Walked the Mill Town Trail along the Everett waterfront this morning in the early fall sunshine.  There is 2 hour parking at the big marina boat launch plus other pay parking in the marina and some free parking at several overlooks north of the boat launch.  The marina and boat launch restrooms are open and are in great condition.  The trail remains largely paved urban mixed use and is all in good condition other than a minor detour where folks are working on one of the piers next to the big overhead pedestrian bridge. 

Quite a bit of wildlife out today, heron and osprey out in the water on the north end, ducks, cormorant, lots of gulls and other seabirds plus one big bald eagle on a piling on fir island across the channel.  But the really nice surprise today was a rowdy group of seals up on one of the marina piers sunning themselves and one female has stashed her little one away up under the pilings on some inflatable barriers to snooze as the rest of the group to hide it from harm.  Super cool.  Normal FYI - pics were taken with a telephoto lens well away from the animals.  Lots of other sights including all the goings on at Everett Ship Repair with their huge new dry dock plus all the Navy activities and port operations and really nice views north to Mt Baker and west out over the water and fir island to the newly white with snow Olympics.  A really beautiful waterfront walk which will only get better at the city of Everett continues to build out the redeveloped shore area.  

I wanted to check out the Arboretum gardens and the fall perennial bed. Beautiful! If you need some garden ideas this is a good place to come. The gardens are small enough to be inspiring to the regular home gardener instead of a massive display of plant power. We saved this part for last, parking at Grand Ave across from the Grand Ave park and bridge, intending on going up the stairs on our way back. We followed Grand down and thru the P Patch that overlooks the old lumber mill site parking, crossed the old pedestrian bridge and walked over to the waterfront. There are plenty of places down here now to get coffee, pastry or lunch with restrooms available. We followed the Mill Town trail around the marina, but instead of following it up the road on Marine View, we opted to get our stairs in on the Grand Ave bridge. Once back on Grand we wandered thru the neighborhoods on Colby, Rucker and Alverson to the Arboretum, admiring the stately old homes and beautiful gardens along the way. In all I got 20,000 steps in so about 6-7 miles. Fun urban walk! 

You don't have to drive all the way to Seattle to see cherry trees in bloom. We parked at Grand Ave, walked thru the P patch and over the bridge by the old Weyerhaeuser site to get down to the marina. Lots happening at the marina, new construction everywhere. We did not find the heron rookery mentioned earlier but we saw lots of different ducks. After walking around the marina we walked up Marine View Dr and past Legion Park and back to the car on Grand. Lots of pretty gardens on the way. Good urban walk anytime, did about 5 miles and ate lunch in one of the little bakeries along the way.  

Walked the Mill Town Trail from the big boat launch on the north down around the marina piers to the tiny Maggie’s Park on Terminal Ave and back Tuesday morning in the brief sunshine.  Free two hour parking at the boat launch, (and it is enforced, there was one of those license plate scanning cars out checking.)  There is also some other marina and street parking along this section.  Full restrooms at the boat launch were open and in great shape and there are several other restrooms along the route in the marina.  The trail remains wide, flat, paved multi-use and there were no blocking issues or other problems along this section.  Total out and back distance for this route is just a bit over 5 miles.  One interesting item of note - there is new signage indicating you are no longer permitted to fly kites in the area.  Must have had problems with out of control roving bands of kite flyers or something.

I’d wanted to check on the status of the big heron rookery and it’s just getting started - only about a dozen total birds out on the pilings this morning.  Other wildlife along the way included cormorants, several kinds of ducks, a pair of little seal in the water, kingfisher, one big bald eagle circling over the marina area though no osprey out this morning which frequently hang out on the pilings north of the boat launch.  Other non-wildlife related sights include really nice views north and west across Jetty Island and Possession Sound, all the Navy operations, active rail traffic and all the goings on at the Everett Shipyard and Port of Everett shipping and the repurposed historical Weyerhaeuser office building at Boxcar park.  Don’t miss a side trip up the big new pedestrian bridge for additional views from Grand Avenue Park.  The new Woods Coffee just north of the Navy base makes a nice post walk pick-me-up spot.  

Link to additional historical information about the area - https://historiceverett.org/walkingtour/MillTownTrail.html

Mill Town Trail and Everett Waterfront is always a nice option for a rainy day. We started from Grand Park then across the bridge to the waterfront paved trails. GPS showed 5 miles. Plenty of restrooms at the waterfront, and if you get cold, there are a number of coffee shops and restaurants to get warmed up

#lovelocaltrails