Seattle Urban Thru-hike: Queen Anne
I woke up in Luna Sandal’s headquarters in Queen Anne. Despite being a retail space, it feels like a home. My friend Lindsay “Marmot,” who also lives in Queen Anne, came by and we enjoyed some coffee and pastries at the local coffee shop. I must say, I knew Seattle would have a great café options but it is blowing my mind how good every shop is!
The day started with the Queen Anne loop I was supposed to do last night. I learned very quickly that once again, the route did not go as easily as it looks on a map. A busy highway named Aurora intersected my loop route. I had designed the route thinking I could cross Aurora whenever I needed to, but it turned out there were limited arteries—overpass bridges—where this was possible. I had to adjust the route on the fly. To make matters worse, some construction closed the eastern sidewalk along Aurora making some stairs inaccessible (and no way to walk around the sidewalk that didn’t involve walking in 60 mph traffic).
A highlight of the loop was walking under Aurora next to a beautiful mural only to climb a very steep, hidden hill right after. We were able to slack pack this loop and I felt so lucky to not have to carry a pack up the steep hills of Queen Anne.
When we returned to Luna, Barefoot Ted gave us a tour of the factory and how Luna’s are made. He offered to let us continue to slack pack Queen Anne, which was a blessing. We continued to the top of the hill, where I saw kids dressed in Halloween costumes. I was hungry and one child in particular caught my eye: she was dressed like a taco. Luckily, we headed down to the street Queen Anne that not only had a drinking fountain at the end of the stairway, but had bakeries and shops. I got a croissant at Le Revel, which appeared to be a good choice. (Vivian, a veritable Seattle pastry connoisseur, gave her thumbs up).
All the time we went through Queen Anne, I feared going over the Fremont Bridge. It was so huge and intimidating and cars moved so far. Luckily, the Fremont bridge that we went over was a shorty bridge that looked almost made for pedestrians. Painted a festive blue and orange, this old timey bridge was such a welcome gateway to the Fremont community. If I could do the trip again, I would’ve hung out in Fremont for hours. We were hungry and scored at a “grab and go” pie place that blew our minds.
Of course, a highlight of Fremont was the Fremont Troll. I saw a reference to it in one my data sources but assumed the word “troll” was some bridge building term or maybe a shipping term. I figured it meant some way to bend steel or reinforce concrete. But sure enough, I went towards the Fremont Troll and that’s exactly what it was—a 80 feet large statue of a troll holding a car in its hand. The car looks miniscule, but it’s a life size VW beetle. There were tourists under the bridge, but they loved watching Virgo and I film the troll with his camera.
We returned to Fremont and walked Leahy Blvd for a long time. I had to pee and was getting hungry. Virgo said “Snorkel, you mentioned earlier that if we pass a brewery, we have to stop. Do you still agree with that?” I told him I did, despite being worried for time. “Good,” he said. ‘There’s one right there.” We stopped at Halle’s and the entire time we were enjoying a beer, it poured. As soon as we left, the rain had stopped!
We continued to the Ballard Bridge and went up some stairs that were like the Bridge of the God—a steel that you could see through. It was very freaky. Despite the stories I had heard about how pedestrian friendly the Ballard Bridge is, it actually was a pretty narrow walking area that was shared between bikes and walkers. We stopped every time a bike came—many bike commuters showing up in costume.
The stairs around the Ballard Bridge south entrance were numerous and confusing—but we got them all. We continued up through the Inner Bay neighborhood—a food desert of stairs going up and down. I got so delirious I was having trouble navigating in the dark. As we came close to the end, Vivian gave me a cookie, which helped.
A highlight was passing a Halloween house that was decked out in grand decorations. It turned out it was the old Masonic Temple. We stopped and chatted with the decorators, who said it was a party/fundraiser for a woman with MS to get a therapy dog. I briefly thought about stopping, but decided to press on.
We made it back to Luna just in time. I was so thankful that Ted let us back in and felt bad making him come back to work on a Friday night. The Queen Anne stairs just took so much longer that I expected. It started raining, but Vivian’s husband picked her up and was able to take us to food and my friend Meredith’s house. We were so exhausted that I could barely speak, and felt bad I couldn’t articulate much to Ted about all the things we’d seen that day.
I passed out quickly at Meredith’s, though was happy to talk with her briefly. The rain continued and I was worried about the next day’s forecast and how I’d make up the miles from the last Innerbay stairs. Nonetheless, I left soundly knowing that Lindsay and my friend Allgood would join us soon.
Photos by Virgo, who is joining me on the hike and collecting footage for a film on urban thru-hiking.
