A Hike in Maple Leaf

Dear Diary,

My next hike included three Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation parks, and three other sites which I hope you'll find interesting.  This hike was on various parts of Maple Leaf Hill, the biggest and tallest straightforward hill in North Seattle.  A map:

As you can see, dear Diary, Open Street Map shows plenty of woods in this area too that I wanted to explore that day, but I was running out of time, and it'll have to wait.

Sacajawea Playground

This is the only "Playground" in North Seattle that lacks actual playground equipment, which is at the school next door.  It's basically a lawn with one big tree in the low middle, with woods on the uplands to east and west.  I've shown you pictures before, dear Diary, and there were other people there, so I settled for a couple of transverse landscapes to demonstrate that no water fountain has arrived here:

Alley at 9012 12th Ave NE

This is an 896 square foot property that I couldn't quite identify, because there are two candidates.  See, there actually is an alley on the block in question, a neat and tidy place that I'm not good enough at estimating distances to assess against the stated size.  A photo:

However, there's also a weird little messy space between the hedges of two houses along 90th, and that space is more consistent with the address given, for whatever that's worth.  Just as I think the real alley might be too big, I think this space might be too small, but it also might not be.  A picture:

Anyway, at least one of these is city property, perhaps both.

Waldo Woods

I introduced this newer park to you relatively late, dear Diary, in "The Kingdom of the Winds" last November.  It's a conservation easement, in other words, a deal with a private land-owner to protect a large stand of Douglas firs.  The owner, Aegis Living, built a fence, but made a bay in it which allows public access to both one double-trunk fir (now busily spreading saplings) and an Aegis Living sign:

Maple Leaf Reservoir Park

This is the major park of Maple Leaf Hill, and so it has restrooms and a water fountain.  I had by that point needed restrooms, though only for Number One, for several hours, so it was deeply disappointing to arrive only to find this:

However, a woman approached me after I'd taken two shots of each door - the first without the newspaper - and mentioned that a parks employee had just locked them.  She and I talked for some time about you, dear Diary, about her complaints to the city that the restrooms closed too early, about the restrooms' history with fire, about my observations of this park's defenses against the homeless, and so forth.  After all that I really didn't have time to wander around the park, so I confined my attention to the water fountain, a double one that hasn't run since I first visited the park:

And then wandered around the park anyway, because it turned out my last two sites were in it:

Maple Leaf Reservoir

The park is the biggest of three parks in north Seattle built on reservoir land, the other two being Bitter Lake Reservoir Open Space, and Froula Playground, neither of which have plumbing of their own, so I haven't visited them as often.  But I knew from previous visits to Maple Leaf that most of the Seattle Public Utilities buildings that remain are dreary-looking and closed to the public:

However, this time I was specifically looking for the reservoir, and found this, which is actually in the background of a picture I've shown you before, dear Diary:

Northeast Radio Towers

I actually left the park looking for this, but it turned out to be adjacent to the water tower.  Duh.

Maple Leaf Reservoir Park Again

I went back yesterday, Saturday, morning, assuming I'd find the restrooms open and be able to ignore the photos from Wednesday of them shut.

It didn't quite work out that way.

A photo of the front page:

The restrooms:

These photos were taken at 10:16 A.M., and the park was crowded.

I'm used to the idea that during this epidemic, homeless people should just fast all Sunday because the already unreliable park restrooms become deeply unreliable, but now Saturdays too?  I'd visited three publicly managed and six privately managed park restrooms in this region.  The private ones, all at Jackson Park, had all been open; the public ones, at Little Brook and Maple Leaf Reservoir Parks, had all been closed, on two occasions each.  Is our city government really this incompetent after all?

That said, I didn't make any decisions on the spot, and one of my errands in this park was to photograph some of its neat stuff.  A garden there is named after a child who died, and he seems to have been a butterfly fan, so there are butterflies all around the playground.  Some examples:

I particularly like the use of butterflies to lighten up one of those dour SPU buildings:

Well, dear Diary, I may have time for one more page of park appreciation tonight, but although I have now made some decisions, I probably don't have time to tell you about the change of direction after that.

The Kingdom of the Winds

Dear Diary,

I hope you had a good holiday.  I did, in a way - I listened to music I'm fond of, and was able to do so sitting down, because the day before, I got renewed access to University Wi-Fi.  So you might ask, why is this the first you're hearing when I've had connection at my fingertips for two days?  Well, I spent the first charging stuff, and the second was the holiday.  But now, with all the shelters out of the way, I can carry on with the story of my early-October long hike for you, dear Diary, specifically continuing on October 11 from where I left it in "Lake City Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us".

