It was actually the muddiest I've ever seen.
So I turned around, walked up out and past my car, and kept going to the beach. It was nice.
I had a couple of cool animal encounters. As I was heading down the access road that leads to the beach, an otter started to cross it up ahead of me. She was coming from a big walled-in area that's got a giant pile of rubble in it, and when she saw me, she jumped and ran back in there. I looked in there and spotted a little cave in the rubble and figured that's where she hid out. Unfortunately she was too fast and I couldn't get a picture.
I came back up to the car via the small gulch trail that connects the waterfront to the main road above, and when I turned a corner on the path, a huge bird sitting on the ground a few feet away jumped up and flew away. At first I thought shewas an owl, but I managed to get a photo and am pretty sure she's an osprey.
It occurs to me looking at this picture that I could bypass the muddy trail on the right by following the little path by the tracks.
I've never walked up there because the tracks have signs saying that the trains carry extra-wide loads, but the only time I've ever seen a train there was in the afternoon. Something to consider.
2.96 miles in 58 minutes, 6,357 steps, 228ft gain
It's funny how I was thinking it hadn't rained super hard in a few days, because it started to as soon as I got in the car to go home.
I saw City of Mukilteo Proposal of Land Use Action signs at the parking area and the bottom of the lower trail, but didn't want to try to read everything there. Thankfully you can look everything up online and it looks like there are big plans for the gulch! I'm sure all of this will take years if it happens, but one of the pictures is of a very well-graveled center trail, and that excites me.
