Dear Diary,
Well, I've finished the spreadsheet, uploaded it and shared it, so if I'm extremely lucky, people can now read or download it from here:
The total places I'm trying to visit turn out to be 500 - 323 city owned, 126 from OpenStreetMap, and 51 from The Emerald City Resource Guide.
Today I don't think I can hike at all; but I can write. And it turns out, there's a lot of news - to me, at least - in this area. Here's a map. I should probably tell you, dear Diary, that while I'm writing on my phone, I'm doing most of the work on my Windows laptop. (My Linux laptop, on which I'd written you for years, is broken.). So this map represents a learning curve. It is, of course, based on OpenStreetMap.
And now to start, in hiking order:
August 4
The news didn't really start this day.
Thornton Creek Water Quality Channel (A on map)
I've shown you this Seattle Public Utilities park, I think, several times now. Its address is 330 NE 100th St, and it stretches north to 103rd, near the exit there from the transit station. It's in the Thornton Place apartment complex.
This time I hiked all the trails, as promised, and found neither restrooms nor water fountains. It does have lots of benches, and, being an SPU park, lots of explanatory signs.
So I just settled for two photos. One sign, and one glimpse of the reason the park exists, the South Fork of Thornton Creek.
Maple Leaf Community Garden (B)
This is one of the two P-patches in North Seattle owned by the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation. Its address is 529 NE 103rd St. It's really a P-patch, a shared garden, but has an interesting tower, which I've shown you before, dear Diary, so this time I settled for photographing a bench with words written on it whose sententiousness pleased me.
Beaver Pond Natural Area (C)
OK, this is sort of news. Years ago, dear Diary, I told you about this park, and then told you I'd gotten it all wrong, and the park was actually twice as big as I'd thought. So it's extremely humiliating to discover that I was wrong then too, and the park is actually four times as big as I'd originally thought, twice as big as my revised version.
As a result, I have much more to tell you, dear Diary, about this park, than will fit here, so see a separate page coming soon.
I should say, though, that my main memory of this park was that it had lots of litter, and I didn't find any this time. Also, the part I found first is the basis of its address, 10300 5th Ave NE. Right next to a bus stop.
Northgate Park (D)
I thought, on August 4th, that the water fountain in this quite bland lawn of a park (address for both the park and the community center below: 10510 5th Ave NE) was the only example of our core topic, water fountain or restroom, that I'd find in this area. This turned out to be wrong. That said, the fountain was running, and I refilled my bottle there.
Northgate Branch Library (E)
I verified that the restrooms were open and the water fountains running, and that was that. Address: 10548 5th Ave NE.
Northgate Community Center (F)
The story is pretty much told in the recent part in "Under Construction".
Hubbard Homestead (G)
This one, too: link. With a link to a whole part about this park in the regional hike of May 2021. Address: 11203 5th Ave NE.
Victory Creek Park (H)
The reason I had to tell you, dear Diary, about the strange absence of litter in Beaver Pond Natural Area, is the severe contrast with Victory Creek Park, whose address is 1056 NE Northgate Way.
This is a very weird park. It's a few benches and a former playground versus a daylit creek, the titular one, a tributary of the South Fork. As I mentioned in the "Under Construction" page about Hubbard Homestead, it's adjacent to a QFC, usually entered through the parking lot. I'm not sure whether to admire Parks for sticking to the fact of the daylit creek, or pity the neighbours who might want a more conventional park. But I can't help wondering whether the litter says what it isn't politically correct to say out loud, that nature isn't the only thing people want out of parks.
At any rate, I made one attempt to photograph the creek, and took a photo meant to illustrate what it's like walking this park's trails.
August 5
The news starts here.
Victory Creek Confluence Natural Area (I)
This is one of 2 1/2 Seattle Parks parks in North Seattle that I couldn't find in 2020-2023, as I'm sure you, dear Diary, remember. Well, this time it was easy. The King County Parcel Viewer steered me right there, and the address, 1039 NE 108th St, slots this tiny park in right where it should be, between 1019 and 1223.
See, it's the property on that block that isn't just fenced, it's walled:
I trespassed a bit onto 1223's lawn to find the reason. Someone had littered a boat there!
August 7
This was the day I spent on Beaver Pond Natural Area.
August 18
Northgate Mall's Central Park (J)
Over the years that Northgate Mall has seemed to consist mostly of construction fences, I've occasionally looked at the mall's Central Park, but all I remember seeing was a concrete plaza where people were sitting on that trendy "bistro" furniture and presumably discussing shopping strategies.
This time, I decided I owed it to the mall, this odd neighbourhood's centerpiece, to look more carefully. And lo and behold, one level down, there's a small playfield, there was a girls' team practicing there,
and what was that behind them?
Now, dear Diary, for good reason it's been an article of faith for me that privately owned parks in North Seattle just don't do plumbing. But the surprises didn't end there.
Look, ma! It is possible! A restroom whose door opens to the outside, not just near Northgate, but actually in Northgate Mall!
Who knows? Come the next pandemic, this restroom may be open.
Well, a lost park found, and a privately owned outdoor restroom, surprises enough, but there's one more to come.
September 1
King County Veterans Program (K)
On page 137 of The Emerald City Resource Guide, 8th edition, in the chapter "Veteran Services", we read:
Provides emergency financial assistance, housing system coordination, case management, social work, and education and employment resources. Documents required include proof of service (prior or current) as an active duty or reservist member, documentation of King County residency, and proof of income eligibility for financial assistance.
This program is at 9725 3rd Ave NE, not at all far south of the transit station, but an office building much too swanky to have sidewalks.
Northgate Station (L)
On September 1st, I bought my bus pass at Roosevelt Station, and then explored the station looking for restrooms, for practice. So it was a welcome surprise to find the ones at Northgate Station, one of whose addresses is 100 NE 103rd St, the first place I looked.
That mezzanine is not really outside, but if Sound Transit has actually given up on keeping restrooms locked by default, a pattern that goes way back to before Sound Transit itself existed, to when there used to be token restrooms in suburban transit centres, that's very good news.
Anyway, no more surprises, just an SPU property not big enough to be one of their best.
Northgate Pump Station (M)
Near as I can tell, the only example of SPU park style here, at 400 NE 115th St, is a couple of big, old trees.
But that isn't nothing.
Well, dear Diary, that's my baseline for Northgate:
Northgate Park - running water fountain
Northgate Mall - triple water fountain, the parts for humans and dogs running, the part for bottles not running; gendered single user stalls open
Northgate Station - ungendered single user stalls apparently open, and you may rest assured I'll be checking further on that
Let me rest some before explaining to you my career of error about Beaver Pond Natural Area. Happy times until then.
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