Day One: The Gulch And A Great Beach

" Let's go on a hike," said my fourth-born. "A proper hike in the Cascade Mountains."

Yes, What a grand and glorious summer bucket list idea. So we brought out the mountain hiking guide books, studied and strategized, and laid in a plan for a thoroughly challenging hike to a mountain lake.

Little did we know the complications that were about to unfold.

Read the full adventure here:

Day One: The Gulch And A Great Beach
Day Two: Potholes, Boardwalks, And Another Beach
Day Three: More Potholes And A Perfect Alpine Lake

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Here's my dog, Gracie, prancing through the idyllic blue swells of Puget Sound at Edgewater Beach Park. This no-frills, nothing-but-the-glorious-beach destination is Mukilteo's lesser-known marine playground and for those of us happy with sand, sea, and sky, a perfect destination.

But this is not where I expected to be on this day.

The original plan was to hike in the mountains.

However, real life reared her ugly head and kept us in town till way past noon. Which left no time for a proper mountain hike.

So I proposed to my daughters a local hike up the steep grades of our hometown's own Japanese  Gulch, just a little outing to appreciate our surroundings and whet our appetites for the big-boy hike to come. And maybe also to give our quads some advance notice.

Seemed like the perfect way to spend a sunny August afternoon.

Until we actually got out on the trail. And this is what we found.

A narrow, dusty trail hung on the edge of the ravine. Stairs, railings, and boardwalks groaned as we passed over them, staring at us with broken boards, unseated supports, and missing teeth. Winding quickly uphill through a series of switchbacks, we plodded our way though the familiar sight of second-growth forest. An emerald canopy, to be sure, but nothing that we don't see every day.

Maybe our sights were set a bit higher on that alpine mountain hike we were craving. 

Maybe we are spoiled by hiking on top-quality trails. 

Maybe this just wasn't our day.

But alas, we were sadly unimpressed with Japanese Gulch. 

About a mile in, we decided to backtrack to the beach.

Specifically, to Edgewater Beach Park, 

Technically located in neighboring Everett, this small beach has been closed to car traffic for the past ten years, and recently reopened. Formerly the home of rusted-out fuel tanks and soon to be the linchpin in Mukilteo's new waterfront development plan, this new kid on the block park was worthy of a visit.

Though we could have hiked a five-minute bee's line from the Japanese Gulch trailhead through the lower part of the forest, we opted to drive a crooked mile down to the beach. And this is what we found. 

A perfect Pacific Northwest city beach, with all the trimmings:

A soft ridge of dunes met us at the parking lot, defining the edge of civilization and the beginnings of the beach.

Lush green grasses grew along the ridge and blew in the winds off the water.

Bleached beach logs, the ghosts of towering trees thrown up on the shore during fierce winter storms, offered us a maze of crosswalks and a series of seats to enjoy.

Suitably walkable small stones underfoot crunched agreeably under our feet as we walked along. 

Happy blue waves rushed up to meet us, and bowed down at the shore as we walked by.

In a word, the beach was heaven.

* * * * *

Gracie seemed to agree.

She pranced up and down the shoreline.

She stepped out chest deep into the waves.

She spotted any number of seagulls taunting her from the waves, and waded in after them just to show them who's boss:

And then my good girl posed for some beauty shots:

^ Ninety eight pounds of you-got-it-girl.

^ Maybe I was born with it. Maybe it's Maybelline.

^ I'm smizing. Can you tell?

^ Duck fuzz standing up on the top of my head? My signature look. 

* * * * *

And once we had done all those things, we turned around and did them all again. And again.

And when we humans were good and tired, just a tiny bit sunburned, and ravenously hungry, we coaxed our beach-loving pup out of the water one last time, and headed for home. 

Our plans for a mountain hike had definitely gone awry but we had every confidence that we would soon remedy that.

And so ended Day One.