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The Renton YRE has been high on my list of walks to try due to the lovely description in Starting Point "Marked trail along Lake Washington Blvd into Gene Coulon Park. Lake trail in park."
The Lake Washington walk on the other side of the lake (Seattle YRE 1561) is one of my favorite walks, and this sounded like more of the same.
This walk is quite nice, and it is a very appropriate walk for a winter's evening because the park trail is well-lit. As you can see in the few pictures I have, the sun set not long after I started the walk and I had no problems.
The walk initially wanders around Gene Coulon Park, a good-sized waterfront park that has a beach, tennis courts, a playground, snackbar and restrooms. The walk then uses a park waterfront trail to head north.
The trail was obviously well-used by local walkers and runners. We passed several people out for their evening exercise. It follows the water with nice landscaping, some footbridges and -- very important -- nice, big lights.
After several kilometers the trail, and the park, end. The walk directions take you outside the park and through some residential streets to Lake Washington Blvd where you walk on a marked bike/pedestrian path.
This portion of the walk is less scenic than the park and lake, but it wasn't bad. Lake Washington Blvd is a big road but the traffic, on a Wednesday rushhour, was not super busy and it was overall a pleasant area to walk in. Having a walk lane, rather than a road shoulder, helped as well.
You walk along Lake Washington Blvd until you reach an overpass, then turn around and return along the same path to the park and through it to the parking area.
This was a shortish, pleasant walk that I would do again. The only down point is that the start box is in a residential area. You pick up the directions and then drive to Gene Coulon park for the walk. It took me much longer to get down 405 to the start point then I counted on -- the traffic was bad and the exit further than I'd anticipated. Having to pick up directions and then come back up 405 to do the walk was irritating, especially since I was running out of daylight. There were several eating/gas establishments close to the turn around point on this walk that would have been a better choice. One recommendation is to call the point of contact for directions and do the walk before heading to the start point for your stamps.
On the positive side, the start box offered free "B" awards and some were quite nice. Thanks to the Global Adventurers for this waterfront YRE.
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