- SDOT
Look at the sky! Save for your exotic wintertime hallucinations, er, vacations, your brain will soon forget the very existence of all of this color. Everything will be draped in greige (the color of gray, the ethos of beige; not this). So spoil your eyeballs while you can. Go for a bike ride! Right now, after work, this weekend… but soon! (I suppose you could also go for a walk/run, but biking is best [see How to Be a Biker]).
I suggest the Chief Sealth Trail. I just discovered it yesterday, and I’m heartbroken I didn’t spend more summer days there—it feels like a secret world tucked in the middle of the city. Starting in Beacon Hill, it transports you to Kubota Garden via Ireland. Or New Zealand. Or some other place with rolling green hills I’ve never been. Find the entrance like this: Head toward the north end of Beacon Hill (take 12th Avenue across the Jose Rizal Bridge—inhale that view), veer left around the Pacific Medical Center/Amazon (check out the weird new green lane—is it Astroturf?), take 15th Avenue South to Beacon Avenue, pass the Jefferson Park Golf Course (laugh at the street called Cheasty), and find the entrance just past South Columbian Way. (If you’re confused, this bike map comes in handy. SDOT will even mail you one for free. So you can put it on your wall and gaze at it all winter long, planning your sunny-day adventures.)
- SDOT
The trail (paved, smooth) runs along Seattle City Light’s utilities corridor, which provides for sharp intersecting (power) lines of sight as you ride up and down the hills (roller-coaster-style, so gravity does the work for your lazy legs) and catch glimpses of Lake Washington through the turning trees. Also: Peep Rainier Valley’s monster-size P-Patches! (With sunflowers!) Also: Trip on the fact that you are riding atop the excavated soil and concrete from the light-rail construction along Martin Luther King Jr. Way.
And if you were to risk life and limb by listening to music while you ride (the horror! The danger!), Throw Me the Statue are the ideal accompaniment.
You can also get to the gardens from the light rail station, it’s just 10-15 minutes to walk there.
word, thanks
I use parentheses. (They make things harder to read.)
Another option for the enthusiastic and able cyclist is the Snoqualmie Valley Trail. It is stunningly beautiful. I rode on it today and I pretended I was riding a country road in France in 1926 or something. Also, it takes you directly to Snoqualmie Falls.
Doing it as a loop is about 80 miles, which is a pretty big ride.
If you’re really into riding your bike, here’s how to get there from Seattle:
Take Burke Gilman north out of Seattle.
Connect with Samammish River Trail and follow that South towards Marymoor.
Right before you get to Redhook, hang a left and take the Tolt Pipeline trail east.
The Pipeline trail heads straight over the ridges, so if you’re on a road bike, you may need to walk the bike up and down the steepest grades, otherwise you’re fine.
When the Pipeline trail ends, take the little private road on your right down to the Valley floor. I’m not convinced that you’re not trespassing here, but whatever.
Turn right on West Snoqualmie Valley Road.
Turn left shortly thereafter onto 124th and cross the river.
The trail crosses the road right at the roundabout, left takes you to Duvall, right takes you to the Falls.
This bike ride is fucking awesome but you have to be pretty serious about biking to be able to pull it off while enjoying yourself. Here’s a map, too:
http://veloroutes.org/bikemaps/?route=42…
Does it connect to the Interurban?
That’s odd that it ends at 51st Ave s. There’s no reason it couldn’t go on at least through Skyway. It starts to get a little dicey around Renton – not bike friendly at all. And of course you’d want to bypass the Creston-Nelson substation.
That line goes all the way to Cedar Falls, which is along the strangely named John Wayne trail. I don’t know where it goes from there.
There are SERIOUS hills on that ride that my descent did not take me up–I did not like it one bit!
I don’t understand which trail intersects. The John Wayne trail/Iron Horse trail starts at Cedar Falls as you mention, but that starts way out along I-90. I rode the first 19 miles up to the tunnel which is now closed. It’s a gravel trail. If it were not for all of the tunnel closures, the trail goes all the way out towards Spokane.
i’m sorry, but that trail is pure suck
i was excited about its possibilities too but it really is unpleasant
ride light rail to tukwila, bomb down s 154th under i-5, switch to the north sidewalk along southcenter blvd, and hop on the green river trail/interurban trail for a nice, flat loop with not too much traffic, etc. the green river trail will be closed to cyclists very soon (until flood season is over), so do it while you can.
btw if you insist on riding the sealth, try this – take light rail to beacon hill, ride to the trailhead, then ride downhill on the trail to near the end – to the rainier beach sta. catch the train back to beacon hill, and repeat.
little to no uphill
trains
but you’ll also probably get bored after doing it only a couple times
They gave me one of the new bike trail mini-maps at the Red Square photo shoot after the UW Campus Walk-In – nice design – folds and fits in your pocket with less fuss.
@11 do you know where else we can get these?
12 – i don’t know dumbass… maybe at the UW like Sissy in Seattle posted?