Farrel-McWhirter Trail — Thursday, Apr. 10, 2025

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.