Discovery Park

I think that is on of hte bests park :)

I took a long walk through Discovery Park yesterday. The highlight was seeing a pair of Merlins flying, diving, soaring and nipping at eachother on the north side of the bluff—beautiful.

A pretty beach in Seattle. Better than many of Seattle’s parks.

it looks awesome

I’ve often lamented that one of the great urban resources that Seattle seems to lack is a large park similar to Central, Golden Gate, or Stanley. In the spirit of using what I have and as part of my goal to explore the city I live in, Lia and I decided to visit Discovery Park.

This was partially inspired by the unseasonably nice weather we had in Seattle for the past week, but also served as a nice excuse to get a burger at Red Mill in Magnolia since you pretty much need to drive right by it.

I marked Discovery Park as worth it for a number of reasons, but there is one strange caveat. In the park’s favor is the reasonably leisurely walk around the loop and the path down to the south beach. The view from the south beach is a unique one. It is unusual to be so far west into the Sound without needing to cross it. Seattle has some of the best views of any city I’ve been to but new vantage points are always welcome. From the south beach you could see Rainier with the West Seattle Bridge and docks beneath it, a quaint (I hate that word, but nothing fits better) little lighthouse, and the Seattle sewage treatment plant.

That’s correct. Right at the westernmost edge of the beautiful park is where all of the sewage that goes down your toilets and sinks ends up. How does that seem like a good idea?

Now in their defense, it doesn’t smell too bad. I mean if I were in charge of thousands of pounds of raw human excrement, I couldn’t make it not smell like this. But no one is going to confuse it with a basket of lilies either.

This probably has something to do with the park being a former military base, but it really is a shame that in Seattle’s largest outdoor park we also put our waste facility.

Discovery park is the largest park in Seattle, and is located along Magnolia bluff. While it says its closed at night, its pretty easy to sneak in and go hiking at night, which is really fun. You can also just come in the day and wander down to the beach, look at the landscaping around one of Seattle’s waste processing plants, or wander through some large grasslands.

http://www.cityofseattle.net/parks/Environment/discovparkindex.htm