Biking Seattle

Above the Ravine

One of my favorite things about riding around Seattle is the multitudes of little side spots where you can transport yourself, if only for a moment, out of the urban landscape and into a different place altogether. Sometimes these are simply tiny inspirations for daydreams, like stumbling across a set of stairs which wind up into the overgrowth and out of sight. Sometimes it’s walking into a stand of trees and suddenly leaving the cement behind. And sometimes it’s heading to a park and finding the green blotch on the map hides the area’s true nature.

A sunny spring day is the perfect time to head out and look for these moments of inspiration. After more than a year in Seattle I hadn’t set foot in Ravenna Park, despite it being only a few miles away. All I knew of the park was the green salamander it draws on the city map just above the University District, so it seemed like a perfect destination for a quick jaunt.

The park isn’t particularly large, just a few blocks wide and sweeping a slow curving diagonal through the streets, forcing the traffic to move around it. Once you come across the park, the reason for the odd shape becomes clear – the park can’t be properly represented on a street map, since its defining characteristic is depth.

The park is largely a ravine that drops impressively below street level, pulling you away from the surface of Seattle quite literally, even without the ragged woods providing a curtain along the boundary of the park. It didn’t seem like the paths dropping down to the valley floor would play nicely with my road tires, but a wide graveled path along the edge worked well enough and provided a stark enough teaser of what might be found below, as the right side of the path edged behind well-made yards, while the left side dropped off into a small wilderness.

Midway through the park, a bridge spanning the ravine gives a glimpse of just how far away the center of the park recedes from the edges. It’s hardly a blip on the map from the edge to the center, but in order to move from one to the other you need to enter at the end and wind down. In the middle at the bridge, there’s no way to get from one level to the other, leaving the joggers running by in an entirely different world. One day I’ll be back to move along the floor, but this time I was left observing from above before moving across the bridge and wandering back to Seattle through the winding streets cut off from most by the contours of the park. And there, not in the park and yet still outside of the city, spring’s wildflowers were waiting in the tall grass, enjoying the sun as much as the people moving and flitting about the park’s paths.

Wildflowers

Sculpture Garden

As I’ve settled into Seattle, I’ve continued to use my bike as a primary mode of transportation to commute and go from one point to another, but as I’ve also settled into a daily routine I haven’t done nearly as much exploring of the city as I should this summer. A few weeks ago I decided to slightly rectify that, getting out on a trail I hadn’t used to get to a destination I hadn’t yet seen.

My wife and I decided to set out for the Olympic Sculpture Park, which not only was a Seattle sight to cross off the list, but has the added benefit of being free. To get there we combined the Ship Canal Trail – one of my favorite short segments of trail I found in my early forays near our apartment – with the Terminal 91 Bike Path and Elliot Bay Trail along the Interbay and waterfront.

Myrtle Edwards Park

The two trails work well, as both fit a mix of water-side and industrial scenery in relatively short (and flat) stretches. The transition between the two requires a bit of on-road navigation, but even the short stretch of uphill marked as steep on the Seattle bike map is quickly over without too much exertion.

The Terminal 91 path at the north end takes you through the middle of a train yard. We checked out the graffiti and various railcars parked to the side as we headed south; the trail is well-maintained although there were a few narrow squeeze points where groups moving in opposite directions had to slow or stop to let each pass.

It continues past the nearby cruise ship terminal (and while I have no real interest in cruising, I can’t help but stop and marvel anytime I’m up close to one of those things – damn, they’re big) and along a fishing pier before turning into the Elliot Bay trail though a pair of waterfront parks (although in reality it seems like one long stretch of parkland).

In the middle of the sun-drenched summer it’s easy to forget the gloom of cloudy winter days, and you could almost take clear views of the mountain ranges on either side of the city for granted. The combination of city, water and mountains, though, is one of Seattle’s great strengths, and the trail provides. The rails are still there on one side of the grassy strip, but to the other side lies the blue waters of Elliott Bay with the Olympic peaks in the background.

Vivarium

The trail meets the city streets right at the base of the sculpture park, which rises above the park and over the artery of Elliott Avenue. It isn’t overly large – from the upper walkway it feels like you can see the entire grounds – but it takes advantage of its topography and a few stands of trees to create tiny pockets for discovery sprinkled throughout, along with the larger works sitting out in the open spaces. We roamed through, found a map and picked out the pieces we’d missed on first pass.

Lunch at nearby Pike Place fueled our return along Westlake back to Fremont, a satisfying day out in Seattle accomplished.

Gasworks Park

The sun has been out in Seattle, and so last weekend I hopped on the bike and headed down the hill to Gasworks Park.

