Stairwalk 5: Northgate

I’d actually been really looking forward to this walk. As one of the longest in the book, it crossed a large neighborhood that I don’t know well, but that I think of fondly as there are some unique things near it, like the cake decorating store, the Iranian cafe I like, an Indonesian restaurant that is tasty. I was also curious to actually see the development around the Thorton Creek day-lighting at Northgate, which was in all the papers a couple years back.

As it turns out, this walk was exceedingly boring, through neighborhoods with no sidewalks and mostly shabby, uninspiring ranch homes. The many nature areas the walk passes through were much to muddy to walk in due to the heavy month of rain. As my walking pal said afterward, “This is the only walk that I actually don’t feel better afterward.”

Perhaps in the summer this walk would be much nicer. You could get a bit of shade in the little parks along the way, you could stop for sushi at Northgate, the P-Patch would be full of things to look at. However, in the middle of winter, this is not a walk worth doing twice and I found it depressing.