Soos Creek State Salmon Hatchery

Location: Auburn.

Length: About a quarter of a mile.

Level of difficulty: Level pavement at hatchery with uneven ground in revegetated area.

Setting: The Soos Creek hatchery has been in existence for about 100 years. Chinook salmon have been returning to this location for several weeks now, with the coho run just beginning. A holding pen in Soos Creek (which flows into the Green River just downstream) behind the hatchery teems with salmon. Young fish are raised in tanks inside the building, and displays just inside the door and at an outdoor kiosk explain hatchery operations. For the next several weeks on Mondays and Wednesdays, you can see the hatchery workers harvesting the eggs from selected salmon for fertilization.

Highlights: Just down the road at the Green River bridge, a citizens group called the Soos Creek Area Response has been restoring the strip of land that lies between the road and the river. Native plants have been planted to provide erosion control and habitat, and interpretive signs describe the stream environment.

Facilities: Restrooms and water at hatchery.

Restrictions: People and pets should stay out of streams during spawning season and in the spring, so as not to disturb salmon redds (nests) in the river gravel. In the revegetated area, avoid trampling plantings or standing too close to the riverbank and causing it to collapse.

Directions: From Interstate 5 in Federal Way, take Highway 18 east to Auburn. Take the second exit (Auburn-Black Diamond Road) and at the bottom of the exit ramp, turn right. Where the road forks soon afterward, keep left on the Auburn-Black Diamond Road, cross a bridge over the Green River, and in about a quarter mile, turn left into the hatchery. To explore the revegetated strip along the river near the bridge, park on the shoulder and use caution along this busy highway.

Information: Call the hatchery at 253-931-3950, see www.wa.gov/wdfw/hat/hat-main.htm or call Dennis Clark at 206-296-1909. The hatchery is open daily from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

Cathy McDonald is coauthor with Stephen Whitney of "Nature Walks In and Around Seattle," with photographs by James Hendrickson (The Mountaineers, second edition, 1997).