Roaring Thunder - Discovery Park

On Tuesday the 31st, we went to Seattle!

See the Space Needle! Do touristy stuff!

Specifically, we went to see POMPEII: The Exhibition at the Pacific Science Center (which goes on until May 25th). They had lots of nifty artifacts recovered from the city...

Decently bad-ass looking Gladiator get-up

 ...and also a few of the casts of the people who died there.

This was sufficiently depressing, actually.

It's a fairly long drive to Seattle, though, so we needed to find something else to do there before driving all the way home. Between tulips and the exhibition, we were feeling poor so we needed something cheap or free. When we got the idea to do some hiking, it was sunny when we started!

Discovery Park

Seattle Parks & Rec

Distance: 3 miles

Elevation Gain: ~240 ft

Discovery Park is the largest city park in Seattle. There are tons of trails! Fortunately, the trailhead was well-stocked with maps that came in very hand as we tried to make our way from the North Parking Lot to West Point. I chose North Parking Lot as my Google recon indicated this may have been the most opportune parking spot (my recon also noted that weekends tend to see the lots fill up, which is partly why we chose to make our trip on a weekday).

The husband navigating the map.

The trail junctions are fairly well marked, though there's just so many of them it can still be intimidating to find the right one. We didn't start seeing signs for the "Lighthouse" for nearly a mile out.

Where the f**k are we going?!?!

Actual conversation on the trail with another couple we met:

Other Hiker: "Hey, do you know where this trail goes?"
Me: "Nope. We have no idea where we're going either."
Other Hiker: "Alright. Well, good luck."
Me: "You too!"

Also for a heads up, you go over a hill. So you climb up, and then down, both directions. The west side was notably steeper.

But there are stairs!

Even though there were blue skies when we left Seattle Center, things had grayed over by the time we got to the trailhead, and we started hearing a low rumbling. It was either something from the nearby industrial area, Mt. Rainier going Vesuvius on us, or a thunder head.

By the time we broke out of the woods by the West Point Water Treatment Facility, it was clear.

Or rather, it was no longer clear.

The clouds were loud. We get a lot of rain in the PNW, but thunderstorms aren't the most common.

Still, it made for some excellent shots once we reached the lighthouse!

Look at those rain bands!

Dramatic clouds!

I'm particularly proud of this one. The husband still managed to sneak in on the far right:

Drama clouds!

I poked around the lighthouse while the husband went to the beach to skip rocks.

Or at least, he made a good attempt at rock-skipping.

One last shot of the lighthouse!

Unfortunately on the way back, the storm caught up with us. It didn't pour down too bad while we were hiking, but it was definitely preparing to get worse before getting better.

We then spent about an hour trying to figure out how the hell to get back to I-5. The GPS took us some interesting directions, and I kept wondering why I kept seeing so many cars covered in snow. Turns out, some neighborhoods must have gotten hammered with hail pretty good. It looked like almost two inches on some cars!

I'd love to explore more of the park. Taking the North Beach Trail back around looked tempting, but the weather just wasn't cooperating. We only managed 3 miles but there are definitely so many other trails that you could just add on to make it longer.