Amazing. I live nearby, so within minutes of my door, I can be in the “middle of nowhere”. Nice, dense canopy, for ambiance and shade. Plentiful creeks and small overspills, for life, energy, and sound. Great for photography or just strolling. Beautiful views of the sound.
Easy warmup hike is mostly downhill; return trip makes up for the decent.

We walked a number of trails at Carkeek Park today.   Most of the trails are up and down.   

The Wetland trail is flat.    There is one muddy spot to navigate.   The beaver dam and lake they have created are impressive.   The park rangers are working on removing a small portion of the dam to allow the salmon to swim upstream.

Piper's Creek Trail is also flat except for the hill to the entrance at NW 100th Place (Eddie McAbee Entrance).   This is a pleasant trail that follows the creek and goes past Piper's Orchard and an enormous tree stump.

After walking the trails, I attended the OLLI-UW class by the Education Center.   We observed the ripe huckleberries, berries on the Oregon grape plants, black hawthorn tree, dogwood tree, snowberries, rose hips, and tiny green crabapples.

I had never seen a rose gall.   We split one open to see the wasp larvae inside.

Beautiful day hike around the park. Lucky to have Carkeek in-city and at our fingertips!

Took a winding way around - North Bluff to Grand Fir, eventually to Piper’s Creek and South Bluff. There were a lot of ripe thimbleberries today, but mind the stinging nettle on the side of the trail!

There are many short trails in this park.  A couple of small blowdowns, not too significant.

2 of us did a birding outing starting at the waterfront. We stopped first along Piper's Creek to investigate how the beavers have changed the landscape and what park managers have done to ensure that salmon can still access spawning locations. A mama mallard kept careful watch over her 9 young ducklings. So cute!

We spent some time in the meadows listening for warblers and Swainson thrushes, then headed up along the South Ridge to enjoy a few of our favorite overlooks and trees.

Carkeek has a lot to offer: picnic areas, play structures for kids, waterfront access for wading, beachcombing, and fishing, hiking, education. We spent 1.5 hours and covered about 1.5 miles while enjoying 33 species of birds. Carkeek even offers Saturday bird walk-and-talks for anyone wanting to learn more about them.