the road.  Drivers adapted, though perhaps not happily.  It helped that I kept leaving the road to explore, during which exploration the traffic thinned.  It was pretty much night by the time I heaved my way up the last steep hill (I'm afraid that even with cars removed, somewhere close to the top some wheelchair users will probably struggle) and rejoined Seattle.

My priorities by that point were finding places to do Number One, and to sleep.  But the next morning, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I returned.  I was armed with this guidance from the Washington Trails Association (I intended to follow the routes suggested by Alan Gibbs) and with this map, probably originally parks department work.  I was going to walk every trail and really get to know the park.

But first I was going to wash my dishes.  At the top of the park I found a sort of out of the way place to park my cart, and went down many steps (Gibbs's counts are roundedly correct) to the park's other restroom, which I'll introduce shortly.  When finished, I had an ordinary plastic shopping bag containing my detergent, my hand soap, and some washed deli containers.

At this point I decided to go down yet more stairs and take the photos I just showed you, which means it was 11 A.M.  Having started my visit to the sea level part of the park at the sign this time, I went further north and for the first time saw the "North Beach Entrance".  I was curious what the wall at the end of the beach looked like, and proceeded...

Yes, I'll get to what happened next, but it takes us into other parks, so let me finish up with Golden Gardens first.  The stuff I found there can sort of be organised into four levels.  I've already described the sea level one.  The next one up isn't all that far up, and is mainly for overflow parking, but also has mysteriously abandoned streets and, uphill, the park's headquarters.  I don't think it has any entrances from outside the park.

Next is the level with an off-leash area for dogs' people.  There may be a water fountain in that, but I found none near the restrooms mentioned above.  The men's room has one stall with a lockable door, and, I vaguely remember, no dryer.  There's also picnic areas and parking on this level.  I don't think it has access to the streets either.  Finally, up top there's a bench, the head of a stairway, and a bus stop.  (There's no bus on Seaview.)

I did not end up taking every trail.  I took one trail without stairs, so they do exist, but there are many, many stairs on trails in Golden Gardens Park.  The reassurance on that map can only have been meant for the area the map shows, the main beach.

So to return, there I was, setting out to find the wall of the North Beach.  I didn't.  The beach got stonier, and less and less crowded, and at some unposted point I crossed over into

(?) North Beach sensu stricto

For a long time, it seemed, it was just me, the sand, the stones, and the sea.  I started thinking Edward Abbey (whom I haven't read, but some of whose books I once owned) would be at home here.  I felt that taking photos would breach the sacredness, so sorry, you're going to have to make do with words.

Eventually I reached an entrance.  All I knew then was that the street system was on the other side, and the door was locked.  Cursing the city's uneven closures, I walked on.  Not too much later I must have crossed into

(?) Blue Ridge Beach

because I reached that entrance.  Beyond which lay a park not Parks'.  Also locked.

From there I could see other stairs, so I decided to stay on the railroad embankment that lies between the beach and the rest of Seattle.  I knew it was risky, but figured it was only for a short way.  Unfortunately, the stairs turned out to lead to private residences; I didn't even bother climbing them.

Well, here's the crucial decision:  I didn't turn back.  Not to the exit from the embankment at the Blue Ridge Beach Park entrance, and certainly not to Golden Gardens Park.  I was bound and determined to reach the northern wall of North Beach, and turning back would just delay that.

(?) Tidal mudflats

It turned out there weren't nearly as many accommodating rockfalls below the embankment as I'd hoped for.  Partly this is because I'm quite short and, let's say, not very friendly with heights, but also it seems human convenience is not a high priority for falling rocks.

So I stayed on the embankment, still, mind you, carrying that astonishingly durable plastic bag.  I found it harder and harder to keep my footing (my right shoe will probably never be the same) and forgot all about communing with dead naturalists, as the beach below changed in a mysterious and baleful way:  it gradually became ever more dominated by a shining black surface with brilliant green highlights.  I didn't know what it was, but even though I remained determined to escape the embankment, I began to be grateful I hadn't yet.

Carkeek Park

This is where I finally found a rockfall suited to small climbers.  I know this because, within a few feet of me, were venturesome beachgoers also struggling with what I assume is tidal mud.  (If you want to repeat this hike without risk from railways, wear or at least carry high boots.)

After escaping various beach hazards and climbing the stairs, I did at least Number One in the men's room there, found the water fountain not running, and headed for the exit.  Carkeek Park Drive turned out to be much like Golden Gardens Drive - uphill, twisty, and sidewalk-deficient - but there was much less traffic, and I'm quite sure I took less than a month to reach the street grid again.

From there it was a simple matter to head back to Golden Gardens - though I admit I took a bus partway, worried about my cart, which proved untouched.