You may remember way back to "To a Land of Water and Honey" that I went from Lake City to Northgate via Pinehurst Playground, which is covered in the latter page.  It took me a while to get over my conviction that leaving Pinehurst should be easy and actually consult a map, which of course showed it would be easy if I just knew which turns to make.  At any rate, although the hike to Northgate wasn't prolonged that much by this, the sun was setting by the time it ended.

I had meant to take the astonishing wealth I'd gotten, and told you about in "To a Land of Water and Honey", and splurge at Target.  I was also looking forward to Target because I badly needed to do Number One.  So of course the elevators weren't working, and a disturbing individual was standing near them, so I didn't even consider leaving my cart to take the stairs.  Also, after I'd instead done Number One into some bushes in Hubbard Homestead, I found that I'd done a terrible job of scouting for places to sleep.

Now, I had to climb Maple Leaf Hill again, to photograph the shelter the last page discussed, to check on the same park's water fountain, and to visit a new park (not one of the "last seven" I'd visited in June).  I just hadn't figured out how to fit it into the hike.  So why not make lemonade out of this situation, and climb the hill just then?  I bought a flashlight first, just in case.

Maple Leaf Reservoir Park

Introduced May 29 in "South to and from Northgate".

The climb up Roosevelt was uneventful, and I checked places along the way to sleep if the shelter didn't pan out.  Of course I didn't actually need the flashlight.  The shelter was easy to find, but was, as you know, dear Diary, from the previous page, totally unsuitable for sleeping.  Nevertheless it was useful, for two reasons I forgot to mention.

First, it had rained that day, from about the time I left Little Brook Park for at least half an hour.  Not a very big deal, but I had to dry my stuff.

Second, given its location on the southwest slope of a tall hill, this park gets amazing winds.  So its shelter, while therefore even worse for sleeping in, was a great place to dry that stuff, as long as I could keep it all from blowing away.

So I set up the drying, and then opened the foil packet the generous woman near Jackson Park had given me.  It was indeed steak, and I happily started to eat.

While I did so, a young man, probably not over 30, approached.  He looked and sounded East African.  He told me, again and again, "You have to leave."  He said I could finish eating first.  Then when I had finished and had started packing up my stuff, he asked me if I had any money.  "I sure do!", I replied.  He asked for some.  I figured the last thing I should do that day was be greedy, so I reached into my pocket.

It turned out the $500 I'd been given had sunk to the bottom of that pocket, churning everything else as it went.  It took me forever to find a bill, and of course when I did it was a $20.  Well, I didn't want to be greedy, so I handed it to him.  He asked if I had any more; I evaded by pointing out how long it had taken me to find that one.  He then claimed that $20 bills were weird, and he wanted something more conventional like a $1 or a $5.  I refused to dig into my pocket again, he, I am not making this up, handed me back the $20, and I left.

I didn't sleep much that night, but what little sleep I did get was in a dry patch in a doorway a few blocks away.  (It didn't help that the local 7-Eleven wasn't open when I went.)  An old and fancy building seemed about to come down across the street, but in the morning it turned out to be well along to demolition, and swarming with workers, so I took no photos.

When I returned to the park in the morning, it was to find the baby shelter, to photograph both, to check the water fountain attached to the restroom building (not running, as mentioned a few posts back), and, once again, to do Number One.  But of course my harasser returned and told me yet again, "You have to leave."  By 7:35 I gave up on waiting for the restroom to open, and obeyed him.

My main impression of the upper part of this park is that it's acres and acres of wind.  I took a couple of photos no doubt failing to evoke that.

I also took a photo to show that even though I hadn't actually entered it, the men's room really does have a dryer and a door.

So the question left is, who's the harasser?  He was neither dressed nor equipped as any remotely competent homeless man would have been even then.  He could be a local madman who's appointed himself protector of the park from all riffraff other than, um, himself.  He could be a local resident with the same self-appointed mission, and returned the money either to make me think him crazy, to avoid a conflict of interest, or both.  Or he could be in the employ of a local organisation who evidently haven't thought much about what homeless people want out of parks.  Beats me.

Waldo Woods

Anyway, I left the park and headed north on 15th Ave to 85th St and the address of the new park...

say what?

