My February Hikes

Dear Diary,

To start with, I planned to tackle all the parks with restrooms in one region of North Seattle, that is, NE, N and NW, in one day off each.  In reality, on February 19th I visited the majority of NE parks; on February 26, the majority of NW (adding one on the 28th); on March 5 a few in NE and N; on March 12 only Salmon Bay Park; and on March 19 most of N.  (In each region I started in the north, to keep myself from focusing as usual on the closer-together parks further south.)  On March 22 (my day off had switched), I visited the parks of Greenwood and east of there, which were most of what was left, but it was already too late to evaluate their restrooms' winter availability.

In your previous page, dear Diary, I focused on the lists of park restrooms open in winter posted by Christina Hirsch in 2019 and in 2022.  In particular, I noted that of four restrooms or restroom pairs added to the 2022 list in North Seattle, three appeared to be outright lies (University Playground's restroom doors welded shut; Little Brook Park's restroom posted as seasonally closed; Salmon Bay Park's restrooms locked on two visits) and one, at best, a conflict between Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation management and the parks maintenance workers who actually open, clean, do minor repairs on, and close the restrooms, that is, Sandel Playground's restrooms, which now in two winters (2020-2021 and 2022-2023) have been advertised as open but have instead been closed.

However, I found other interesting things on these hikes, including but not limited to more lies, and so plan two other pages to tell you about them, dear Diary.  This is the first, and covers NE and NW.

February 19th

I've now uploaded most of the photos to Google Drive.  For this hike, that means Magnuson Park, Matthews Beach, Little Brook Park, all visited between 1 and 4 pm; then University Playground, Cowen Park, Ravenna Park, Burke-Gilman Playground Park and View Ridge Playfield, between 4 P.M. and 9 P.M.  (The restrooms at Burke-Gilman Playground Park, which I reached at 7:20 P.M., both had visible seasonal closure notices still up; those at View Ridge Playfield, which I reached at 8:04 P.M., stay open all the time, 24/7.  For which I was very grateful by that time, because all the other open restrooms - Magnuson Park's beach restrooms and Matthews Beach's - had been early in the hike.)

I found the street-style fountain near the intersection of the Burke-Gilman Trail and 30th Ave NE not running.  I didn't check the park-style fountain further south.

Other notes:

Magnuson Park

As the previous page noted, without going out of my way re water fountains, I found four that were running, of which three were attached to heated buildings.  The fourth was in Magnuson Park.  It was running strongly:

I was concerned enough about this - cold weather was then forecast - to write to Rachel Schulkin, PR at the parks department.  But I thought there was a real chance that someone in charge at Magnuson Park was doing a controlled experiment, comparing an attached fountain with a free-standing one.  So I told her the fountains should be turned off unless they represented such an experiment.

I think I was worrying too much.  I've told you before, dear Diary, that while homeless I began tracking low temperatures in spreadsheets - a succession of these as the electronic gadgets where I kept them broke or were stolen.  (And as my standards changed.  I originally just listed temperature readings from signs I passed on my way to campus.)  The surviving version goes back to 2019, and I still go to some trouble to keep that spreadsheet up.

Now, 2022 was distinctive compared to the other years I still have, and as best I remember going further back.  I track three thermometers:  one at the roof of the UW's Atmospheric Sciences building, measured every minute by UW personnel; one at Boeing Field, measured every five minutes by the National Weather Service; and one at NOAA's building on the UW campus, a couple blocks south of the Atmospheric Sciences building and much closer to the water, measured every hour also by the National Weather Service.  Historically, my comments on the spreadsheet concerned almost only missed readings at one or another of these.  UW was usually the highest, NOAA often the lowest.  But in 2022, NOAA's readings started going haywire, very often dropping by 8º Fahrenheit for a single reading, sometimes two or three times in 24 hours.  I noted these but only recorded more believable lows.  My complaints about NOAA's readings got ever more baroque as these "swoops" became more frequent and more extreme (for a time they were consistently 11º F in extent).  Finally October 1st to 6th, neither NOAA nor UW gave credible readings; readings at both ranged 11º to 15º F throughout those days.  From October 7th to November 23rd, NOAA was credible, the UW not; but on November 24th, NOAA swooped eight times, and this pattern of frequent swoops making it un-useable as a data source has been its pattern basically ever since, except for a few weeks around New Year's.  On November 28th, the UW came back, and has been steady ever since.  I've since learnt, from my work on the counties, that actually the Weather Service has multiple stations whose temperature readings regularly swoop; I suspect the main brand of thermometer NWS relies on is maybe not up to being used outside for years on end.

