We arrived at the dog park trailhead to Japanese Gulch on Wednesday around 11:40am. There were a few cars in the parking lot, but mostly for the dog park. The parking lot is easy to get to, off a city road in Mukilteo. There is a porta potty beside the trail sign and a map at the trailhead.
We noticed a sign saying the bridge was out when we arrived and I started looking at the map for alternate routes.
Immediately after checking the map an older gentleman with 2 dogs asked us if we were familiar with the area. I said, "no" and he proceeded to tell us all about the trails and area because he happens to be the guy who maintains the trails! He recommended we hike on the gravel trail along the stream near the railroad tracks. He said some of the trails past the broken bridge are very narrow, cliffside, and not very kid friendly.
What luck running into that guy!
So we walked past the gate and made a right up the gravel road parallel to the boeing railroad tracks. The trail is gravel and not very steep. It was easy hiking for my 5 kiddos and me with the baby in an ergo. We hiked adjacent to the thick forest trails and along the stream. It was so pleasant to be able to see and hear the water throughout the hike.
On the hike up we passed several trails heading across the stream and into the forest. We might have taken a chance on them, but since the man we met at the entrance said they might not be good for littles we stayed on the gravel. Some of the trails we could see from the stream and they looked impossibly steep (like from the movie inception) and muddy.
We walked through arches of beautiful spring deciduous trees beside the stream and went over and back several bridges for fun. We stopped at around 1.5 miles for lunch and were greeted by a red tailed hawk and some hummingbirds. We continued on until my navigation tracker said we went up 2 miles. At this mark there was a sizeable bridge which went across a part of the stream with nice wide banks. On the other side of the bridge was a very steep trail and a swing made of chains hanging off a HUGE maple. My kids wanted to try it out, but the hill was quite steep, so we had to pass on that. We decided this was a good place to turn around and head back.
While hiking back we ran into so many butterflies. It's like we were playing tag with several of them. My kids loved it!
We wanted to head down towards edgewater park, but couldn't figure out the trail. From the WTA description it sounded like you have to hike along the railroad tracks but there were a lot of signs saying not to do that. We ended up just driving the short distance to edgewater park and catching low tide to visit some tiny crabs and watch a sea lion swimming around.
We had a lovely day out at Japanese Gulch. I hope we can come back and see what the other trails look like when the bridge is fixed if the inner trails aren't too steep and narrow.
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