Gasworks is one of the more interesting public spaces in Seattle – a lush green lawnscape surrounding the rusting industrial hulk of a decommissioned gasworks plant.

Sunny day in Gasworks

The relics and shadows of a city’s industrial past always give a silent siren call to me; for some reason the abandonment elevates the interest level.

There’s something about urban decay which allows you to feel an almost intimate connection with the spaces. The lifelessness of machinery sitting bereft of purpose provides a canvas for unconscious stories. A city is meant to be lived in, and items left behind, no longer contributing to the life of the city, can be all the more interesting for it.

Gasworks Park brings this decay, normally found in derelict warehouse districts or on the edge of industrial yards, into a vibrant center of public space. It’s this contrast which allows a rusting hunk of metal to add unexpected beauty to the greenery surrounding it.

The tangled metal piping of the gasworks stands in the middle of the park. The bulk of it is surrounded by a fence, discouraging the climbing and exploration (and trouble, certainly) the structure would otherwise bring. But there are some outlying parts of the plant which are accessible, standing right in the middle of the grass field.

On this day, most of the park’s inhabitants ignored the rust-covered metal to soak in the sun. A group of friends had set up shop behind a pavilion in an area with picnic tables I didn’t know existed before. There we ate, drank and played bocce, soaking in the sunlight and the humanity which had the same thought as us on how to spend the day.

Seattle skyline from Gasworks

It’s been a long time since I hopped on my bike and went anywhere. Nearly a month, in fact, a period of time which is far too long, but which is not without excuses – I left town over Christmas, a break in classes meant I had fewer reasons to venture out – but mostly the cold, wet and darkness of winter made it easier to drive, or stay close to home (or not go outside at all).

Carkeek path

So when I saw a bit of late afternoon sunshine last week, I made a resolution to venture forth – briefly – for a short afternoon ride, and to head out in a new direction.

Cities have their own gravitational pull, geographically and culturally. From my apartment, Seattle generally pulls south (towards downtown) or east (toward the University). There’s a natural inclination to start out in those directions, not only because it means beginning with a downhill, but because those are the directions where most destinations lay. Even when starting a ride without a destination in mind, or when deciding where, exactly, to go, the unconscious inclination is to start there, in the directions to which I’ve become accustomed.

There’s nothing wrong with letting this impulse guide me most of the time – even starting on a familiar path, there are still wide variations and paths I have not yet seen. But it also makes sense to recognize the routine, and actively decide to go elsewhere, to ride toward the neglected compass points.

So when I headed outside in the thin late-afternoon sunlight, I decided to head north, a way I’d rarely ventured even in a car. For a destination (it’s generally easier for me to choose a spot on the map to head toward, rather than attempting a random route) I settled for a block of green on the map I hadn’t yet seen, Carkeek Park.


The day was chilly, but dry, with clear views across the Sound to the Olympic Mountains, views so impressive I had to stop a number of times when the vista opened on a cross street. When I reached the park, I parked the bike and started down a walking trail to see what I would find with the fading light I had left.

Very quickly, the trail dropped into the trees, a sliver of nature secluded from the surrounding streets. Above, there were still glimpses of houses through the bare branches – I’m sure in summer the full greenery would block even that reminder of the city from the path.

Even though the pavement was dry on my ride, once in the park a fine coat of moisture sat on all surfaces, and in places the trail turned to mud and standing water. The trees seemed to funnel and capture moisture, giving it even more of a feeling of being a separate landscape from the city. The path descended steeply down until it reached the bottom of a ravine, where it joined a wider trail which ran alongside a creek. As I was running low on light, I left the rest of the park for another day.

I rode back, stealing a few more glances of the mountains before sunset, slightly reenergized and resolved to carve out more time for riding and exploration, even in the shortened days.

In many ways, I know my Seattle biking experience doesn’t really speak to most other people’s biking experience.

My personal geography patterns cover a small area of Seattle, mostly north of the ship canal. I live in north Fremont and most of my trips are between there and the University of Washington for my graduate program. I don’t think this is a unique footprint, but it covers a pretty insignificant portion of the city limits, much less the greater metropolitan area.

Even in my small space I deal with hills, the challenges of sharing roadways with traffic, a few dedicated bike trails and the difficulties of Seattle’s weather. Most of these are, I think, universal in this city to varying degrees. But it misses a lot of other common experiences – I almost never travel in or between the densely populated areas of Capitol Hill and downtown, which numbers alone suggest must be a common trip and probably requires dealing with steeper grades than I am faced with.