After some research on my phone (boy, am I grateful for that battery!), I discovered that what the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation actually obtained was a conservation easement, not an actual park.  Waldo Woods consists of several dozen Douglas firs.  Most are within the bounds of the new occupant, but can be seen just fine up there in the sky:

and they left a bay in the wall allowing access to a few complete trees.

Sacajawea Playground

Introduced May 29 in the same page as Maple Leaf Reservoir Park.

While on Maple Leaf Hill it seemed crazy not to check out the hill's remaining park and at least take one picture, so I continued along 15th Ave and did so:

In the process I noticed for the first time that the park is not just a greensward centred on a single tree.  Instead it has woods on each side, visible in this photo.  These woods turned out to be walkable, and so at last I was able to do Number One.

Sorry, dear Diary, for a page so focused on my bodily functions.  Tomorrow, seven of the many parks near Northgate.

South to and from Northgate

Dear Diary,

Last night I mentioned that I filled two bottles from Northacres Park's winter-hardened water fountains on May 27.  I knew this to be a good idea, you see, because I hadn't filled even one bottle at them on May 15, and, wow, did I suffer for that.  There's one more pair of restrooms ahead, open, but not one running water fountain out of only four candidates.

From Northacres Playfield I went, both days, back to 1st Ave, and took it south to 117th St, which passes over I-5 to become another instance of 1st Ave.  My map claims there are several ways to leave this 1st Ave between I-5 and Northgate Way, but I think the only one that's actually open is 116th St, and it was blocked by construction on May 15.  So that day I had to trudge along the edge of a very tedious housing development, getting thirstier all the time, blaming the builders for blocking the exits at 115th and 112th ...  Anyway, I strongly recommend anyone taking this path on foot escape via 116th if at all possible.  In a car, you're stuck with 1st, because there's a stairway in 3rd.  Ultimately you get to

Hubbard Homestead

Visited May 15 and 27; no plumbing

Of course with a name like that I envisioned a historical site, and I was astonished when I got there and realised I was familiar with this history-ignoring park, as you are too if you've caught the Route 41 southward from north of Northgate.  It's basically Northgate North's back yard.  The 3rd Ave end has a skatepark, the 5th Ave one benches and a basketball hoop or two.  In between, a waving field of tallgrass for which a playground is planned, and I can only hope a water fountain too.

Northgate Park

Visited May 15 and 27; one water fountain, not running both times

This is much like Albert Davis Park, sandwiched between a library and a community center, but much bigger, and without (at least both times I visited) campers.  Much of the added space is grassy.

Beaver Pond Natural Area

Visited May 15 and briefly May 27; no plumbing

This is the sacrificial goat of the Thornton Creek system.  It's right across 5th Ave from the mall, and it was never going to be a quiet place to watch undisturbed wild things.  So they built a nice, easy trail, which has four entrances.  The one on 105th St west of 8th Ave doesn't have stairs, but all the others - 104th west of 8th, 104th east of 5th, and 103rd east of 5th - do have stairs.  This trail keeps you at a little distance from the creek, so unsurprisingly I found at least two short probably-unofficial trails that go right up to the banks; one starts behind the bus shelter on 5th near 103rd.  There are reputedly actual beavers.

The Natural Area extends northeast of the trail system, but I've found no entrances or maps, and strongly doubt any plumbing is hidden there.

Victory Creek Park

Visited May 15 for something like an hour, and much more briefly May 27; probably no plumbing

This park confuses me.  It has a sign anmouncing some amenities that have pretty well established meanings in Seattle's park system:

The children's play area should mean at least a little playground equipment, and the picnic area should have at least one picnic table.  But the only thing I found even remotely resembling either of these is, um, this:

What I did find is a small park consisting mostly of yet another creek, with woods around it laced with trails.  Now, I can't imagine that the parks department is lying here, so what can explain this?  I think it's obvious:  The amenities are underground, and I just never found their entrance.  If you wish to explore this possibility, all entrances to the park that I found are from a parking lot at the QFC on Northgate Way.

Another possibility:  That's a fake sign.  Once I saw such a one naming the micro-park at Olive and Denny "Four Car Park".  This one gets the name right but the amenities wrong.  Note the atypical typefaces used.

Anyway, the reason I cared is that in Seattle's parks water fountains are strongly attracted to playgrounds.  So if you ever do find the play area, let me know whether it has one, would you?

