Exploring the River Trail

One thing Seattle has a lot of is bicycle trails. The big one that I tend to touch on a lot of my rides is the Burke-Gilman trail, but until recently I hadn't actually been all the way from one end to the other. The Burke-Gilman is about 17 miles long from one end to the other, which would make it a 34 mile round trip. The thing is, I don't live at either end but rather I usually connect in somewhere near the middle. I've gone south and west to end up on the Seaview Avenue trail to Golden Gardens park, and I've gone north and east out to Kenmore, but I never made it quite to the end out that way. Had I realized before just how close I'd been...

Last week I decided to go north and east and just keep going until I ran out of trail. I got to where I'd been before and only went just a little past when I discovered that the Burke-Gilman ended and the Sammamish River Trail began. Actually, another trail started out near there, and I took it to the north first, only to turn around when it disappeared after about 3 miles. Then I figured that the Sammamish route should be tested.

Back toward the beginning of January, MG and I drove out to Woodinville to try to find a winery we could visit. We specifically wanted to go to the Chateau St. Michelle winery, and after figuring out that the GPS didn't really know Woodinville all that well I was able to backtrack and locate it. We did the tour and then joined the Vintner's Club, if only because they hold outdoor concerts in the summer for club members. And we aren't just talking about some unknown bands here. Last year they had (among others) both Elvis Costello and Diana Kraal, though surprisingly not at the same time. MG even surprised me on the trip home that day by saying that it was her goal to get on the tandem and get to where we can ride to some of the concerts this summer. I figured that the Burke-Gilman would be part of our route, but that we'd have to exit onto local roads to go the last several miles.

I was wrong. I found this out on my ride last week.

As I rode along the Sammamish River trail I figured that I would have to hit Google Maps when I got home to try to find out exactly where I'd been riding. That was before I suddenly realized "Hey, that building looks familiar." Sure enough, I was riding right past the winery grounds. What I thought would be several miles of Woodinville roads to reach it turned out to be just a 1/4 mile or so to go from the trail to the entrance. Serendipity strikes again.

Of course, it's going to take a while before we can do that ride. From our new house (we move in early next month) the ride out to the winery is about 15 miles one way. MG hasn't been riding for quite a long time, so we're going to have to build up to that kind of distance for her and then hope that she recovers enough at the concert to be able to ride back. I think we can do it, though. We've got 4 or 5 months to work with and we get the tandem back out of storage once we move.

Personally, I'm looking forward to it. Especially since I now know how to get there from the Sammamish River Trail.