Author: kingcountyparkswriter
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Parks Grants Make a Splash at Evergreen Pool
The Evergreen Aquatic Center is home to an indoor pool that has served White Center and unincorporated King County since 1970. The pool is owned by Highline Public Schools and managed by community-based nonprofit Whitewater Aquatics Management. When this well-loved facility began showing its age and needed major repairs, these partners turned to King County…
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Three Great Playgrounds for Families
King County Parks offer great outdoor recreational opportunities for adults, but many parks also feature fun-filled playgrounds and outdoor opportunities for families with younger children. At these parks, you’ll find standout climbing structures, versatile play equipment, and even opportunities to build biking skills for your littlest ones. Dick Thurnau Memorial Park Come safely learn and…
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Enhancing Bird Habitat at Marymoor Park
Fifty volunteers from across King County came together in February, at the BirdLoop overlook at Marymoor Park, to dig in the dirt in support of bird habitat. King County employees walk towards the BirdLoop outlook at Marymoor Park. For this internal event, volunteers came from across the county and included employees from the King County…
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New Artworks at Skyway Park
King County Parks has partnered with the One Roof Foundation and Seattle Kraken to commission public artwork from Seattle-based artist T.R. Miles at Skyway Park. Miles is known for “Sunshine,” the mural of park scenes at Rainier Avenue and 54th Street in South Seattle. T.R. Miles’s mural Sunshine, located at Rainier Avenue and 54th Street in…
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Three King County Parks Off the Beaten Path
Travel beyond Seattle city limits to the furthest reaches of King County, and you’ll be rewarded with a rich diversity of rural parks. These open spaces and natural areas are great places to birdwatch, mountain bike, and observe a variety of unique ecosystems like bogs and wetlands. Moss Lake Natural Area At Moss Lake Natural…
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Groundbreaking along Foothills Trail
On January 18, King County Parks hosted a groundbreaking ceremony to mark the beginning of construction for the next phase of the Foothills Trail, the bridge over the White River that will connect the trail in Enumclaw with the trail in the City of Buckley. When completed, the steel bridge will create a 22-mile-long, paved,…
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MLK Day Events and Volunteer Opportunities
The mental health benefits of volunteering and coming together in community are known to prevent feelings of isolation, build connection, and ignite passion for common causes. On this upcoming Martin Luther King Day, consider devoting a few hours to your community through service or coming together with others with shared interests. Several local volunteer and…
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Three King County Lowland Winter Walks
As the winter holidays approach and people reunite to gather together, check out King County Parks for some approachable lowland walks in our many woodland and natural areas. With picturesque views, and everything from gently graded, paved footpaths to unpaved, wooded trails, these lowland excursions make for a great nature break during the frenzy of holiday…
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Soil restoration at Preston Mill Park
World Soil Day takes place on December 5 each year and serves as an opportunity to focus attention on the critical importance of healthy soil and sustainable management of soil resources. Soil is a critical piece of our natural systems and contributes to producing sufficient, safe, and more nourishing food for healthier plants, animals, and people.…
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Three King County Trails With Amazing Views
With wildfire and smoke season in the rearview mirror, it’s time to get out on the trails for some clean air and fresh perspective. Here are some of our favorite vantage points from a few of King County’s parks and trails. Pinnacle Peak Pinnacle Peak is a 335-acre volcanic cone located one mile southeast of…
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Lake to Sound Trail construction updates
Since ground was last broken on the SeaTac segment of the Lake to Sound Trail in April, construction has neared more than 40% of completion. As a multi-municipality and agency collaboration between King County Parks, WSDOT, the Port of Seattle, and the five cities of Des Moines, SeaTac, Burien, Tukwila, and Renton, the Lake to…
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Join King County Parks at the Burke Museum’s International Archaeology Day
King County employs archaeologists, historians, and preservation planners to ensure that work on County land doesn’t violate federal, state, or local laws and regulations related to archaeology, the historical built environment, and traditional cultural places. Archaeologist Brandy Rinck, who works in the Cultural Resources Program at Parks, reviews projects and helps carry out any needed…
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Construction update: Taylor Mountain Trails
Pardon our dust, we’re building 2 new bridges! If you’ve been to Taylor recently, you might’ve noticed some things happening in the parking lot and along Road A and some other trails. That’s because construction is underway to install two new bridges that will replace old, undersized culverts on the gravel road system. Once this…
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How much do our kids play? Not as much as you think. And here’s what we’re doing about it.
On Tuesday, September 10, we were excited to release the analysis and recommendations from a two-year effort conducted by the University of Washington’s Center for Leadership in Athletics and The Aspen Institute, in coordination with King County Parks and many other partners. The study, called the State of Play: Seattle-King County, found that less than…
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Dockton Park: Dock Closure
Attention boaters! We’re sad to say that as of March 2019, the marina at Dockton Park on Maury Island is (mostly) closed until further notice. In order to protect public safety, King County Parks closed the floating piers, including the breakwater and finger piers, for all use. A small area of the main dock structure…
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Happy Birthday America!
