Japanese Gulch 11-19-17

Not feeling a drive into the hills to slog through mud or a ferry fee/ride today, I decided to go somewhere close in that I have never visited before - Japanese Gulch in Mukilteo.  Surprisingly, although I lived in Mukilteo for years, I had never been there.

It was a cloudy and windy day, but not raining, still there were really not many people here either which was nice.  Cedar, Luna and I started out going to the right of the dog park and winding back through the trees.  Mostly deciduous, with plenty of ferns growing from the older more gnarly trees, it was a pretty walk.  Most of the autumn leaves were on the ground and blanketing the trail, which was pretty.  I could see a stream down below, and the sound of it and the wind drown out the sounds of humanity for the most part.

There is an unwritten law that dogs can't look back at you at the same time if you're trying to take their photo.

Some of the stairs have bicycle ramps built alongside, which the dogs liked better than steps.  There were a few mountain bikers on the trails, and Luna would probably have liked to chase them better than just walking.  As we went along the bank, the trail branched and hit a few muddy spots and circled back the other way.  This trail is supposed to be a loop, but other than the start of the trail, I saw no other markers.  After hitting a couple dead ends we worked our way back until we found our way down to the trail that runs along the stream.  We went uphill a ways and then turned around and headed back toward the parking lot.

The stream was quite pretty, with tiny waterfalls and spillways.

Alongside the natural attractions, there were some interesting man-made ones as well.  Boeing jets were coming in low toward the airport, and a train came slowly up the gulch while we were on the trail too.  I was glad to be up above when that went by as opposed to the trail between the tracks and the stream.

Can you see the plane?

At the parking lot is a dog park, and after a short hike Luna still had 99% of her energy left.  She spent about 20 minutes outrunning a German shepherd puppy before I could see she was slowing down a little.  I would like to come back and explore this gulch again the future.  Maybe I can figure out what parts of the trail actually are supposed to make up the loop next time.