This is a very small park in Redmond near the Redmond Watershed Preserve. PROS: a barnyard with real barn animals, usually surrounded by kids; pony rides for little kids, although that requires reservations (you can probably find a link at https://www.redmond.gov/288/Farrel-McWhirter-Park); an equestrian arena for bigger people; covered picnic shelters with electricity and running water; some play equipment, like tire swings; and several short, easy interconnecting trails. CONS: the trail marking is terrible, and the maps in the park seem to be different from the one in Urban Trails: Eastside. But the park is too small to get really lost.

What an underappreciated gem of a trail system! It's not large and there's virtually no elevation gain, but it's a quiet trail and great for forest bathing in the spring. There is also a little section with a playground and a small farm area complete with animals, goats, sheep, a cow, chickens, ducks, pigs and horses for kids to visit.  Spring is a beautiful time to walk here, lots of birdsong, wildflowers in bloom, and new green leaves on the shrubs. The Woodland trail is the main trail running from the North parking lot to the South. The farm is on Charlottes trail (pretty obvious). We took a lot of loops, first the Parameter trail and loops on the east side of the park. Here it is shady with Mackey Creek running thru the middle. This trail has lots of trillium and spring beauty blooming. Please teach your kids not to pick them! Pick a trillium and it takes several years to recover, so please leave for everyone to enjoy! Winding around the park we took the Nichols trail back. This is sunnier and we found lots of native PNW bleeding heart, salmonberry and Oregon grape. You will find skunk cabbage everywhere in the park. We came back to the parking lot and did some more looping around the middle. Once back to the parking lot, we walked up to Juel park to eat lunch. No trails but a community garden, restrooms and frisbee golf here. Back we went and hiked down the PSE to the road and and coming back we saw a deer. A satisfying 5 miles. We came in from the north, Woodinville Duvall road to Avondale and a left on 116th, right on 196th to the North parking lot. Loo clean and stocked today. 

Really enjoyed the trail system at this pretty park. We chose an easy loop from the barn, around the perimeter of the park and back down to the playground. Perfect length for our 2 and 7 year old. The trails were in good condition and well marked. It was a good experience for walking on equestrian trails and practicing our etiquette around horses!

There is a playground area, large grassy field and picnic areas which seem a beautiful spot to enjoy when the weather gets nicer.

The highlight for the kids was the farm here. We spent a long time visiting the ponies, sheep, goats, chickens, cow, donkey, rabbits and resident cat who seems to very much enjoy roaming about the woods! 

It sounds like there is potential to connect to other trail systems from here so I look forward to another trip to explore more.

Short walk around the Farrel McWhirter and Juel park trails Saturday morning.  Parking at either McWhirter lot is free and relatively plentiful.  Full restrooms were open at the main farm area and there is an open and functional sanican at the north lot as well.  There was still a fair bit of snow so some of the exposed trails were a bit slippery but nothing problematic and it likely will be gone in a day or two.  Our route was a messy figure eight around McWhirter with a quick side trip over to the Juel park trails directly connecting from the northwest corner.  There are quite a few large evergreens that were blown over by that bomb cyclone storm a couple months ago, but all the trails have been nicely cleared - still is amazing so many trees were just pulled up and knocked over like that.  

Lots of animal life out - both the farm animals (goats, sheep, chickens, horses, etc) but also wildlife, (deer, squirrels, lots of little winter birds plus heard though did not see a single bald eagle.)  The side trip to Juel is well worth doing as it goes through some really neat forest along a stream and has some nice trails along the main Bear Creek, plus a disc golf course if you are into that.  A nice little walk with lots to see if you are in the area. 

What can be better than forested trails, a Creek, and farm animals? We always love our visits to Farrel Mcwhiter. On this visit Rosie, the cow, was very talkative and the goats were loving all the scratches. Miles learned a valuable lesson about getting too close to the other animals at the farm - keep clothing, hair, and paper marmots away from them as they lack boundaries. Miles was unscathed and loved scrambling around on the giant stumps on the forest trails.

There were some summer camps in session but they were not disruptive to our experience. Flush bathrooms and hand washing stations available. And the parking area is plentiful.

I am hiking all this month to raise funds and awareness for WTA so that the trails can be enjoyed by future generations. If you would like to contribute, any amount helps.
give.wta.org/jenchilada2024

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