And to the rest of you, be safe this Fourth of July holiday!
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Peace N the Hood Job Fair a big success!
Our very own “Log Cabin” at Steve Cox Memorial Park was home to the the first Peace N the Hood Job Fair and 4th annual 3:3 basketball tournament this past Wednesday, June 28. Now in its fourth year, the 3:3 basketball tournament involved some 200 kids ages 12-19, but the job fair was really the…
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Where does one go to get yelled at by frogs? Why, Frog Holler Forest, of course!
Frog Holler Forest is our newest park, a 60-acre forest on the southern part of Vashon Island. Frog Holler is actually the name of the neighborhood where the park is located, named as such for the chorus of tree frogs in the area. Acquired in December 2016 with the help of the Vashon Maury Island…
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GiveBIG to the KC Parks Foundation!
GiveBIG is May 10th and you can support the King County Parks Foundation by donating here! And you don’t even need to wait until the BIG day – schedule your donation today, so you can be outside on May 10th instead – enjoying our 200 parks, 175 miles of trails and 28,000 acres of open…
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2017 Green Globe awards: Honoring Our Partners
This morning, King County hosted the Green Globes, an awards ceremony honoring local businesses, cities, community groups and individuals for the work they’re doing to protect and improve our environment. We were delighted that several Parks partners were recognized for their dedication to our parks and open space. Recognized as Leader in Community Stewardship, the…
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Steady, as she goes…
As detailed in this new report, we here at King County Parks are feeling like The Raconteurs: “Steady, as she goes…” We’re halfway through the 2014-2019 King County Parks, Trails, and Open Space Replacement Levy and happy to say we’re on track to meet our commitment to making “Your Big Backyard” that much more awesome.…
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Citizen Oversight Board gives Parks ‘two thumbs up’ on Levy expenditures
In 2013, when King County voters overwhelmingly approved the 2014-2019 King County Parks, Trails, and Open Space Replacement Levy, they also established a Levy Citizen Oversight Board to monitor how we would be expending levy proceeds. The board, which was appointed by the King County Executive and consists of one representative from each council district,…
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White Center Teen Program: 25 years of burnt toast, ballin’ and being awesome.
This year, King County Parks’ White Center Teen Program (WCTP), which takes place at the “Log Cabin” (a.k.a. White Center Community Center) at Steve Cox Memorial Park, has been commemorating its silver anniversary (that’s 25 years, for you non-Hallmark card-types!) with lots of reminiscing and festivities and a serious tallying up of some impressive accomplishments.…
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Taking care of our forests: Black Diamond, Ravensdale Retreat and Henry’s Ridge
King County Parks estimates that about 25,000 of our 28,000 acres of open space are covered by forests. In some places, our forests are vast canopies of big ol’ evergreens, loads of ferns, and happy critters all around. Many times, however, our forests have had a checkered past. They became “ours” because the land had…
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More trail, less traffic – we want to hear from you!
We know you love our parks and trails – so much so that on any given day with half decent weather, our trailheads are bursting at the seams with traffic. And while we’re ecstatic that you love to visit our parks, we want to make sure that that congestion isn’t causing safety issues for park…
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Harvey Manning Trailhead Dedication, June 29
Please join King County Deputy Executive Fred Jarrett and longtime Cougar Mountain advocates and enthusiasts on Weds, June 29 at 11 a.m. as we celebrate Harvey Manning and his infinite contributions to Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park. We will be unveiling the newly renamed trailhead to honor Manning’s legacy of protecting Cougar Mountain. Among the…
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Petrovitsky Park play area is re-open!
Your little ones can climb, spin, sway and wobble their way around Petrovitsky Park once again. Closed for safety repairs, the play area now features a thick layer of wood chips and meets national safety standards for play area flooring material. The wood chips are an interim measure until the play area is renovated in…
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Happy horses heart our Taylor trails
Together with the Tahoma Chapter of the Backcountry Horsemen of Washington and Washington Trails Association, we sliced through the shiny blue ribbon and celebrated our brand spankin’ new trailhead at Taylor Mountain Forest. And it was already being put to good use by the 30 some horses and their humans and trucks and trailers! Funded…
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1 down, 999,999 to go!
Today, King County Executive Dow Constantine launched the 1 Million Trees campaign, an ambitious project to plant one million trees across King County by 2020 to combat climate change, promote healthy forests, and make our communities healthier and more resilient for all residents, be they people, fish, birds, or orcas! In addition to kids from…
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It’s OURS, all OURS!
In 2013, some 226 acres of lovely lush forest wedged between Cougar and Squak Mountains near Issaquah was threatened with clear-cutting. Thanks to the quick action of some conservationists and concerned hikers, King County and The Trust for Public Land made an agreement to protect the forest, where The Trust for Public Land would immediately…