Escaping Carkeek Park

Dear Diary,

As I told you in the last page, I was pushing a brand-new cart to Carkeek Park in the late afternoon of January 10, hoping to wait out several days of forecast rain at that park's shelter 2.

There are several ways to approach Carkeek Park.  For example, the trail I mentioned, in "The Ballard Seacoast", part II, July 1, from which I'd hoped to see where the beach ends, well, that trail itself ends in what seems to be someone's back yard.  But there are three more reasonable ways to get there, which can be summarised as NW 117th St, NW 110th St, and the Eddie McAbee Entrance, which starts from NW 100th Place.  That day, I took 110th.  Now, I should explain that 110th St, which turns into Carkeek Park Drive along the way, has a shoulder on its sometimes southern side.  This shoulder normally is separated from the street by a bump, and is normally enough inches wide that a small person like me could walk safely on it if a) it weren't sloped and covered in wet leaves, and b) that small person weren't pushing a wheeled cart.  So I walked in the street.

117th St, by the way, as I found Wednesday (February 10) when I went to take this page's photos, offers much wider shoulders, usually over a foot wide, which however are usually grassy, making them nearly as useless for anyone with a baby carriage, wheelchair or cart.  Walkers without wheels should certainly prefer it.

(There are buses that go to "Carkeek Park".  This turns out to mean that the 28 goes to the Eddie McAbee Entrance, more or less, while the 5 goes to Greenwood Ave N at N 110th or 117th Streets.  No buses actually reach the park's main entrance, let alone enter.)

They say the position of women in early Islam was much, much better than in Arab societies prior to Muhammad.  Similarly, the position of pedestrians in Carkeek Park is much better than our position in the surrounding neighbourhood, and similarly, that's damning with faint praise.

I've referred to Carkeek Park, besides "The Ballard Seacoast", November 2 in "Blue Ridge, Land of Mystery", and November 24 in "Standing Room Only", part V, which in particular introduced shelter 2.  But I don't think I've explained about its roads before.  Carkeek Park Drive continues into the park a ways, and then splits.  The westbound northern lane goes up a hill and down again to reach the part of the park with the restrooms, shelters, water fountain, playground, and stairway to the beach.  Then there's a turnaround, and it loops back, passing north of the vast greenswards I've mentioned and finally turning into the eastbound southern lane.

Anyway, up to the split, Carkeek Park cares enough about pedestrians to offer a real sidewalk:

Even after the split, there's a gravel path, south of the westbound lane just as the sidewalk is south of the combined road:

This gravel path ends within sight of shelter 2, crossing north of the westbound lane and acquiring pavement in the process.  Now, you understand, dear Diary, that on the evening of January 10 I didn't actually push my cart along the gravel path, but in the road.  I don't remember whether I took the direct, paved, route or stuck to the road until things were clearer.

Anyway, I spent the night there in shelter 2, safe from the rain, using the lantern I'd recently been given (as mentioned two pages ago in "Escaping Green Lake Park", part I) to read until bedtime.  Comfortingly, the restrooms were open all night, just as they had been in October when I'd last visited.  

You may remember, dear Diary, that the official explanation for such unannounced 24-hour restrooms is that when a road is closed, it's both difficult and unnecessary to lock and unlock the restrooms it leads to.  I think Carkeek Park Drive was still closed January 10, but it definitely wasn't on Wednesday, so maybe those restrooms are no longer 24 hours.

Well, in the morning I ran low on food and water.  Conveniently, a break came in the rain; inconveniently, that brought company.  A couple, rather older than me, came in and sat at another of the shelter's picnic tables.  The man used this rest to unmask and smoke, except that he spent most of the time coughing rather than smoking.  This made staying even less appetizing, so after they left, I packed up and did the same.

The paved path past the shelter runs past shelter 1, part of the playground, and the restrooms, and becomes a sidewalk.  It's paved right up to the path to the beach stairs, on the other side of which it turns into gravel again:

So there's a paved sidewalk south of the combined road, a gravel path south of the westbound lane, a paved sidewalk west of the turnaround, and now a gravel path south of the eastbound lane.  Makes perfect sense, right?  For some reason, though, I actually decided to take that gravel path instead of sticking to the street as I normally would.

Then I reached the first greensward:

Yes, that's right, the path separates from the street.  That enables a long series of small parking lots to be strung along between the eastbound lane and the greenswards.  Necessarily, then, given the blockish way this park is designed, the path has to go all the way south of the greenswards, on the opposite side from the parking lots and the road:

Somewhere along here, the rain resumed.  And that's when I made the critical decision, the decision that shaped the next few days of my life but also that showed me thinking like a housed, rather than a homeless, person:  I kept going.  I needed water (that I could've gotten from the restroom sink) and food (was I really that low?).

This was a cruel thing to do to brand-new cart wheels, although I should clarify that the path I was on was really more a dirt path stiffened by fine gravel than the kind of thing one thinks of as a gravel path:

Those wheels would get revenge soon enough.

My decision became firmer when I looked up and to the right at a spectacularly bad time:

I'd had no idea I'd been so deep in a valley, and resolved not to return to it.

At the time I was in no position to appreciate the excellent views of Piper's Creek on offer:

Toward the end of the trip, I saw something astonishing, that my month-later photo probably hasn't well captured, an illustration of why I wrote of Blue Ridge that it's "not actually vertical":

And you've probably now figured it out, dear Diary, as had I.  Yes, I'd taken the Eddie McAbee Exit.

Once I realised that this story was worth telling, I also concluded that this whole mess is designed to get pedestrians to leave via 100th, regardless of our wishes in the matter.  This is not quite fair.  Once one is on the pseudo-sidewalk / Eddie McAbee whatever, one gets at least three opportunities to return to Carkeek Park Drive.  One just has to know the park well enough to recognise them.  (And, yes, get over the foolish tendency to trust sidewalks.)

There's one real consolation:  Sooner than later, there'll be a do-over.  Much of Carkeek Park Drive, within the park, is in terrible shape:

If people who think parks should not require visitors to arrive in cars are awake when Carkeek Park Drive needs resurfacing, perhaps something will improve.

Good night, dear Diary.