So to break out of my well-worn path, at least slightly, and because the whole point of this exercise is to find out if a bike is a realistic primary mode of transportation, I decided to take a ride downtown, a trip I’d made only by bus or car so far. To choose a destination, I figured ‘What’s more Seattle than heading to Pike Place Market?’ The answer is probably anywhere,  I know, but I hadn’t been since moving here, and I think I have to at least go once before starting to roll my eyes at the very mention of the market and complaining about how it’s only for tourists. (At least I assume that’s how long-time residents react. I moved here from D.C., and that’s basically our reaction to anything anywhere near the Mall.) Continue reading…

So far, all the photos I’d taken while biking were with my iPhone. Perfectly serviceable, but I realized I hadn’t taken any pictures of the Ship Canal Trail on my last trek, and it made a good excuse to bring along my slightly better camera to try and capture some nice fall shots.

The South Ship Canal Trail, under the Fremont Bridge

The start of the trail under the Fremont Bridge (well, start for me – I suppose a decent number of people think of it as the end of the trail) is exactly the kind of otherwise-hidden spot I wouldn’t see without heading out on a bike. As I don’t live next to it, I would have been unlikely to walk to the trail, and driving above on the Fremont Bridge you hardly know this quiet spot exists down below.

The trail starts by passing under the bridge, then pops out the other side in a different world. Despite the traffic above on Fremont Bridge, the fallen leaves, grassy bank of the ship canal and ring of trees create a pocket of quiet and near-solitude,except for a few bikers and joggers going by.

Further along, the character of the trail changes, turning more industrial as it approaches the Ballard Bridge. The bucolic scene of leaves and grass moves to a paved-over experience, leading through the back entrance of parking lots for waterfront businesses. The short trail provides a quick transition between the postcard-friendly sights and the everyday commerce of Seattle.

After a slow ride west stopping for photos, I made a quicker trip back east. As I reached the Fremont Bridge, I decided to continue along the water instead of turning north and heading for home. I haven’t ridden much south of the ship canal, and my knowledge of Seattle geography is still iffy, so it didn’t really dawn on me that I was tracing my way south along the west side of Lake Union, riding along an access road lined with parking stretching the entire way, until the line of buildings between my path and the lake stopped, opening up into a small park space giving a vista across.

I pulled out my small tripod and managed to get a few shots of the evening lights around the lake before my camera battery gave out, and I headed home. I hadn’t intended on taking the detour south when I headed out, but it gave me another reminder of how relatively small the city is.

Evening light on south Lake Union

Starting anything new can be intimidating. If you don’t know the culture, the layout or how things are done, getting up to speed in any activity is daunting, especially if everyone you see looks like an expert.

No matter how familiar you are with an area in a car, it is an entirely different place on a bike. The major auto routes become places to be avoided, and the side streets that frustrate in a car can reveal wonderful surprises on a bike. There is also a feeling of vulnerability, especially at first. I know some people who hesitate to ride a bike in a city out of nervousness about sharing the streets with cars and trucks. Most city streets don’t bother me, although I try to stay away from multi-lane arterials if there’s not space for a bike on the side. The feeling is, the faster traffic is going, the less likely they are to notice or make way for a cyclist.

I didn’t expect any of this to be an issue the other day when I wandered outside for a brief afternoon ride. I’d noticed a trail on the Seattle bike map paralleling the ship canal to the south, on the opposite side of the water from the Burke-Gilman, and decided to take a look. Continue reading…

Last week, the consensus around Seattle held the sun was about to disappear. Rain and clouds were in the forecast, and people who could scurried out to soak up the last of the precious rays until who-knows-when.

(I haven’t gone through a winter in this city yet, but people who have tend to speak of the annual occurrence like a grueling endurance test – just hold on and keep plodding along until you reach the end of the grey and the sun breaks back through, and you forget all about what you just went through until it happens again a few months later.)

So with the sun still hanging in the sky, energizing the city, I rode out to check out my new backyard. I’d moved into an apartment across the street from Woodland Park less than a week earlier, putting Green Lake just around the corner as well. An exploring expedition was in order.

Continue reading…

I have discovered a universal truth. This is based on my experience in two cities, and I believe a sample size of two is the point at which Internet protocol requires you to make gross generalizations. The truth is this: the best maps to get a sense of a city are that city’s bike maps.

Seattle, like my previous home of Washington, D.C., publishes an official bike map. You can get a map for free at bike shops, find it online as a PDF or if you’d like to support the postal service the city will mail you a free copy on request. One way or another, get yourself one. Even if you don’t bike, it’s one of the best city maps you’ll see.

