While a network of historic social trails used to exist in this area, many of the trails were wiped out by residential development. Through the help of the Washington Trails Alliance, this new, sustainable point-to-point trail was built. "One of the highlights of the trail is a beautiful 40-foot long, hand-built bridge spanning Canyon Creek," according to WTA.org. The WTA also helped construct a massive 600-foot-long boardwalk to help trail users traverse over a swampy area without doing any environmental damage. The amount of time, effort, and money invested in this suburban gem of a trail is impressive!

The current Grand Ridge Park Trail is a relatively mellow trail with some short—but steep—climbs. Overall, this new multi-use trail is quite smooth and flowy, with well-built switchbacked corners, grade reversals, delightful black PNW dirt, and of course, the aforementioned bridgework! Runners can either follow a route combination simil to the one mapped here to maximize the mileage in Grand Ridge Park, or they can simply hike a shorter out-and-back on the trail. Finally, additional trails in the West Tiger area can be added on to the southern end of the network to create a much longer trail run.

The creation of the new Grand Ridge Park Trail has opened up a plethora of amazing trail run route combinations. Get out and explore them all!

Sources: https://www.kingcounty.gov/services/parks-recreation/parks/trails/backcountry-trails/grand-ridge.aspx evergreenmtb.org/trails/grand-ridge https://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/grand-ridge-park