High Desert Dirt: Discovery Park

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Discovery Park - Seattle, WA

Park Overlook and Puget Sound

Wandered through Discovery Park, Seattle's largest park on Christmas Day with Christina, sister-in-law Theresa, and her boyfriend Tiago. The park was a well trafficked area to be sure, but I enjoyed the forest canopy above, the moss and lichen that had taken root on every surface, and especially the overlook of Puget Sound and the snow-capped ~~Cascades~~ Olympic peaks towering to the northwest.

We followed the South Beach Trail (bit of a misnomer) out to an old lighthouse. The last section that rolled along the beach was fantastic. Black sand, dark black foreboding water, weathered bits of driftwood, an old rustic lighthouse, and giant freaking mountain crags blasting up into the clouds on the other side of the Sound. That part of Discovery Park is a lot like the setting of Chronicles of Narnia. They ought to write that description into their trail maps probably.

It wants me to run on it, but my will is resolute

Christina with distant snow-caps

I maybe didn't get the full trail experience since we weren't running the thing, but it of course was very different from the solitude and reflection of the Dale Ball Trails, or La Tierra, or really any trail in New Mexico since Seattle-metro holds more people than our entire state (nearly twice as many). However, I did see people running and they seemed to be having a fine time albeit dodging and side-stepping the queues of hikers and leashed animals. I liked that the trails weren't really all that muddy even though rain had been falling for several days. Rather than mud there was a soft soggy covering of loam and leafy bits and probably remnants of rotting wood from the trees that surrounded us.

Steven Segal not welcome here

I daydreamed myself running along through some of the tighter faster sections of trail, and recklessly stepping on a damp wooden step or a tangle of tree root, slipping sideways like a shot and into the thick underbrush. What's in all that thick underbrush and dense forest anyhow? I'm pretty sure it's a bunch of careless runners from drier parts of the Mountain West.