After my short hike at Evans Creek preserve (see report), I continued my suburban safari by visitng Bellevue's Weona Park, which occupies a steep hillside that overlooks Lake Sammamish. At 80 acres, the park is pretty small , but it feels larger than that, and I found it definitely worthwhile to spend an hour or two exploring the park's four miles or so of trails. I enjoyed seeing the big old second growth forest, peek-a-boo views over Lake Sammamish, and several surprisingly vigorous waterfalls in a ravine.

These waterfalls are not natural, but were a result of an 1890s project to drain lakes in the area and thus improve farming. A ditch was cut that created a new outlet for Phantom Lake. Over the following century, the newly created creek carved a deep ravine into the hillside, as well as a series of small waterfalls.

Taking advantage of the nice weather, I wandered around a mile-long loop of trail in the south end of the park. After viewing the waterfalls along Phantom Creek, I then followed a major trail heading into the park's north end. Not wishing to descend all the way to W.Lake Sammamish Boulevard, I turned left on a spur trail, then walked back to my car on the Phantom Lake Loop Trail, a wide sidewalk near 168th Ave.

All of the trails were in good shape with little mud and no blowdowns. If you want more exercise, it's a fun project to follow the Lake to Lake Trail from Weona Park past a series of greenbelts and suburban sidewalks to its end at Mercer Slough Nature Park. You will need to shuttle cars or figure out the bus system to do this.