We saw about a dozen signposts that had been recently installed. They promised that "Circle the City" would be coming soon. The sooner the better. This trail really needs something to make it more interesting.
Although the vegetation was quite dry, we did see a lot of hardwood trees, and they provided some welcome shade on the first segment of the walk. We saw an abundance of white berries. I believe they are snow berries. They are probably not edible, and they don't look very appetizing, anyway.
Judging by the prodigious number of rose hips, this would be a wonderful walk when the wild roses are in bloom.
Soon the river got closer to I-90 and the park became a narrow strip of land between the two. The sound of rushing traffic replaced the sound of rushing water.
There is a flood control project in this area, and we had to walk over a "watergate."
The water looks so harmless today, but there has been flooding here within the past couple of years.
When we reached Carey Lakes our trail went between the lake and the river and we got farther away from I-90 for a while.
At Carey Lakes:
We had our first problem with the instructions at this point. I misunderstood what the "green metal gate" was and basically tried to follow step 9 too soon. We missed a little bit of the trail as a result, but I don't think we missed anything very interesting.
At the far end of the lake we found a "Frolf" course.
As we came around the lake we reached a point where the path took us under I-90. At this point we found a solar array. (This was the turnaround point for the 5km walk. We opted for the 10km walk and kept going.)
We walked along a dike, part of the Reecer Creek Flood Plain Restoration Project.
Eventually we reached the Rotary Park Sports Complex - soccer fields, baseball fields, and some basketball courts. Everything was clean and well-maintained, even the restrooms.
For recycling:
We passed through West Ellensburg Park, a city park. It was adjacent to Rotary Park. From there we walked for about 6 blocks through a run down neighborhood where we provided entertainment for various dogs who considered us to be intruding on their territory. Then we returned to Rotary Park and continued back to the path under I-90.
As we emerged on the other side we ran into some more problems with the directions. We didn't understand step # 26 and thought it must have had a typo in it, so we went LEFT instead of RIGHT. It worked out ok, because you really can't get very lost here. We returned to our car using an alternate trail along the river, in accordance with the directions.
If you decide to do this walk, be sure to bring some water with you. I drank almost all of my water during the walk, as it was a warm day and abut 3/4 of the walk is out in the open.
Walk Route: C
Walk Instructions: D
Got lost twice. In addition, I think step 16 is incorrect.
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