Jake Jaramillo - Seattle Stairway Walks: An Up-and-Down Guide to City Neighborhoods

SEATTLE

STAIRWAY WALKS

To Norman and Sheila, with whom we spent many hours of happy discovery along the stairways of Los Angeles; and Adah Bakalinsky, who wrote the book.

The Mountaineers Books

is the nonprofit publishing arm of The Mountaineers, an organization founded in 1906 and dedicated to the exploration, preservation, and enjoyment of outdoor and wilderness areas.

1001 SW Klickitat Way, Suite 201, Seattle, WA 98134

2013 by Jake Jaramillo and Cathy Jaramillo

All rights reserved

First edition: first printing 2013, second printing 2013, third printing 2014

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Manufactured in China

Copy Editor: Jane Crosen

Cover and Book Design: Peggy Egerdahl

Cartographer: Pease Press Cartography

All photographs by Cathy Jaramillo unless otherwise noted.

Cover photograph: The 38th Avenue stairs in Madrona

Frontispiece: The Galer stairs from Queen Anne Boulevard

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jaramillo, Jake.

Seattle stairway walks : an up-and-down guide to city neighborhoods / by Jake and Cathy Jaramillo.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-59485-677-8 (pbk) ISBN 978-1-59485-678-5 (ebook)

1. Seattle (Wash.)Tours. 2. WalkingWashington (State)SeattleGuidebooks. 3. StairsWashington (State)SeattleGuidebooks. I. Jaramillo, Cathy. II. Title.

F869.S5945J37 2012

917.9777204dc23

2012018924

ISBN (paperback): 978-159485-677-8
ISBN (ebook): 978-59485-678-5

CONTENTS

LEGEND
	Route on Street
	Route on Stairway
	Featured Path
	Optional Street
	Optional Stairs
	Optional Path
	Other Stairway
	Other Path
	Water
	Park
	Other Public Land
	Large Building
	Street
	Major Street
	Highway
	Freeway
	Interstate Highway
	State Highway
	Start/Finish
	Separate Finish
	Restrooms
	Picnic Area
	Bridge
	Point of Interest
	Numbered Directions

SEATTLE STAIRWAY WALKS BY MILEAGE WITH STEPS

INTRODUCTION: SCENIC BYWAYS OF THE CITY

W ithout doubt Seattle has some of the most complicated and beautiful urban topography in the country. First-time visitors are sometimes surprised by this, but most locals are used to living with natural barriers all around: hills, like Capitol Hill and Queen Anne; bluffs, like those overlooking Lake Washington and Puget Sound; canyons, like Ravenna Ravine and Deadhorse Canyon; and multiple bodies of water like Green Lake, Lake Union, and the Ship Canal.

This complicated topography gives Seattle a distinctive look and feel, and it also makes for lots of stairways, many of them constructed more than a century ago. Stairways used to perform a workaday function in neighborhoods all over town, getting people from house to trolley stop in the morning, and back at night. Since then theyve become our neighborhood scenic byways, and this book is all about exploring them. On these stairway routes youll find there isnt one best view in the city. Youll see great views and make new discoveries around every cornermaybe even your own!

Its fascinating how Seattle got to be like this. Long before there was a city here or anywhere else, this area was entombed under a three-thousand-foot-deep sheet of ice. It seems that massive continental ice flows came and went at least four times over a two-million-year period. The last episode left a deep impression as it retreated, fourteen thousand years ago, gouging and smashing and spitting out a jumbled landscape. The natural channels and barriers that were left behind have shaped our urban layout and deeply affect our experience in the city. This place feels physically intricate and intimate, full of nooks and crannies just waiting to be discovered.

Of course, cultural and historical factors played a big role, too. In 1853 the United States established the Northwest Territory, naming Isaac Stevens as first territorial governor. Stevens quickly went to work opening the territory to settlement and development. He used a variety of tactics, some underhanded, some violent, to push the areas first human inhabitants, the Puget Salish people, to reservations across the Sound. This left the field open for settlement, centered at first on logging and milling. Coal mining made a brief appearance on the east side of Lake Washington. Small, widely scattered, and hastily built hamlets sprang up around these operationsfuture nodes of a city of neighborhoods.