Miles: 4+ miles of looping trails from near Boeing Field to the Mukilteo waterfront.
Elevation Gain/Highest: 523ft /549ft
Favorite Eats After Hike: K Fresh, Sol Food, Soundbite Cider, or just Pack A Cooler. You can learn more about these places in my Must Hike Must Eat Eating Out Guide.
Find out current conditions and as always, practice Leave No Trace. Pretty please.
Hike Details:
Japanese Gulch is a set of multi-use loop trails located on a railroad gulch up from the Mukilteo waterfront to the Boeing plant and it offers hours of nature wandering in an urban setting. Anchored by the waterfront and a dog park on the lower north end and a community garden up on the south end, one can create a simple loop up on the ridge or weave up and down between the ridge and the railroad tracks for more elevation gain. The upper parking lot sits about 549 feet and the lower trailhead by the waterfront is at 26 feet but does not have a proper parking lot. Most people park at the dog park (98 feet) or the upper lot near the community garden.
Some highlights of the trail system are a viewpoint looking out over Possession Sound towards Mount Baker (visible on a clear day) and small water cascades on a babbling brook that runs down the between the railroad tracks and the ridge. A hodge podge of foot bridges (or not) cross at various points. Be warned that several trails were built for mountain biking and are for the more skilled of hikers.
My hikes:
3/19/2020
A friend asked to go hiking today and suggested the Gulch so I figured it was an opportunity to finish more of the trails I didn’t yesterday! This turned out to be a totally different hike.
Not only were there so many more people, our route had us on much narrower trail so it was hard to keep a good distance. And very few people seemed to care.
We started at the 76th trailhead like yesterday but headed down from the ridge at the beginning to make a big loop along the tracks, past the dog park and back up onto the ridge. Wow, there is definitely some trailwork to be done.
Not only the trees mentioned in a previous trip report, but most of the bridgework on the trail leading up from the dog park is sorely sloughing of the slope. A large slide has left nothing but a slim mud ledge in one section.
Add plenty of muddy spots in general with all the extra people and it was much more of an adventure than yesterday’s ridge loop ramble. I am so glad folks are getting outdoors but let’s leave room for each other. 🙂
10/1/2019
I had another great after work hike, I’m going to think of it as a “thru” of Japanese Gulch.
I parked this time at the dog park on 5th and hiked up to the ridge and across to the trailhead at 76th for a loop of 3.5 miles. It took a little over an hour and I hope I can get in a few more before daylight savings leaves us.
The trail had a few muddy patches and the climb up from 5th is on a trail with serious erosion on the outslope that makes it narrow at times and important to watch your step.
All the new trail signage makes it so much easier to navigate, even though I did pull out my GAIA a few times to make sure I was headed in the right direction. There are quite a few loops and side trails!
Had fun this time looking for the forest people…
Directions: There are multiple access points for Japanese Gulch with two main parking lots on the north and south sides of the park. The first up from the small town of Mukilteo, along 5th street up from the ferry (where Mukilteo Blvd intersects Mukilteo Speedway). It is signed for the dog park. The other parking lot is at the intersection of 76th and 44th streets closer to Boeing off SR526 at a community garden. There are portapotties at both, no parking pass needed.
Editor’s note: The Edgewater bridge just north of park on Mukilteo Blvd is closed for replacement until November of 2025 so the access from the north is not currently available.
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