Hikes 0 to 7: All Night Long

Dear Diary,

This page's title isn't entirely true.  I didn't reach View Ridge Playfield on hike 1, although I'd tried.  I made no attempt to visit any park I suspected of having 24-hour restrooms on hike 6.  But all the rest, yes.  To a first approximation, my life in mid-January revolved around learning the hours of the restrooms in Green Lake and Woodland Parks, in particular.

Hike 0, January 1

View Ridge Playfield's restrooms were open around midnight.  Photos in "Hike 2A" January 8.

Hike 2, January 6

I visited View Ridge Playfield by day.  Lots of photos in the page already mentioned.

Hike 3, January 9

I spent much of the day in Woodland and Green Lake Parks, as detailed January 24 in "Hike 3A" and January 25 in "3B" respectively.  Then I visited the Greenwood parks (Hike 3C, January 25) before going up to Bitter Lake Playfield (whose restrooms were reputedly 24 hours last summer; hike 3D, March 14).  Then headed back to Green Lake Park, in a hurry to find an open restroom.  I meant to visit all that park's and Woodland Park's restrooms that night but got too sleepy.

It may be helpful in reading this page to refer to these maps.  Green Lake Park:

"Shellhouse" is the Small Craft Center.  "65th St" is near that bend in the shore most of the way from the Small Craft Center to the Community Center.  "Wading pool" is at the north end; "Community Center" and "Bathhouse" are as mapped.

For Woodland Park, I can't find maps showing the lower, eastern, restrooms, which are "Rio" in the Citywide Athletics building near N 52nd St, and "Cloverleaf" north of there in the middle of the four Leo Lassen Fields, the cloverleaf, near N Clogston Way.  For the western part of Lower Woodland Park, see this PDF map for "50th St".  For "Pink Palace" see this other PDF map; that map unaccountably omits the "lawn bowling" restrooms, but they're where all the other lawn bowling stuff is.

Hike 4, January 10

I woke up around 4:30 A.M. and toured the restrooms between 5 and 7 A.M.  The earlier results, for Green Lake Park, probably represent actual night status, but the Woodland Park results got closer and closer to regular opening times.  Anyway, the "wading pool" and "Bathhouse" restrooms in Green Lake Park were closed, as were the "lawn bowling" ones in Woodland Park.  The "Shellhouse" and "65th St" restrooms in Green Lake Park, and "Pink Palace" and "50th St" (last check, practically at 7 A.M.) in Woodland Park, were open.  The doors of the Green Lake Community Center's restrooms were flung open too.  I didn't check "Rio" or "Cloverleaf".

My paper notes on this and the next are retrospective because it was raining.  After that, they're contemporary, from my phone.

I'd told Rachel Schulkin of the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation that I'd be there around then, and the theatrically open doors at the Community Center gave me the suspicion, probably made more plausible by my lack of sleep, that all the open doors I'd seen were a show for my benefit.  This is one reason I visited those two parks repeatedly.

Another is that I didn't believe the schedules offered by the map I was checking.  One pair of restrooms in Green Lake Park was supposed to be 24 hours; three were supposed to close at 7 P.M.; and one, the "wading pool" ones, was supposed to close at 8:30 P.M.  At Woodland Park, "Rio" and "lawn bowling" were supposed to be closed, "Pink Palace" and "50th St" to close at 7 P.M., and "Cloverleaf" to close at dusk.  So whoever closed each park would have to visit twice.  This made no sense to me.

But it was morning, too late to work on these things for hours to come, so I set off on the hikes recounted in "Escaping Green Lake Park", part I, February 7, "Hike 4B" February 8, and "Escaping Carkeek Park" and "Hike 5A" February 13.  Note that the night I spent in Carkeek Park January 10-11, between hikes 4 and 5, gave me the idea that Carkeek Park's restrooms were 24 hours.

Hike 5, January 11

I already told you the story of this night, dear Diary, February 16 in "Escaping Green Lake Park", part II.  Remember that the Community Center's restrooms, with those invitingly wide-open doors, turned out not to have running water that night.

Elsewhere, between roughly 10 P.M. and midnight, "65th St", "lawn bowling", and "50th St" were open, "Cloverleaf", "Bathhouse" and "Shellhouse" were closed, and "Pink Palace" had one restroom each open and closed.  I didn't find the "wading pool" restrooms and didn't try to visit "Rio".

After this came the motel stay ("Fear of Rain" February 17 and "How to Lie to the Homeless", part I, February 18) and hike 6 ("Hikes 3C and 6A", January 25, and "Hikes 3D and 6B" and "Hike 6C", both March 14).

Hike 7, January 17

I arrived in Woodland Park around 5 P.M. and stayed over six hours.

"Rio", which had been posted as closed due to vandalism, was indeed closed at 5:05 P.M.  "Cloverleaf" restrooms were closed at 5:10.  Remember that those were (still are) presented as open dawn to dusk; sunset that day was at 4:48 P.M.  In Green Lake Park, "Shellhouse" restrooms were open at 5:22, "65th St" at 5:38, Community Center, with cold water running, at 5:49, "wading pool" at 6:03.  I didn't note my arrival at the "Bathhouse" restrooms, but meant to stay until they were closed, because they were the only ones in that park I was confident would be closed.

This turned into a three hour wait.  Finally at 9 P.M. drove up, not a parks department staffer, but a man from the private security firm Phoenix Patrol.  I'd only encountered this company in one place before, also a park; each of the few times I slept at Laurelhurst Playfield, a Phoenix Patrol staffer had driven up in the wee hours, unlocked both the single-user stalls, verified they were unoccupied, sometimes used one, locked them again, and drove off.  This exercise in security theatre hadn't much impressed me, but at Green Lake apparently they'd graduated from checking on the maintenance workers to replacing them.

I waited over half an hour more to give the guy time to finish, then went back through Green Lake Park, and on to upper Lower Woodland Park.  The "wading pool" restrooms were open at 10:00 P.M., "Community Center" closed at 10:18, "65th St" open at 10:31.  Then I got worried about having my phone visible.  The "Shellhouse" rooms were closed, sometime before 10:56.  "Pink Palace" was open close to 11 P.M., "lawn bowling" closed at 11:06, and "50th St" open at around 11:15.

From there I went "home" at least as far as the UW campus, maybe even to my formerly usual Laurelhurst doorway.  I think this page has already gotten long enough, dear Diary, and I'll have to tell you the rest of the story in later pages.  Good night!