Speaking of which, 

Victory Heights Playground

Visited May 15 and 27; one water fountain, not running either time

This is one of two parks in a sort of pocket neighbourhood south of Northgate Way; this one is down 19th Ave from there.  It's next to Victory Heights Cooperative School, and the water fountain is attached to the school building.  The playground equipment has several translucent panels high up, that on sunny days cast beautiful coloured shadows.

Kingfisher Natural Area

Visited, from different angles, May 15 and 27; probably no plumbing

At the address Google gives this one, where 17th Ave turns into 104th St, there's a very obvious trail that runs quite straight down to the creek.  Initially I settled for that, but I started to wonder, and on the 27th decided to use my head start to explore more thoroughly.  I started on 15th Ave, and found at 104th St signs naming the place (absent at the alleged main address) and announcing a trail.  This turned vertical almost immediately, and, fed up with shying away from such trails, I parked the cart and went in.  Some time later - probably a quarter or even half an hour - I found an unofficial exit where another 17th Ave dead ends north of 100th St.  My trail was easy to discern, but it met many other trails, I know of no map, and I think anything from a water fountain to the original Crystal Palace could be hidden here, but probably isn't.  The trail I spent that time on is relatively hard, I was very glad I'd brought my umbrella, and frankly amazed I escaped not covered in mud.  So I promptly gave up on any more thorough exploration.

On the 15th, though confounded by map errors, I managed to exit the neighbourhood of Victory Heights to Lake City Way, took it to 98th St, and then went south on 20th Ave.  This may be the steepest street I've ever climbed, and I can't recommend doing it while pushing a cart and dying of thirst.  Maple Leaf is actually one of Seattle's tallest hills, and our next park faces south from near the peak.

Sacajawea Playground

Visited May 15; no plumbing

This is another park that stretches the meaning of Seattle parks' terminology.  Sacajawea Elementary School, behind the park, has some playground equipment, but the park has none.  It's mostly a grassy indentation in the hillside, surrounded by trees, with one giant tree in the middle.  I saw some teenagers there, but no kids.

Downhill, at 82nd St, we get to the only one of these parks with a restroom.  I took 15th Ave to it on May 15, but on May 27, skipping Sacajawea, went back to Roosevelt before starting south, which was a much more bearable slope.

Maple Leaf Reservoir Park

Visited May 15 and 27; one pair of restrooms, open both times, and one water fountain (I think), not running both times

This isn't actually a very big park, but it seems limitless.  There's a bunch of sport space toward the 14th Ave side, while the Roosevelt side has the playground and restrooms, with the water fountain well hidden north of the latter.  I used the men's room on the 15th and it worked fine.

I also finally got desperate enough that day to try something I imagine your readers, dear Diary, have probably wondered at my not doing long since:  drinking from the sink.  See, I grew up with a fiberglass hot water heater, which taught me to worry about pipes; I figure if the parks people give us both sinks and water fountains, they must have a reason for doing so.

On the 27th, coming south on Roosevelt, I discovered the park's upstairs, which has yet more sport space plus lots of grass space for future sports or present comtemplation.  I found, however, no plumbing upstairs.  The upstairs does have, on clear days, great views of the city and the mountains; I saw both Mount Rainier and the Cascades.

Both days, I continued down Roosevelt to 75th St (on the 15th buying a can of soda from the Peruvian restaurant on the way).  On the 26th I'd taken a bus to Lake City, my first time taking the cart on one, so on the 27th, after visiting the Safeway there (and using its men's room), I caught a bus back to campus.  On the 15th, however, I was there for a little park hidden on Banner Place south of 75th.

Rainbow Point

Visited May 15; no plumbing

This is a small park nestled between major roads; it basically exists for its views, with plants strategically placed to edit the roads out of those views.  Not a bad place to sit a while.

From there I trudged down Roosevelt to 65th St to cross I-5 for the tour's last park.

NE 60th Street Park

Visited May 15; no plumbing

Since I-5 curves, it repeatedly creates awkward bits of land where it meets grid-pattern streets, and one of those is a small triangular park.  At its north end it's wide enough to look like woods; at its south end it's just a line of trees.  I saw hints at the north end that someone might have lived there.

Then I hiked south to 50th St to re-cross I-5 and head for campus.

So ends my story of May 14 and 15, but there's one more chapter to the May 26 and 27 tale, which I hope to tell tomorrow.  Until then, dear Diary.