The bike maps in both cities manage a scale that balances detail with overview. They tend to be fairly large to encompass the whole city, and focus on the street-level realities better than the average highway map, which is more concerned with letting you know how to get your car from one place to another. In order to fit the entire city, they don’t have the full detail a neighborhood map would – other than a few bike-related businesses, there aren’t many shops listed. The main sights and major buildings are there, but the lines stay clean. What the maps do very well is give you a sense of the streets and connections of a city. How areas bleed into one another, where the main arteries are (and whether those arteries are to be avoided without a car, or if they accommodate those outside a vehicle). Seattle’s helpfully tries to show where the hills are on main biking streets, although a novice cyclist may find a hill has to be fairly large before it makes the cut.

The information on a bike map tells you something about an area, regardless if you’re planning to bike, drive or walk. It is a map of the network for those outside of cars, where the connections are. It tells you where the parks are, where you can escape the urban landscape, how friendly an area is to those on the ground.

Even with a smart phone GPS in my pocket, at times I’ve had to stop and consult my bike map as I travel Seattle, checking if the algorithm’s plotted path actually makes sense on the ground, and how to connect one route to another. In theory, posted street signs complement the map by pointing out bike routes through the city. Seattle is better than most at giving bikers information on the streets, although I’ve found the signage at times to be oddly inconsistent. A series of signs pointing you along a road will suddenly stop, leaving me adrift.

Occasionally, however, once I find the path again, the signs continue along, a welcoming series of markers pointing out the way at least someone has determined is the best option for winding through the streets.

Last week I was commuting from Mt. Baker in the south to the University, a trek that requires finding the Montlake Bridge, which is apparently best done by staying as far away from the road leading to the bridge as possible.

The closer I got to the bridge, the less obvious the route was, so the regular Lake Washington Loop signs were necessary guideposts. Even so, I wasn’t sure I was following them correctly when they pointed me down an alley. Then a few turns later, another alley.

The official alley route was a new twist for me, but why not? It definitely avoided the traffic on the road. And after winding through, the signs sure enough popped me out right in time to catch the bridge across the ship canal to the University.

First, though, I took a detour. In between the alleys a waterfront park caught my eye. The trail soon enough restricted bikes, but I wandered far enough to find a small, still pocket of water nestled right underneath the highway. I’m filing the path along to Marsh Island and beyond away as a spot to return to, sometime when I’m looking to explore on foot.

Looking east across Lake Washington

For the entire three weeks I have lived in Seattle, the skies have remained cloudlessly blue, completely disregarding the city’s reputation.

I’m aware this sunny state may not last, but for now it provides an incredible backdrop when I stumble across a spot where the elevation and streets align to provide a vantage point with views to the east or west, across the water and to the mountains in the background.

Biking gives me a chance to take in these grand lookouts, as well as the smaller, hidden sights of a city, in ways other transport options don’t. In a car, the spots are gone by the time they register. Walking allows time to savor a spot, but I’m less likely to venture far enough on unfamiliar paths to stumble across the wonderful unknowns.

Stairs of mystery

The main reason I decided to start this blog was to document my time exploring my new city, and (if I have the legs and lungs to tackle it) exploring by bike gives me a chance to find the small, unexpected spots that I love in cities. I’ll drive to hit the big destinations, the tourist spots and well-loved local parks. But biking gives me a chance to find little corners few see.

I’ve already documented how much difficulty I’ve had with the topography as I attempt to bike it. However, Seattle’s vertical nature also gives it a striking character, especially as I’m coming from an essentially flat city. Parks cover the sides of hills, and from a sunlit-bathed street at the top of the hill the entry to the park’s trails is a long staircase, descending deep into shadow. From just outside, the stairs pose a mystery – what’s at the end? Most of my brain says the obvious: nice little walking trails in a wooded urban greenspace. But a little part of my brain remembers the scary bits of the fairy tales of my youth, and puts the monsters in the darkness. I assume I’m not the only one in Seattle who has had this feeling. After all, this is the city with a troll under a bridge.

Flo Ware Park

This week, I twice rode from Mt. Baker to the University of Washington for class. The first time, I rode past this this park entrance without stopping, but it stuck in my brain. The next day, I stopped to grab a photo. The brightly-colored entry gate is for Flo Ware Park, a small park with a playground, unremarkable except for this loving artwork to the park’s namesake. It turns out Flo Ware was a community activist whose name might otherwise have faded away if not for the bright display.

As often as I can, I’m going to try to document the small spots like these I find on my rides in Seattle as well as the more well-known sights. I want to share what I stumble across as I ride as well as my experience of how easy or difficult it is to experience the various landmarks of Seattle by bike.