I needed a walk after work so I headed out of the house with a goal to just walk over to Grand Park in North Everett for a view of the waterfront. But when I got there I could see the wave lights were still going from the holidays so I added a jaunt on the Mill Town Trail to my urban stroll.

I was excited to see the overpass had been salted making the stairs much less sketchy than I thought they would be.

Once on the Mill Town headed north, I avoided all the wood planking because we know that’s no bueno when icy and kept to concrete. 

The lights were magical and there were several other folks out, mostly the dog walking kind. Fisherman Jacks looked busy, I still need to visit.

I walked as far as the last jumping fish past where the ice skating rink sat disassembled and turned around for home. The sight of the overpass never disappoints and the stairs got the blood pumping!

I’d seen “BrownsBay’s trip report about the new Baywood Nature Trail addition to Milltown and thought, heck, I didn’t even know that was there…  So we did a quick Sunday morning walk along Milltown with an additional excursion over to and around Baywood.  Total mileage for this section down to Everett Ave and up to Bayview and back  ended up at about 7.4 miles.  We parked at the boat launch (free 2 hr parking).  Full restrooms there were open and in great condition.  The only trail related issue is that City of Everett had the section of the sidewalk Milltown trail between just north of the boat launch and Baywood marked as closed and to use the other side of the road - except it was perfectly fine and the otherside of the road doesn’t even have a shoulder and is unsafe so not sure what that was all about.

Milltown continues to be an urban and sometimes industrial trail but with nice views of the water.  The addition of Baywood adds some really nice views of the Snohomish river.  Additionally at low tide like this morning it offers great views of the old wooden ship hulls that were lashed together and scuttled to create a breakwater in that area - super cool.  One quick note - Baywood doesn’t seem to have much signage yet - just turn north on the gravel trail just west of the big, new warehouse complex along W Marine View drive.  A bunch of wildlife out including a bunch of Osprey, and many seals in particular.  It’s really neat that the City of Everett was able to incorporate the new Baywood trail into the recent commercial redevelopment of that pier.  If you need a post walk “recovery beverage”, the new Sound 2 Summit brewpub is now open just north of the Navy base.  

Link to more info about Baywood Nature trail - https://www.portofeverett.com/environment/bay_wood.php

Link to more info about Milltown Trail - https://historiceverett.org/walkingtour/MillTownTrail.html

This is a great urban walk along the Everett waterfront with many options to extend or shorten your walk.  There are plenty of places to park along the route. For this walk, I parked at Legion Park and then followed along the waterfront, including a detour along the new Baywood Nature Trail that skirts the perimeter of a new warehouse building. You can grab a drink, snack, or meal at several newly opened places in the marina area. For the return, I climbed the stairs, crossed over the train tracks on the Grand Avenue Park Bridge, then followed Grand Avenue back to Legion Park. Along Grand Avenue are beautiful old homes. I made a quick side trip into Evergreen Arboretum and Gardens. Mileage: 5.24 miles

Have you been to the Everett waterfront recently? We walked there today on beautiful paths all around the Marina and past a nice park, a fountain,and lots of new restaurants and condos. We parked near the Grand Ave park and walked south from there, thru the little pocket park and pea patch. The pea patch was fun, lush, green with flowers and ripe veggies. We crossed the bridge by the old paper mill and walked north along Marine View drive past the Navy base and turned in to the trail just past the base entrance. Those of you veterans would appreciate the 2 destroyers in port right now, and we were early enough to hear Revelle and the national anthem played. We followed all the walkways until we got to the northern end, then turned around. The old Weyerhaeuser office building has been restored and is now open, coffee in the morning, whiskey bar in the evening. It is beautiful inside with refinished old wood (probably old growth from all the stumps we see on hikes) and lots of historical photos. Some of us are old enough to remember when the paper mill was running and how it smelled! We had to stop and have coffee here. I had to be at Providence at 11, so we finished our route by getting our elevation in for the day on the stairs going up to Grand Park. A total of 6.5 miles in all, but I needed more for hikeathon, so after the appt at Providence, I walked another 2.5 thru the old neighborhood around the hospital for a grand total of 9, only 7 more until I reach my goal of 100. Oh yeah, there are lots of nice restrooms on this walk 

Muledeer my fundraiser for WTA

Chilly early morning walk along the Milltown Trail on the Everett waterfront.  We parked at the beach/park parking lot just south of the big boat launch, (free 2 hr parking).  Our route was south along the water, climbing up to Grand Avenue Park on cool new pedestrian bridge, down Grand Ave to 25th and back along the Mill Town trail up to the boat launch with a few side excursions out onto the piers and up to the north and south Port Gardner view areas along W Marine View.  Mileage was just over 5.  The brand new restrooms at the big boat launch are now open and in great shape.  No specific trail issues though the wooden bits of the piers can be super slippery when frosty. 

Not an overwhelming amount of wildlife out today but there were some various ducks, gulls, cormorants, etc.  Super nice views of both Mt Baker to the north and Olympics to the west in the clear, blue sky this morning.  Interestingly, it was cold enough to start the brackish water in the marina to start freezing over - never seen that before!  Quite a bit of rail and naval traffic for a Sunday morning - several trains and a fair number of commercial vessels out.  Looks like Everett Ship Repair is working on the Cathlamet ferry (the one that bashed into the Fauntleroy dock a while ago) and the USAV Yaquina, a large modern dredge used by the Army Corp of Engineers to keep marine channels open.  A beautiful morning walk with lots to see.