Walked the Bellevue Botanical Garden, Wilburton Hill and McTavish-Woodridge open space trails on this sprinkly first day of spring. I’d seen prior reports indicating no parking at McTavish, but noticed one of the access points is just a couple hundred yards off the south end of the botanical garden - so our route started a the gardens, over through Wilburton then crossed the the Lake Hills Connector road to get to the McTavish trailhead. Total mileage for all three ended up a bit over 4mi with gross vertical at about 550'. No facilities anywhere along McTavish, there is one open sanican in Wilburton next to the sports field. Wilburton and the botanical garden trails are all in great shape, the McTavish trails are fairly muddy, especially the higher, south line and much of it is that slick as snot glacial clay mud.
The botanical gardens are beautiful with spring buds and bulbs. Don’t miss the suspension bridge and Yao Garden. The McTavish trails show quite a bit of recent work, but they are still quite muddy, especially the higher southern piece - have to pay attention not to fall on your can. McTavish is a beautiful stretch of open second gen forest with maple, doug fir, cedar, cottonwood, etc. Saw our very first trillium of the season, plus skunk cabbage, salmonberry, and a variety of early spring birds. Lastly, the big Wilburton railroad trestle is visible from the south end of the botanical gardens - I really hope the King County folks can get this converted to pedestrian usage as planned. A beautiful walk on the first day of spring.
https://bellevuebotanical.org/
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