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#notrails is ending

King County Parks to re-open parks and trails on May 8: ‘Recreate Responsibly!’

Summary

King County Parks is announcing it will re-open its parks and trails on May 8 with some restrictions, and urges visitors to “Recreate Responsibly!” Active use and high touch facilities such as restrooms, play areas, sports courts, and picnic shelters will remain closed, and organized events and programs will remain suspended.

Story

King County Parks announced today that on May 8 it will re-open its parks and trails, including regional and backcountry trails, with some restrictions. The county cautions, however, that keeping parks and trails open will depend on visitors practicing safe distancing and following public health guidelines.

Parking lots and trailheads will be open, as well as fields, docks and boat launches, and the off-leash dog area at Marymoor Park.  Visitors are asked to “Keep it Moving!” and refrain from gathering or playing team sports or pick-up games on the fields. King County Parks’ decision follows the Governor’s recent announcement about the May 5 re-opening of state recreation lands.

“Here in King County, we treasure our parks, trails, and wilderness, and I know that people are eager to enjoy the outdoors during these stressful and uncertain times,” said King County Executive Dow Constantine. “We are re-opening our parks and trails in a measured way and encourage folks to recreate responsibly, keep each other safe, and continue to curb the transmission of COVID-19 in King County.”

“Outdoor recreation is a great idea but we absolutely need to continue to take precautions to prevent bringing COVID-19 back home with us. Everyone must practice safe distancing and good hand hygiene whether indoors or out because lives depend on it,” said Dr. Jeff Duchin, Health Officer for Public Health — Seattle & King County. “Where parks and trails are experiencing overcrowding and where safe distancing is not occurring, we will need to recommend re-closing those facilities to prevent the spread of infection.”

King County Parks is planning for a phased re-opening and return to full operations. The division will monitor use and continue to follow guidance from the Governor and Public Health – Seattle & King County.

Facilities such as restrooms, play areas, sports courts, and picnic shelters, will remain closed. The campground at Tolt-MacDonald Park remains closed, as does the Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center, the Jim Ellis Preston Community Center, and the White Center Community Center. Organized activities and programs, such as team sports, race events, swimming lessons, volunteer work parties, and public gatherings remain suspended.

King County Parks will update the status of its parks, trails, and facilities at kingcountyparks.org/COVID.

King County Parks, in collaboration with local and state land managers and outdoor recreation stakeholders, is encouraging people to recreate responsibly by adhering to the following guidelines:

  • Keep your distance. Recreate with those in your household. Give others plenty of room and communicate who will step aside on the trail (trail etiquette gives hikers coming uphill the right of way).
  • Stay local. Don’t stray too far from home when recreating and keep rural communities safe by minimizing stops and bringing all that you’ll need for your outing.
  • Keep it moving. Use parks and trails for walking, running, riding, rolling, and passing through.
  • Plan ahead. Be prepared to go somewhere else if your destination seems crowded. Add hand sanitizer and a mask or other face covering to your 10 Essentials.
  • Play it safe. Keep your activities within your comfort and skill level to reduce the risk of injury and adding to the strain on our health care and emergency services.
  • Leave no trace. Take any garbage with you, including disposable face masks and gloves.

The health and safety of residents and Parks employees is paramount, and Parks will continue to monitor its parks and trails to ensure that visitors are following physical distancing and other public health guidelines. King County Parks encourages visitors to do their part and keep each other safe so that King County’s parks and trails can remain open.

Park and trail visitors can report crowding, areas that need attention, or other issues using King County Parks’ reporting tool, SeeClickFix at https://seeclickfix.com/king-county

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# no trails

I’ve been amusing myself by riding without using at the King Count Regional Trails.  It’s remarkable how much we orient our routes to the trail system, even when the trail routes don’t have any real advantage.  It’s also remarkable how advantageous the trails usually are, and how there are several choke-points where there aren’t good non-trail alternatives.

Here’s a selection of #notrails routes.

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Montlake

Coming home today I needed to stop by Recycled cycles so from northbound Interlaken Drive I turned onto Interlaken Blvd and then made the mistake of staying on that when it turned into a trail (instead of turning onto 19th.)  I ended up riding 24th and crossing Montlake at the Shelby crosswalk.

Now I will be able to do this:

I likely won’t get a whole lot of use out of this, but I’ve avoided the Arboretum route because of the Montlake intersection so i guess it takes away an excuse.

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I-90 Trail

Another bit of progress on eastside trails. (I’d seen the land use signs last year but didn’t realize that they’d made this much progress:)

There will be a tunnel where the trail goes under the 405/I-90 ramps (which allows them to widen the Factoria Blvd exit from eastbound I=90.)  There will be a bridge over Factoria Blvd and then the trail runs on the North side of 136th up to 150th.  At that point it cuts over to the South side of I-90 until the existing pedestrian bridge where it moves back over to Northrup Way.

MTSG_Alignment

They’re building the bridge now – they don’t have money for most of the trail sections so we’ll see when that materializes.  I’ll likely continue to ride the street, but the bridge over Factoria Blvd will be nice.

Here’s a link to the construction alert and here’s a link to the Bellevue capital works write-up.

here is my (old) I-90 writeup

here are selected rides starting at the I-90 tunnel

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2020 Cycling goals

Last year I wrote

The last couple of years I worked I commuted by bike quite a bit, running up 8,000 or 10,000 miles each year. When I stopped working I knew I needed to maintain my activity level so I decided to try to bike every day and settled on a goal of 1,000 miles each month. I soon realized that short months during ski season get in the way of a monthly goal, and I restated my ambitions as 12,000 miles a year. 2018 was the fourth of those, and I hit the 12,000 mile mark at the end of October. At first I figured I’d just work on getting more than in 2017 until I realized that with a little push I could get to 10,000 on my single bike. I managed that, and ended up with 4,000 tandem, too.

2019 was kind of a repeat – I hit 12,000 by the end of September and 14,000 before Thanksgiving.  I ended up just a little over 10,000 on my single bike (again) but this year we rode 5,700 tandem.   Here it is according to Strava:

So what’s in store for 2020?  Same basic approach – try to ride every day, aim for about 1,000 miles / month with more in the dry months and less when it’s wet.  The big unknown is that Odette will be done working at the end of June and we have big home improvement and travel plans.  I think I’ve gotten a little carried away with “bike therapy” and maybe having her around more will let me back off a little, but we’ll see.

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Bags

I bought Odette a new MacBook for Christmas and picked it up at the Apple store on the wettest day of the last decade.  In doing so I discovered that the Swift Industries panniers I bought (which don’t fit on the lowriders on my Rodriguez) will hold a 16″ MacBook Pro in the original packaging and that they’ll keep it dry even in a very heavy rain.

I had Will take some photos of Odette and me on the Ibis to use on my 2020 recent rides pages since we didn’t have a single photo of us on a bike from 2019.  I mounted the panniers since they matched the rando bag I usually keep on the Ibis.  Here are the extra images: