Salmon Creek Greenway

2.5 miles of hiking • 0' elevation gain •

I needed to get out and get some fresh air, and also wanted to stay close to home as my neck wasn't feeling great. The Salmon Creek Greenway is only a mile from my home, so it fit the bill!

I got there and was a bit surprised that so many people were out given the heavy rain was flooding all the creeks/rivers. My first impression was that Salmon Creek was way high and very turbulent. I started walking the greenway trail and soon found the creek had swallowed the trail near the softball fields! I then had to walk through the ball field to bypass this flooded segment of the trail. The oxbows in Salmon Creek were essentially gone and the creek must have been 200-400+ feet wide (I'm terrible at estimating distance)! The portion of the greenway past the ball fields was totally clear for the next 0.5+ miles until it was again swallowed up by the creek! There was no obvious way around this flooded area so I turned around. The greenway was covered with water just past the 1 mile designation on the asphalt. I was fortunate enough to see a Great Blue Heron that was fishing at the end of this trail! I saw it catch about four small fish and had watched it for about 10 minutes. This bird was huge and I estimate it must have been 3.5-4 feet tall!

There still seemed to be plenty of open grass areas south of this segment of the trail for walking dogs or making a small loop from the asphalted trail. This was quite a site to behold and I'm glad there wasn't any flooding (that I heard of) as a result!