Seattle Urban Thru-hike West Seattle

I I Started the Seattle urban hike today at the crack of noon. It was raining (no surprise), and I started at a random West Seattle neighborhood. The rain was on and off and after a mile, it took a lot of willpower to avoid stopping at the first coffee shop I saw (which also sold homemade ice cream). But I knew I had miles to make, and at this time of year, the daylight doesn’t last for long.

A real highlight of the day was walking in the neighborhoods looking out on the ocean. Towards the end of the day, I looked from West Seattle towards downtown at the Skyline.

The most memorable stairway was the multi-streeted Genessee stairs. Miguel “Virgo” Aguilar is filming my urban hike and he told me stories of running in the neighborhood nearby.

The sketchiest road crossing I had to do was right as cars were coming off the West Seattle Bridge during rush hour. It was getting dark and there was a turn in the road. Despite a stairway on either side of the road, there was no crosswalk. Who designed that???

We walked the West Seattle Bike Trail from West Seattle into downtown and it felt so cool to walk on a route that I know so many people commute on. The City had even installed a bike counter that showed how many people had bike commuted the route per day and what that added up to in a year. We tried to set off the bike counter with our feet, but nothing happened. It’s so cool to see that many people to opt out of driving that distance and keeping that tailpipe pollution out of the air.

I still had a few stairs in the Pioneer Square area to hit up, but decided to wait until the morning. Walking downtown during the Sounders game was an experience—a real highlight—and I didn’t want to look for stairs in the dark. As we walked past the stadium, we could hear the crowds cheering. I finished the night at restaurant where we watched the game finish with people from the City. Although I have only been in the city a few hours, the experience of walking 23 miles through it was enough to make me feel like the victory was mine as well.