O'Grady Trail

King County's O'Grady Park is at the center of the Green River Natural Area and it provides a unique place, only a few miles east of the heavily populated Green River valley around Auburn, to get a sense of the river that is wilder, with little noticeable human impact. The site is used mainly by locals, some hikers and Enumclaw Backcountry Horseman. The trail system starts from the parking area for O’Grady and travels down the steep slopes to the Green River.

Driving Directions:

On I-405 at Renton take Highway 167 southboud. Proceed approximately 12.2 miles on Highway 167, then exit onto Highway 18 east toward the city of Auburn. Drive approximately 3.3 miles on Highway 18, and take the exit to SE Auburn-Black Diamond Road, turning to your right at the stop sign. Drive SE Auburn-Black Diamond Road approximately 1/8 of a mile, then make a right turn onto the SE Green Valley Road. Proceed approximately 7.5 miles on the SE Green Valley Road. Make a right turn onto 212th Ave SE. Proceed approximately 2.0 miles on 212th Ave SE (up the hill). At the Stop sign, make a right turn onto SE 384th. Proceed 1.5 miles and turn right onto 188th Ave SE. Drive down this road for 0.8 of a mile (to a dead-end turn around where the access gate will be to the right). If the gate is open, proceed approximatley 1 mile down the hill till the very end, where you will find a parking area.

Recent Trip Reports

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O'Grady — Nov 26, 2008 — DaveH

Day hike

Issues: Mudholes | Water on trail

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Next week WTA will start working on the O’Grady Trail in the Green River Natural Area, a work in p...

Next week WTA will start working on the O’Grady Trail in the Green River Natural Area, a work in progress for some time. Today, I explored the whole area. King County has built a rough trail going east, about a mile, leading to a large grassy meadow on the Green River. Here there was a pair of eagles, hoards of sea gulls and tracks on the river bank that were the right size for river otter, but I never saw them. The attraction was spawning salmon.

The county has covered the first quarter mile of the trail with rock and gravel and built a new horse bridge. The rest of the trail is gumbo, boot sucking gumbo!!!!! If you explore or work on this trail, pick your foot ware wisely. From the end of the service road, there is an unofficial trail heading west which leads to a popular fishing area. This trail has even worse gumbo.

You can not normally drive into the O’Grady area, you must park about a mile away, at the service road gate. The road drops about 500 feet into the river gorge. If you are part of a WTA work party, the gate will be open Tuesday morning and you may drive to the parking area at the end of the road. I confirmed this with the King County employee incharge of trail building and will be there to greet you, and just happed to be there this morning.

Getting to this area is a little complicated, see the road description given in the trail work volunteers’
Tab on the WTA site.

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