Interlaken Park trails

Location: Seattle.

Length: Over a mile of trails/paved road.

Level of difficulty: Level-to-steep gravel trail (muddy in spots, especially the upper southern trail). From the trailhead, take the right (northern) trail to follow the stream ravine down to Interlaken Boulevard (a paved pedestrian road within the park). Return via the boulevard, or access the southern trail that enters the woods just up the road from where the northern trail emerges.

Setting: Welcome the New Year with a walk in this enchanting forested ravine steeped in Seattle history. Interlaken Boulevard was the main path during the 1890s for bikes and buggies to get from Capitol Hill to the boulevards of Lake Washington. In 1903 the path itself was approved by the Olmsted Brothers Landscape Architects as a boulevard route, and became a popular walkway and, later, an auto route. Walkers, cyclists and joggers make this pedestrian road appear to be as popular a place for a stroll as it was 100 years ago. The sound of a jogger's footsteps coming up behind you could easily be imagined as the clop-clop of a handsome bay colt pulling the latest in buggies.

Highlights: Where the southern loop of the trail emerges onto Interlaken Boulevard, note the large conifers across the street with deeply furrowed red bark and flat needles. Neither Douglas firs nor hemlocks, these surprising specimens are coast redwoods, planted in a few parks in Seattle around the beginning of the last century.

Facilities: None.

Restrictions: Leash and scoop laws in effect for pets. Bikes on paved surfaces only.

Directions: From Interstate 5, take Highway 520 east to the Montlake Boulevard exit. Turn south off the exit ramp onto Montlake/24th Avenue East. In about a dozen blocks, turn right on East Crescent Drive, and drive up the hill to the intersection of East Galer Street and 19th Avenue East. Park on local streets; Interlaken Drive East, which becomes the pedestrian boulevard farther down the hill, also offers a few parking spots.

For more information: 206-684-4075 or www.cityofseattle.net/parks/parkspaces/interlak.htm or www.pscs.org/%7Eswittman/foi.htm

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