Salmon Creek Park
We took advantage of the day to explore a new park (thank you, Google maps). Salmon Creek Park is a few miles south of us that we'd never heard of prior to running across it on the map trying to find somewhere else. We promised ourselves that we'd go back and explore. Today was that day.
Salmon Creek splits the park in a ravine. The Nisqually quake significantly altered the location of stream bed. Since then, it's been renamed locally to "Earthquake Creek" and repairing the park's trails and removing pestilent foreign plants has been an ongoing service project of the local high school. They've done a great job.
We only saw one guy and his golden retriever in a two hour wander up and down the ravine. The park shows the remnants of its logging history. Big stumps abound, many of them now nursery trees. The old firs have been replaced by manzanitas and alders, which have deposited a rich chestnut leaf carpet. In places the ferns were waist high, and many of the trees were blanketed with thick emerald moss as if we were by the Oregon coast. Oh wait, we were in spitting distance of the Sound, which flashed blue through the trees when we got up on the ravine's crest.
Mark got some decent photos of a pileated woodpecker hammering away at a dead tree. What a gorgeous bird! It really made the wood chips fly! Kai assured us that coyote and fox and raccoons were all around, but that he would protect us. We were relieved.
Two paths parted in the woods. We took the left branch. I believe the right fork leads down to the water. Next time we'll check out that trail. I also want to go back and check out Seola Beach Park, another park just a few blocks away that, like Salmon Creek, you won't find unless you already know it's there.
Salmon Creek splits the park in a ravine. The Nisqually quake significantly altered the location of stream bed. Since then, it's been renamed locally to "Earthquake Creek" and repairing the park's trails and removing pestilent foreign plants has been an ongoing service project of the local high school. They've done a great job.
We only saw one guy and his golden retriever in a two hour wander up and down the ravine. The park shows the remnants of its logging history. Big stumps abound, many of them now nursery trees. The old firs have been replaced by manzanitas and alders, which have deposited a rich chestnut leaf carpet. In places the ferns were waist high, and many of the trees were blanketed with thick emerald moss as if we were by the Oregon coast. Oh wait, we were in spitting distance of the Sound, which flashed blue through the trees when we got up on the ravine's crest.
Mark got some decent photos of a pileated woodpecker hammering away at a dead tree. What a gorgeous bird! It really made the wood chips fly! Kai assured us that coyote and fox and raccoons were all around, but that he would protect us. We were relieved.
Two paths parted in the woods. We took the left branch. I believe the right fork leads down to the water. Next time we'll check out that trail. I also want to go back and check out Seola Beach Park, another park just a few blocks away that, like Salmon Creek, you won't find unless you already know it's there.