Category: 28,000 Acres of Open Space
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Tree Planting with Two Rivers School
We are fortunate to have such an amazing array of partners who help us maintain our world-class parks, trails and open spaces. One such partner is the Two Rivers School from North Bend – they’ve been helping us plant native vegetation and remove invasive plants on our properties (in the area) for over ten years!…
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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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Check out the new interactive map that highlights 24 restoration projects around King County
Did you know that King County Parks acquires lands for both recreational and environmental conservation purposes? In 2015, King County Parks worked on a total of 24 restoration sites throughout the park system and planted over 25,000 native trees. The properties we acquire come in a variety of conditions. The majority of the sites are…
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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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Trail maintenance brought to you by REI
REI joined us for some trail maintenance at Green River Natural/O’ Grady. This site gets a lot of equestrian use, so they kept the trail wide, trimmed low hanging branches and worked on drainage. Large group of people, so they managed to get quite a bit done. Thank you much REI, your help is always appreciated.
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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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2016 Cougar Mountain Trail Run – Open For Registration
Get the deets here. Get outside. Get healthy. Get some.
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Who’s Down For Some Shinrin-yoku? Forest Bathing, Yo
It’s big in Japan. Wikipedia: In Japan, a forest bathing trip, called Shinrin-yoku (森林浴) in Japanese and Mandarin, Sanlimyok (산림욕) in Korean, is a short, leisurely visit to a forest. We really don’t care if you label it, just get outside. Oh, and you didn’t hear it here, but while you’re out there you’ll probably score some phytoncides. Shhhh Wikipedia: A forest bathing trip…
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PSA: Public Squirrel Announcement
Today. Today is National Squirrel Day. A day to appreciate all that squirrels do for us. A day of celebration. It is also a day to reflect on what lays ahead for squirrels. Apparently for an increasing amount, OBESITY! Yes. It is true, or at least the internet says so. More and more squirrels are…
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Pints for Parks 2016
You like beverages that taste of hops? What about parks – you like parks? The folks over at The Noble Fir are big fans. Not fair-weather fans, mind you. These people love their outdoors as much as being purveyors of hoppy beverages and delicious eats. Their love of these things has led them, on more…
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An Icy Morning On Vashon
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NO ONE “Parks” Like A ParksMonkey: 24 Hours In Your King County Parks (Photo DUMP)
You’re welcome, those of you whom do not even grasp the glory and enormity of your King County Parks. ParksMonkey has pulled back the ferns to give you a glimpse at 24 hours in this glorious system. Saturday morning: Why are there so many people running on your Snoqualmie Valley Trail? Zombies. No. Wait. Blerches. Makes…
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Timber! The First 24
For more pics checkout Flickr
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Random Photo Post: Tanner Landing
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Park Alert: Chinook Bend
Access limited during restoration work at King County’s Chinook Bend Natural Area While visitors will still be welcomed to King County’s Chinook Bend Natural Area, a habitat improvement project in a portion of the 59-acre natural area will require some access restrictions. Read more…
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Field Notes: Skill, Craftsmanship, Grit, Sweat…Oh Whatever! Hand Me The GoPro And A Saw
In case we didn’t mention this before, we have a lot of acreage to take care of – like 28,000-plus acres. Every day of the week, y’know those seven, our crews are out there — supporting facilities, fields, trails, off-leash areas and one-another. This-here video is a little slice of daily life for our Small…
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“Give me solitude, give me Nature, give me again O Nature your primal sanities!” – Walt Whitman
We like to believe that keeping our parks clean, safe and open is doing a service to our community. We get up every morning and go to work for an agency we truly believe in. Admittedly though, you can put your head down and just get caught up in the day to day. It’s mail like…
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Random photo post: Grand Ridge boardwalk
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Give Big Hugs With your Wallet During GiveBig.
The King County Parks Foundation is devoted to cultivating private-sector philanthropy to connect communities to regional trails, open space and parks and to support the resiliency of the parks system for future generations. As our region continues to grow, protecting our natural habitat, creating fun, new places for kids to play and connecting communities through…
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The kids are alright
A couple classes from Carnation Elementary walked down to join the Snoqualmie Tribe, who just happened to be hosting a planting event today along the Tolt river. We were privileged to provide support, and weren’t alone. Turns out Mountains to Sound Greenway and King County’s Stewardship Partners are also big on that whole restoration/education thing.…
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Parkschooling homeschoolers
The Homeschool Stewardship Squad (not to be confused with 1999’s Mod Squad with Giovanni Ribisi killing it) has been paying regular visits to King County’s natural areas and schoolin’ kids on stewardship. Yeah, kids getting dirty (not to be confused with dirty south) and giving back to their, yours, our public lands. I’d call it…
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What we got here is yer Mexican Mosquito Fern
The current scene out at Grand Ridge. Azolla mexicana is an aquatic fern native to Mexico, British Columbia and the western United States (California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Nevada).
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‘Merica – Americorps lends KC Parks a hand
Americorps brought their hard work ethic and national pride to the slopes of the Issaquah Highlands. They went all Michael Bay on the Scot’s Broom (don’t bother correcting my grammar – look it up). Anywayyyyy, big shout out to the crew and our new volunteer coordinator for getting rid of pure invasive evil.
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O Grady Natural Area + WTA =’s more trail
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Chinook Bend – Restoration’s golden child. A birder’s rave.
According to our website: “The Chinook Bend Natural Area is located two miles north of the City of Carnation, on NE Carnation Farm Road. This 59-acre property lies within the Snoqualmie River’s 100-year floodplain and is surrounded by river on three sides. The site contains rich habitat for many fish and wildlife species in its…
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26,000+ acres & flooding is just another day
We know no one wants to be out in our parks when the weather is ugly, but we still have to keep them “clean, safe and open(ish)” during this season. A half-foot of rain or more fell in the foothills of eastern King County Jan. 5th, and that meant major flooding on the Snoqualmie and…
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“2015? You mean we’re in the future?”
HELLO? Hello? McFly grab the hoverboard and head over to the Cafe 80’s. We’re doing a presentation on the 1988 adoption of the King County Parks Open Space Plan. After that we’ll hit up JAWS 7. Now make like a tree and get out of here.
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Random photo post: Everyone appreciates some open space
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Otter release at Maury Island Marine Park
PAWS forwarded us some photos of a recent release at our Maury Island Marine Park. Try not to squee yourself.
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Random photo post: Maury Island Marine Park