Wonderful Weather, Water -- Pretty Opening Day For Magnolia Pool

------------------------------- Outdoor pools opening

"Pop" Mounger Pool, at 2535 32nd Ave. W., will be open seven days a week until Sept. 19. Colman Pool, Seattle's other outdoor pool and only heated saltwater pool, will open Saturday. For more information, call 206-684-4708. -------------------------------

With a running start and a "Whooo! Hooo! First ones in . . ." Hana Broadbent, age 3 1/2, her dad and grandpa got wet.

"We've been planning this about a month," said her dad, Doug.

"Pop" Mounger Pool in Seattle's Magnolia neighborhood - the city's newest and only public outdoor freshwater pool - opened yesterday, under some of the area's first summerlike skies.

The National Weather Service forecasts the gorgeous weather will hold in the Seattle area today, with temperatures in the low 80s, and through tomorrow, with high temperatures from 70 to 80.

Whooo! Hooo!

Mounger is the Magnolia community's pride and joy, a symbol of its spirit and the latest in design. Completed in the spring of 1998, it was Seattle's first new public pool in more than 20 years.

And even though it was open only part of the season, Mounger was the busiest of all 10 pools operated by the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department last summer.

"It really has become a community gathering place," said Kathy Whitman, citywide aquatics manager.

The pool's features make it especially inviting to children and people with disabilities.

Opening day, for example, drew all kinds of folks, from the very young to a newly retired woman who had moved to Magnolia in part because of the water aerobics offered in the heated pool.

"I'm trying to build my stamina after breast-cancer surgery," she said.

Forget purple lips and goose-bump legs. This pool is warm, rain or shine. The project consists of two bodies of water, and a locker room with bathrooms and showers.

The Big Pool, heated to 85 degrees, is 25 yards long with five lap lanes, a 50-foot corkscrew slide and maximum depth of 6 1/2 feet. The Little Pool is 3 1/2 feet at the deepest and heated to 93 degrees for warm-water teaching and therapy.

The surface of the water laps flush with the deck, making it look like a crystalline lake. Stairs are extremely gentle.

An adjacent fenced-in grassy area for picnicking will open soon. There's even a refrigerated candy-bar machine. No more chocolate fingers.

The project cost $2.1 million. Well over $1 million of that came from Metro to compensate the Magnolia community for the negative effects of building a sewage-treatment plant at Discovery Park.

An additional $50,000 was from a King County grant. The community also raised money, with dinners, T-shirt sales and name tiles, now set in concrete around the pool's deck.

Some of them read "Juliet, One Great Cat in Loving Memory . . . The Hiroshi Kasaharas 50th anniversary . . . In Loving Tribute to Our Kids Birth Families." And what seems like a zillion start out "Pop's Grandchild or Great Grandchild. . . ." Marsha King's phone message number is 206-464-2232. Her e-mail address is: mking@seattletimes.com