Seattle, WA: Discovery Park

Yesterday, I took a lovely morning run down in Discovery Park! Discovery Park is the largest public park in Seattle at 534 acres and contains 11.81 miles of walking trails (reference: Wikipedia).

Despite the fact that the park is just across the Locks from me, I hadn’t gone in the 2 years I’ve lived in Ballard but it was positively lovely and I look forward to going back, as well as exploring the park at Sand Point, on the east side of northern Seattle.

Discovery Park is the former site of Fort Lawton, established in the late 1800s and turned into a public park in the 1970s. There are still several historic military buildings from the early 1900s on site and the West Point lighthouse, which was built in 1881 (reference: Wikipedia).

I came down from Ballard, across the Locks, skirted the northern edge of the park to the lighthouse, then came back along the South Beach Trail to the bluffs and Bird Alley, and passed the cemetery to come back up to Ballard. In total it took about 2 hours because I walked for part of the time (stupidly didn’t have breakfast or drink much water before I left, and water fountains were scarce in the park, so I got pretty tuckered).

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The park really felt like more of a nature preserve and there were was a lovely beach, bluffs, forest (more in the northern area), and grasslands (in the Bird Alley area). There are both paved trails and more hiking-type trails, which was mostly what I took. Using GPS was very helpful, since the trails were very wiggly and signs were somewhat limited.

The weather was quite nice for the first part of my run but turned heavily misty by the time I hit the bluffs, so the grasslands were all very romantically misty.

People did have their dogs on the trails, but I believe they’re not allowed on the beach, and I believe you need a special permit to drive into the park, through entry by foot is free. Bathrooms and water fountains are limited.

Overall, a lovely park that I would highly recommend checking out if you’re looking to get in some nature walking but don’t want to venture out of the city.