This trip report is intended to help anyone who is visiting Des Moines Creek Trail as a wheelchair or powerchair user. It is written to highlight and make note of accessibility aspects. It was my wife (who is a powerchair user), her service dog, and myself on the trip.
As the trail has one end at basically sea level, and the other end up at around 250ft. of elevation, we decide to go up first and then go down on the way back. So we started at Des Moines Beach Park and Marina.
First thing to make note of is parking. There are only a couple of accessible parking spots, and very limited parking in general inside Des Moines Beach Park. There are a lot of parking spots, including about a half a dozen accessible spots in the Marina parking lot. But both the park and the marina have paystation for parking. But if you have a disabled parking permit, there are about 15 accessible spots (including some van spots) at the south end of Dock St. that are free to park in. At the other end, at 200th street, there is just one marked accessible parking spot in a small gravel parking lot.
Regarding restrooms, there are “accessible” bathrooms in the park, but they are older and might not work for everyone. In the southwest corner of the marina parking lot however, there are pretty new bathrooms. There are 4 of them, all single occupancy, all accessible, and pretty large and easy to maneuver a powerchair inside of. At the 200th St. end there was a single non-accessible style porta-potty.
The path from the marina to the park is pretty obvious, following sidewalks with nothing of note. Once in the park, cross a small foot bridge over the creek before turning right and heading away from the sound. The path through the park to the trail isn’t really marked, but it just sort of funnels you through a parking lot to the north end of the park to the official start of the trail.
The first 1.5 miles or so of the actual trail has a pretty steady uphill grade. Not especially steep. Any powerchair would handle it fine. The slope shouldn’t be a problem for most fit manual wheelchair users, however some may find the fact it just keeps going, to be a limiting factor. The last half mile was noticeably flatter. About every quarter to a third mile there were benches along the trail as well.
Periodically there were spurs from the trail to either side that connect up to the surrounding neighborhoods. However all of these side routes have stairs (often lots of them) and are not wheelchair accessible.
The trail is black asphalt in really good condition. There were only a couple places in latter half where roots had pushed up to create cracks and bumps. The rest was smooth and free of any significant cracks or bumps. There was minimal cross-slope to the trail, it appeared to be the minimum needed to keep the water off the trail. Despite going early in the spring, the trail was clear of any branches, leaves, etc. that may have blown down during the winter. There was a lot of other users on the trail that day and it’s clear the city keeps it well maintained.
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