Explore newly mapped trails in Seattle's largest contiguous forest

SEATTLE — Pop quiz: What is the largest contiguous stretch of forest in Seattle?

It's not Seward Park, Schmitz Preserve Park or Ravenna Woods. Correct answer: The West Duwamish Greenbelt stretches 550 acres along the eastern flank of West Seattle. But as the backdrop to the hive of heavy industry along the Duwamish Waterway, it feels like a patch of green hiding in plain sight.

Hilly Seattle is dotted with greenbelts from Queen Anne to Capitol Hill. These natural areas are too steep to build on and serve as vegetative buffers between hilltop neighborhoods and busy roadways below. In recent years, civic groups working in tandem with Seattle Parks and Recreation have adopted greenbelts and carved out trails to give city residents more access to these overlooked green spaces, which have also attracted encampments during Seattle's homelessness crisis. The Cheasty Greenspace mountain bike trails that opened last year are one example.

West Duwamish Greenbelt Trails is the all-volunteer group leading the charge for trail building, maintenance and restoration for this West Seattle greenbelt, building on over two decades of advocacy and stewardship by different civic groups.

Making navigational sense of this forested hillside became a lot easier late last year, when the group published the greenbelt's first official trail map with support from a $5,000 volunteer match grant from the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods. The map can be downloaded at st.news/Duwamish-Greenbelt and is also available on the Avenza Maps smartphone app.

"We drive a couple hours for a hike, but we can get a sense of the woods and wilds right here," said trails group volunteer Judy Bentley, a retired South Seattle College instructor.

Don't be fooled by this trail network's in-city location: Hiking the West Duwamish Greenbelt is not a walk in the park. Trails range from smoothly graded surfaces, suitable for a jogging stroller or wheelchairs with rugged tires, to rough-cut singletrack involving log crossings over wet patches and quasi-bushwhacks that wouldn't be out of place in the Cascades backcountry.

Fortunately, the group's map indicates trail quality. Unfortunately, completing any full loops or point-to-point routes will almost certainly entail stretches of more adventurous trail, so plan accordingly.

For an approachable, 2.5-mile sampler loop of what the West Duwamish Greenbelt has to offer, start at South Seattle College. The campus has ample parking and is also served by Metro Route 125 (the new RapidRide H Line also stops a few blocks away).

From the campus, head south and enter the trail network through a gate open Monday-Friday from dawn to dusk. Otherwise, you'll have to detour out and around to 16th Avenue Southwest and make your way to the trailhead at 14th Avenue Southwest/Southwest Holly Street. The trailheads quickly converge on a downhill route of improved trail that plunges immediately into the woods while salmonberry, trillium and nettles blanket the forest floor. Descend a set of granite stairs and pass Douglas fir saplings, signs of the restoration work by Seattle Parks and volunteer forest stewards.

In one-quarter to one-half mile, depending on where you entered, turn left onto the main north-south trail until you reach Lost Pond. In spring, the wetland swells to peak volume before turning boggy by late summer. Home to ducks, owls, hawks and raptors, this likely former gravel pit (Klinker Sand and Gravel Co. was active here earlier in the 20th century) is a testament to rewilding.

The improved trail ends here, so be prepared to scamper over logs and cross muddy stretches on improvised trail crossings. Passionate volunteers do their best to keep the trails passable in unimproved stretches, but often rely on anonymous trail users motivated to haul out a chain saw when deadfall blocks the way.

With leaves now festooning the tree canopy, the Duwamish Valley is largely shrouded, but the occasional smokestack pokes through, framed by Cascade views. Even if you can't see the cargo ships and rail yards below, the clanging sounds of industry compete with birdsong for your attention.

The trail eventually crosses soil mixed with cement kiln dust that was used as fill after a gravel and sand mining operation. The dust leaches arsenic, lead and mercury into the river below — one of the many sources of pollution that earned the Duwamish Waterway a Superfund designation by the Environmental Protection Agency. With support from a King County conservation grant, the trails group prepared a feasibility study for environmental remediation sufficient to allow construction of an improved trail through this stretch to connect with Puget Park to the north.

For now, at roughly your 2-mile mark, make a horseshoe and turn uphill to your left. Pass blackberry brambles and suddenly emerge into a field at the edge of the Seattle Chinese Garden. The transition from wild forest to manicured horticulture is a sudden contrast, but these neighbors share something in common: Both the trail network and garden are works-in-progress that underscore the yearslong effort to transform even a small landscape.

Take a rest in the soothing courtyard at the garden (open Tuesday-Friday 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Saturday-Sunday 10 a.m.-5 p.m.), a product of the Seattle-Chongqing sister city relationship that is planning to build a teahouse, cloud tower and scholar's studio.

As the map indicates, trailheads are sprinkled throughout upper and lower elevations of the greenbelt, so explore farther afield to Pigeon Point Park or Riverview Playfield. Hopefully next on the docket: The Ridge to River Trail will ascend the vertical rise of the greenbelt from the Duwamish Longhouse up to the Pathfinder K-8 School. West Duwamish Greenbelt Trails collaborated with Duwamish tribal councilman Ken Workman to identify and name natural landmarks, like the tree cluster Seven Cedars.

Working with the tribe who is the namesake of this trail system is a prime motivation for neighborhood resident Paul West, who works for the city of Mercer Island, to dedicate his spare time to his backyard.

"It was bold to locate the longhouse along the river," he said. "The tribe said, 'We're going to love this place even though it's been scarred by industry.' Their presence is what makes the difference."

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