Trails were muddy in several places, but not impassable. The streams, bridges and huge trees kept the kids entertained. I definitely recommend bringing a trail map or your phone for navigation. 

Beautiful park within the middle of west Seattle with access to Alki Beach.  The trail is full of beautiful ferns and mature trees.  Some parts of this trail are paved and other parts are soft packed dirt.  Some parts are dry and some parts are muddy despite it not having rained for many days so plan your walking shoes accordingly.  We accessed this park from the Hinds street access.  

Schmitz Park is a little oasis most anytime of year. It's a great place for discovery for both young and old. You can practice crossing a creek on stones, balancing across huge logs and find ancient trees. If you hike all the main trails and side paths it's more than 2 miles and 500 ft elevation. At this time of year watch out for Stinging Nettles on some of the more narrow paths.  There are a few muddy spots easily jumped over. 

My parents recently moved from the Midwest flatlands to Seattle. To celebrate National Trails Day, I took them on an urban hike within a mile of their new home in West Seattle.

Calling it an urban hike is only accurate in terms of geographic location because once you head out on the trails in Schmitz Preserve Park, you quickly get lost in old growth trees, lush vegetation, bird songs, and babbling creek. In fact, it's easy to forget that you're in the middle of the largest city in Washington state. 

Schmitz Preserve Park is not huge, but we had no trouble spending an hour walking the 1.7 mile network of rolling trails. Our hike even took us past some impressive trail work on the western side of the park done earlier in the day by a WTA Youth & Families work party, where families celebrated National Trails Day by clearing brush and building up the trail's tread. It was our second work party in Seattle, and some of the families were able to walk to the site, a great benefit of WTA's urban work parties. Thanks to a new partnership the City of Seattle's Parks Department, we're looking forward to bringing more youth and families out to work on other Seattle trails soon. 

Great little escape in West Seattle, I went in the pouring rain for a run after work.