Soaring Eagle Regional Park — Wednesday, Apr. 16, 2025

Walked the Soaring Eagle trails Wednesday morning in the sunshine.  Parking at the main lot is free though somewhat limited, however there is additional street parking outside the lot, plus a second small trailhead on the southern border of the property where Trossaches Blvd SE dead ends.  The main lot currently has a single serviceable sanican.  Our route was a messy clockwise loop for a total of just about 5.0 miles with limited uppy downy of just 375’ gross vertical.  The trails are largely in great shape - folks really have put in a bunch of time to update and clear all the drainages plus buck up all the downed trees from the storms several months ago - super kudos.  There are a couple little stream crossings but nothing even small kids couldn’t get across just fine.  Trail signage remains great - a map at nearly every junction.  Note, trails are open to mountain bikers though I didn’t see any today.  There is a bit of lawn mower/leaf blower noise when closer to the housing developments but the middle of the property is beautifully quiet save for some bird song and light breezes through the trees.  

Wildlife was largely limited to some common birds and a handful of little brown squirrels though did hear a number of tree frogs and saw some deer tracks.  The big show today was all the beautiful little pink bleeding heart flowers - millions of them all over.  There are some nice meadows of bright yellow oregon grape blooms and some trillium still out as well.  Much of the forest is beautiful big leaf maple though becomes more mixed towards the SE corner.  Also keep an eye out for several pretty little forest ponds, several large boulders that look like they could be glacial erratics and a really interesting abandoned canal/ditch that runs through the property - not sure what it is, maybe logging related.  A really nice little forest walk with lots to see.