Later that day I got some answers.

REDUX:  (Private) North Beach sensu stricto

The streetside entrance to North Beach - the first I'd encountered - is at 28th Ave and Esplanade St.  The sign on the door there also hangs on the fence around a building adjacent to the steps, so I'd assumed the rules that sign outlines of the "North Beach Club" applied to the building.  Nope:  they apply to the door.

The website the sign points to explains everything.  Back around 1930 the purchasers of a bunch of new homes in the area organised to take care of water service.  The developer did it for them, and also handed them the relevant stretch of beach.  They now have two levels of membership.  Residents of the original 90 houses are full members.  Residents of a surrounding area can apply for associate membership.  One element of membership is a key to that door.

My apologies to the city for blaming it.

REDUX:  (Private?) Blue Ridge Beach

Blue Ridge Beach Park, the park I saw through the second locked gate, is a membership park at Neptune Place and Blue Ridge Drive.  I think it's very likely run along lines similar to those of the North Beach Club, but unlike the latter, the Blue Ridge folks seem to say nothing online; if there's a URL in the part of their sign

hidden by later accretions, it doesn't come up in any search I've tried.  Note also a nearby "Blue Ridge Park", also private.

On the 26th, I got back to, um, 

REDUX:  Carkeek Park

Piper's Creek Natural Area

Eddie McAbee Entrance

This park or set of parks or park and set of parks or ... has a map:

but that doesn't really clarify matters.  The entrance is definitely the southernmost bit, and by itself is an ordinary neighbourhood park with an ordinary non-running water fountain.  The park is listed in the real estate report as 172 acres, considerably fewer than the numbers (there are several) usually given.  The area is listed as only 9 acres, the entrance not separately listed.

I entered the second time through the entrance, grateful to avoid Carkeek Park Drive.  Down a steep hill on a graveled trail, I parked the cart and proceeded.  The trail features many deteriorating posts advertising a "story trail" whose text can be found various places, including online.  They date to 2004 and aren't online any more, not even at the Internet Archive.  Maybe a physical copy survives.

The trail is very long even after the "Story Trail" posts give out, and I got less grateful every step.  Much of Carkeek Park's area is spent on vast greenswards, which maybe get used at times other than those I was there.  I had to walk past all of them, both times.

The park's focus - playground, restrooms, etc. - is at the end of this trail, near the stairs to the beach.  The men's room has lockable doors, a working dryer, and as many toilets as both men's rooms at Golden Gardens put together, so I guess Carkeek Park must be very popular sometime or other.

Much space goes to trails, and I gladly climbed one heading north above the beach, hoping it would show me what becomes of the beach.  But in summer the leaves are too thick to see anything else.  Fundamentally, Carkeek Park has two levels, the beach and the rest, and they haven't much to do with each other.

So to find the north wall at last I'd have to walk there myself.  Actually, more like clamber; Carkeek Park's beach of golden sand is much smaller than the one at Golden Gardens, and just feet from the stairs it turned black and white (like the sand at the 57th Street End), then got stony.  I walked the stones a fair way, avoiding all bright black mud and brilliant green seaweed.  And there ahead of me, just as Google Maps had said, lay the wall.  The railroad embankment turned to meet the coast, cutting the beach off.

I'd put the detergent away on the 24th, but continued carrying trash in the valiant plastic bag until a label ripped it on the 29th.

Some last remarks

North Seattle's It Parks, the famous ones closing at 8 P.M., are often walled.  Not Green Lake or Woodland - except metaphorically, by the physical covering of the maps of the former, the lack of maps of the latter.  But at Gas Works you have to imperil your life in traffic to reach a paved entrance.  And at Magnuson, Golden Gardens and Carkeek you have to hike a long way - and perhaps take stairs - to arrive at the good stuff, in each case including but not limited to beaches.

Meteorologist Cliff Mass has argued that park closures, especially closure of parking lots, is class and ability discrimination.  You could add the closure of Golden Gardens Drive in support of his argument.

It's piffle anyway.  Seattle is a progressive city, no more capable of classism or ableism than of racism.  Next thing you know, someone will claim the President behaved badly.

So surely it's just coincidence that there are almost literal walls around much of the Ballard seacoast.  But you know what would really put paid to his argument?  A bus down Seaview Avenue.

All for now, dear Diary; I'm grateful not to have overshot midnight as badly as last time, but I can't continue at this pace.  The next few pages will cover:

1. Crown Hill ("NW")

2. Greenwood (mostly "N")

3. Blue Ridge ("NW", a very short page)

4. Top of the City, part III (mostly "N")

5. Obscure and incipient parks ("NE")

but although none should be anywhere near as long as these pages on the coast, I can't promise a schedule.