Anyway, though, this melange of sources reported a bunch of temperatures in the 20s before February 19 of this year.  November 9th, 2022:  NOAA 29º (Boeing 30º).  November 18th through 20th (both NOAA and Boeing).  December 1st and 2nd, also the 15th and 16th (all Boeing; UW higher).  December 21st through 24th (both UW and Boeing, and going down to 16º).  January 30th, 2023 (both UW, at 29º, and Boeing, at 21º).  So when I found that fountain running on February 19th, one of two things had to be true:  Either it was equal to 16º temperatures, or it was being closely supervised by someone able and willing to turn it off when such temperatures threatened.

So I shouldn't have worried so much.  It looks like Seattle parks could have a lot more running water fountains in typical Seattle winters, although if the explanation is close supervision, that probably doesn't scale up too well.

I didn't find the showers at either Magnuson or Matthews beaches running.

Ravenna Park

Both the 2019 list and the 2022 list said Ravenna Park's lower restrooms were open.  I know from when you began, dear Diary, that the 2019 list was telling the truth.  The 2022 list was not, and I can't imagine why a list that had clearly been actively compiled included the long-term-closed restrooms at Ravenna Park.

February 26th

Again, most of the photos are now at Google Drive, including Carkeek Park, Golden Gardens Park, Soundview Playfield, Loyal Heights Community Center, Salmon Bay Park, Ballard Community Center, Ballard Commons, and also the street water fountain at Greenwood Ave and 85th St, which was near a place where I changed buses, and which I found running very strongly:

Carkeek Park

Carkeek Park is distinctive among the parks of North Seattle with regard to its restrooms:  It's the largest park with only one restroom location.  Jackson Park, the next largest, has only one location for restrooms whose doors open to the outside, and all its restrooms are in one small part of the park, but most of the park is a golf course, which apparently makes that OK.  Otherwise, the next smaller park with only one set of restrooms is Maple Leaf Reservoir Park, one-seventh the size of Carkeek Park.

The reason Carkeek Park can get away with having so few restrooms is partly that most of what's interesting in that park is near those restrooms - the beach, the playground, the picnic shelters.  It's also partly that, like Jackson Park, it used to have park restrooms whose doors open indoors.  But then the Environmental Learning Center at Carkeek Park, which is way off at the other end of the park, much closer to city streets, closed to the public, leaving Carkeek with only one set of restrooms.

So what's new is that one of the ELC buildings has re-opened to the public:

In 2010 it was open Tuesdays through Saturdays, but 10 A.M. to 4 P.M.  So the current schedule is nearly as many hours, though, as in many libraries, it's managed this largely by expanding morning hours.

The front of this building has a lot of glass:

Through this I could see the doors of the restrooms, and could also see a couple of people working.  But they weren't formally open, and I didn't want to bother them (partly because, after all, I hoped to finish NW that day).

Golden Gardens Park

I vaguely remember that the showers here were running, unlike those at Matthews Beach and Magnuson Park.  But my photos don't document this, and it could be a false memory.

February 28th

Gilman Playground

As with Burke-Gilman Playground Park, I got here outside my usual hours limits (6:06 P.M.), but it was OK because there were still closure signs on the doors.  At Google Drive see here.

All for now, dear Diary.  I'll write up the March hikes in the coming days as my schedule allows.  Until then, happy nights and days.