Japanese Gulch #41
This New Year I decided to join the 52Hike Challenge. Too be honest it sounded a bit overwhelming, because I literally only have Sabbaths to do any hiking, since I have to work every Sunday. But I thought what a good way to make sure we are outside and hiking. Plus it would be great for my blog!
The first hike L and I did was around the Arlington Airport Trail. It is pretty much flat the entire 6 miles. But I don't feel like writing about that one, so I am writing this post about Japanese Gulch.
Japanese Gulch was once a housing area for the local Japanese emigrant workers that worked for the Crown Lumber Company in the 1900's, but today it has a dog park, hiking and mountain biking trails. This is thanks to a group called Japanese Gulch that decided they wanted to preserve the area instead of having it developed in 2014.
After church and potluck I decided that I had to go hiking, it wasn't raining, wasn't too cold, and who cares if there was going to be mud. The kids and I came home, changed, loaded the dog and the bikes for the boys, and were on our way.
The trail head that we started from is located right next to the dog park on 5th Street, which you can't miss, making it easy to find.
Once we parked we decided to check out the dog park, where there is a shy dog park located to the left of the regular park. It doesn't have the toys that the other dog park has; but it was still nice.
Apparently once you come to the intersection of the trail at the bottom of this little hill, you can go left to the beach or right to the trails. We headed right.
And some water running down the trail. Miss A at this point was starting to get upset because she immediately had muddy wet feet, and the boys weren't liking the trail either. But we kept on going.
Here they had to stop to tell me they wanted to turn around. At this point Miss A was no longer complaining about her wet feet.
The trail that we were originally going to take was to cross this bridge and head up the hill. (3.4 miles roundtrip.) We were told by a nice man that we met on the trail, that it was really muddy with lots of switchbacks, and probably not the best idea to take the bikes up. We decided we weren't going to do that trail, but stick to the one that took us to the backside of Boeing. (Which if I did the map online correctly we did about 4 miles roundtrip.)
Why do people think that they have to graffiti everything? Other then that it was a pretty hike.
I love waterfalls, even if they are man made.
"Hey mom I think I can jump this."
Me: " Please don't, you could pop your tires on the metal."
"True....maybe I won't then."
Watching brother to see if he is going to do a trick or not.
is the back side to a mountain biking trail. The boys were totally excited about it, and Mister L had to ride up and take a look. H had some troubles getting his bike up, then little Miss A decided that she had to go up. Which made things even more complicated for H. She could only get down by sliding on her bottom, H stood his bike up and rode down, L came flying down at top speed all smiles. The boys wanted to go up and down a few more times, but we had to turn around and head back to get to a party on time later on. The boys took off on their bikes and left us in the dust on the way back to the car.
The first hike L and I did was around the Arlington Airport Trail. It is pretty much flat the entire 6 miles. But I don't feel like writing about that one, so I am writing this post about Japanese Gulch.
Japanese Gulch was once a housing area for the local Japanese emigrant workers that worked for the Crown Lumber Company in the 1900's, but today it has a dog park, hiking and mountain biking trails. This is thanks to a group called Japanese Gulch that decided they wanted to preserve the area instead of having it developed in 2014.
After church and potluck I decided that I had to go hiking, it wasn't raining, wasn't too cold, and who cares if there was going to be mud. The kids and I came home, changed, loaded the dog and the bikes for the boys, and were on our way.
The trail head that we started from is located right next to the dog park on 5th Street, which you can't miss, making it easy to find.
Once we parked we decided to check out the dog park, where there is a shy dog park located to the left of the regular park. It doesn't have the toys that the other dog park has; but it was still nice.
This picture shows the beginning of the trail head.
The trail became very muddy, very quickly with some giant puddles.
Me: " Please don't, you could pop your tires on the metal."
"True....maybe I won't then."
A little further up I found a bike dumped down in the water. I told the boys and they had to climb down as close as possible to see it. They ended up finding a second bike and tried convincing me that we needed to get them out and bring them home. I said no. I thought it was a good possibility that the bikes had been stolen and dumped.
The boys were much more interested in the trail after finding the bikes, but were insistent that we head back to the car. I said no that we were going to continue going and see where we ended up. Which if I hadn't the boys wouldn't have found out that this hill
A girl and her dog....nothing is better.
I hope you all have an amazing week and weekend to get out and hike! Until next time.
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