Gold Creek Pond — Friday, Jul. 5, 2024

With a Friday off, we wanted to get farther from Seattle than we normally do with our 2- and 5-year olds. After my partner saw this hike on Instagram (sorry, not sorry), we bought a Northwest Forest Day ePass and headed out.

The dirt road to the parking lot is quite pot-holed but we didn't have any issues in our RAV4. We got there by about 9:30 and the lot was quite quiet (maybe 20% full at most), but things were really picking up when we left around 11:30 with quite the line for the single bathroom.

This hike is very accessible and very beautiful. Our 2yo made it all the way around the loop walking on his own and had a great time! We also saw one person with a walker almost exactly half-way around. The boardwalk has some soft boards and patched areas, so I wouldn't give it a perfect score, but it was very passable. Had we needed a stroller, we would have been fine.

Some highlights of the hike:

• Maybe 1/3 of the way around, there was a well-trodden path in the dirt to Gold Creek where we saw a number of beautiful wild flowers including some lilies and paintbrush flowers.
• When the sky is out, the pond is a gorgeous turquoise, and you can walk out onto a peninsula about half way around to get extra close to the water.
• The Western Thatching Ants build giant hills on which they lug around 2-inch long twigs. It was fun to stop and watch them work for a couple minutes.

Make sure to read the signs. This is a gravel pit used to build I-90 and it's have a sadly negative impact on Gold Creek and the fish that live in it. I really hope they can find a way to figure out the issues with the water table and improve the health of the creek.

As some other people mentioned, there's unfortunately quite a bit of trash around the trail. (C'mon people!) There is nowhere to leave trash for this trail. Bring a bag and pack some out.

Finally, on our way home, we stumbled into Pie for the People just one exit West on 90. It was very good pizza—whole or by the slice—and had great vegetarian options. Highly recommended for a post hike lunch or dinner.