Marine Park to Arroyo Bridge

Bellingham Bay at Marine Park

Today was supposed to be extremely hot, but low clouds greeted me when I woke and looked outside. Although it's early afternoon and all those clouds are now gone, Melanie and I were able to walk from Marine Park to the Arroyo Park bridge without experiencing too much heat. It was downright lovely for most of the hike.

Interurban trail and first rays of sunlight

It's a beautiful place to be, and Melanie and I decided to start at Marine Park and walk down the Interurban trail until we got to the cutoff to Arroyo Park and take a look at the bridge that has been out of commission for more than a year.

Bridge over Chuckanut  Creek

Although at this time of the year, there is hardly any water in the creek, it's an important area for the salmon run in the spring. And on the other side of the bridge, you can access the Arroyo Park acreage for plenty of wonderful hikes. Mostly, people have been getting there by walking across the rocks in the creek, which is so low now that it's not a problem. We stopped here and turned around to go back the way we had come.

Berries on Mountain Ash

Although most of the flowers I'm seeing today are late summer or early fall ones, I have always loved the look of the mountain ash, whose leaves turn bright yellow and orange in the fall, in contrast to the red berries. It's nice to look at year round.

We ended up walking almost seven miles and 500 feet of elevation gain and loss, not much in the scheme of things, and so different from last week's steep trek to Lost Lake. Today we spent the entire morning enjoying the mild weather, which has definitely morphed to HOT since the clouds left. But I'm inside and feeling the breeze coming from a fan. Tomorrow is supposed to be the beginning of the end of this latest heat wave. I'm ready!

:-)