My March Hikes

Dear Diary,

This page concerns four hikes I made in March.  The first two started pretty late, so didn't cover many parks.  The fourth was too late to observe the parks in winter, and anyway had to be cut short because I had to make it to an appointment for work.  (Three of my four Wednesdays "off" in the last month of tax season ended up with appointments anyway.)  So only the third was a really useful hike, but I have things to tell you from the others as well.

March 5th

On this day, having started late, I only made it to Jackson Park, Northacres Park and Playfield, Bitter Lake Playfield, and Sandel Playground; the links are to the folders at Google Drive with most of the photos.  I already talked about Sandel.  All the others deserve attention here.

Jackson Park

As usual, this park's water fountains were on:

Northacres Park and Playfield

As usual, this park's specially winter-adapted water fountains:

had been shut down for the winter:

My best guess is that the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation didn't deliberately set out to waste this special quality of these fountains.  Rather, I'm thinking they attached them to a restroom building that at that time was heated, but whose heating since broke down and wasn't fixed.  On the other hand, the recently installed set of similar fountains (without explicit labels) at Cal Anderson Park have been shut down every winter since they appeared, so maybe the parks department actually does buy winter-proof fountains without any intention of using their winter-proof qualities.  I don't know.

Bitter Lake Playfield

There's nothing unusual about Bitter Lake's restrooms as well as water fountains being shut down in winter.

Except that that building wasn't supposed to look like that any more:

Maybe there wasn't a plan to heat the building, but at least the restrooms were going to be de-gendered.  (And presumably lose their urinals.)  What happened?

Several projects have been rescheduled, of course, not just this one.  What confuses me is the question whether there are limits to this rescheduling.  Later in this page I'm showing you some torn-down restroom buildings, dear Diary.  Will those projects be rescheduled before the replacements are put up?

March 12th

That day I had a lot to do other than hike, so the only park I made it to was Salmon Bay Park, for the second time, an hour earlier than the first, as discussed in the first page about this set of hikes.

March 19th

I only reached five parks on my last Sunday off during tax season, but two are kind of large:  Gas Works Park, Wallingford Playfield, Meridian Playground, Woodland Park and Green Lake Park.  Also the street fountain on 45th, which wasn't running.

Gas Works Park

The main decorative motif in the core area of Gas Works Park where the actual gas works are, as well as the restrooms, water fountains, playground and so forth, is currently fences.  The parks department claims that this is because construction on the long-planned renovations in that area has begun:

But it seems to me all that's happened so far is, um, destruction:

So this is one of the projects I'm worried about.

To be fair, the parks department has deployed lots of "sanican"s to the parking lot, as well as at least one hand-washing station.

Woodland Park

The list of restrooms to be open this winter posted by Christina Hirsch in November includes three entries in this park:  "Woodland Park 50th", which is near some of the picnic shelters; "Woodland Park Pink Palace", which is near the rest of the picnic shelters - both in the western part of the non-zoo part of the park (and both of which I did indeed find open).  And "Woodland Park Rio".  That refers to the restrooms whose doors open to the outside in the Citywide Athletics Building, toward the southern end of the park's easternmost part, the athletic fields.  These restrooms:

I'm not clear on why, this past winter, there were restrooms for the people hiking on the west side of the block, but none for the much greater number doing athletic stuff on the east side.  Last time I went these rounds, the restrooms at the centre of the baseball cloverleaf were opened, daylight hours more or less, to substitute for "Rio"'s closure.  This time, I found the building's attached water fountain running, which certainly suggests it has some kind of heat.  But on March 19th, 2023, I didn't find the cloverleaf restrooms open, in full daylight at 3:18 P.M.

As with the restrooms in lower Ravenna Park, these "Rio" rooms have been closed for well over a year now.  The list I'm checking was actively revised; why did the reviser not know about these two closures?

Green Lake Park

Another revision in that list concerned Green Lake Park.  Customarily, the "Bathhouse" restrooms, that is, those with doors opening to the outside at the Bathhouse Theatre building where the Public Theatre presents shows, have been open in winter.  This winter's list omitted them, but in fact they were, as usual, open, at least on March 19th:

Flipside, the list of open restrooms for last winter did include the "Green Lake Shellhouse".  But...

I'm not sure, but I think the building with the restrooms was still standing when I visited.  To be fair, the row of "sanican"s nearby has two hand-washing stations.

Now, Green Lake Park has its own mini-rescheduling situation.  The Community Center was supposed to be renovated.  This resulted in a truly horrifying story I've already told you, dear Diary, or anyway a truly horrifying part of an even more horrifying story, in which I found out the water wasn't running in the men's room only after using the toilet there.  During an atmospheric river.  Let's just say the Community Center's renovations matter to me.  So now, having already inflicted damage preparing for those renovations, they're not doing them after all.  All this I already knew.

But imagine my surprise to find that instead a different set of restrooms at Green Lake Park is fenced away, to be torn down and replaced.  Green Lake Park just can't win for losing, can it?

March 22nd

Before I took any photos that day, I saw a man come out of the restroom in Greenwood Park.  Which is just like the restroom in Little Brook Park, essentially a wooden box, certainly not heated.  So this was proof that the parks department had pivoted back to its regular roster of restrooms to open.

Obstinately, I kept hiking anyway.  Again, I made it to five parks:  Sandel Playground, Greenwood Park, Licton Springs Park, Maple Leaf Reservoir Park, and Waldo J. Dahl Playfield.

Of course, I found four of these parks had open restrooms.  That's what happens outside winter, right?  (Well, except in Ravenna Park, and Gas Works Park, and ...)

And except in Licton Springs Park:

Notice, dear Diary, that this sign doesn't make any promises as to when the actual construction part will happen.

All for now, dear Diary.  What remains for this set of pages is to do some mapping and see if there's anything worth saying about that.  Probably Sunday or Monday.

But I'm currently, as the placeholder with which I started this page indicated, focusing on other areas of my life.  Longer term, I am promised at least eight weeks off work this summer, and intend to spend at least one of them doing something I haven't yet done for you at all, a summer hike of North Seattle.  I also hope to visit a few counties I may write about the rest of this year.

So probably one page early next week, and then maybe none for a while.  Happy days and nights as spring continues, dear Diary!