Walked a big messy clockwise loop around the Discovery park trails and beach area Sunday morning as the clouds were burning off. We parked at Ballard locks and used the super secret pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks to get to Discovery. Parking in the park lots is free and plentiful but does fill up on nice days (the north lot was nearly full well before noon when we walked by on our way out.) Some restrooms are open, (the one above the bluff was open and in great condition) plus there are some sanicans scattered around the property as well. The main restrooms at the locks were open and in good condition as well. Additionally they seemed to have new park supported QR codes on them, maybe to update your social media while doing your business? The walk over from the locks, the main loop plus about a mile of beach walk ended up at just over 7 miles with 617’ of gross vertical.
There are a few quick trail issues; 1) the muddy spot along the north beach trail that is always muddy was unsurprisingly muddy though not terrible and passable, 2) the stairs down to the beach along south beach trail that had known prior issues have had some work done on them. Some are new and great, some less so, but there is additional signage at the top indicating further work to be done, 3) lastly, there is a fairly sizable recent slide area off the bluff and out onto the beach south of the lighthouse which does block access at higher tides. Wildlife was fairly limited, herons in the big rookery at the locks plus a few flying around Discovery, some gulls, ducks, sparrows around the park area plus heard but did not see one bald eagle and one, maybe two raven. Two quick somewhat humorous anecdotes. First, we rounded a corner and came upon a group of about a half dozen young individuals all standing together, each holding a leashed friendly well behaved dog, none were talking and all had their heads down monkeying with their phones. I smiled and said “hello”, the pups perked up and wanted pets but the humans all remained fixated on their little electronic idols :) Second - along the beach we ran into a young father with a couple kids and his young son was giving him the riot act, “daddy, you always forget the snacks! Mom told you not to forget the snacks and you did anyways! I am very frustrated!” So, maybe the take away is listen to your pet and/or kid and put down the phone and always remember the snacks. Happy hiking.
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