Boeing Creek Park

Hike Length: 2 miles
Elevation Gain: 200’
Hike Difficulty: easy
Map: City of shoreline street map
hike overview map


Boeing Creek Park is a small but interesting wildland located near Shoreline Community College. The park occupies a deep, heavily wooded canyon with a sizable flowing stream. As you might have guessed, the park is named after the founder of a certain well-known jet aircraft manufacturer, who used to own a considerable plot of land here, which he used as a personal retreat.

I’ve perhaps violated one of my own guidebook ground rules by including such a small park, but the place is pretty and bus access is easy. You can easily fill several pleasurable hours wandering about the park’s dense network of trails.

Getting There:

From downtown Seattle (1st and University or 3rd and Pine), ride the M5 to the end of the line at Shoreline College. Avoid the M5 buses that go to Northgate.

Weekend bus service is available.

The Hike:

From the bus stop at the south end of Shoreline Community College (SCC), head north through the center of the campus, which comprises a collection of low-rise modernistic buildings. Eventually you emerge at the faculty parking lots ringing the north end of the campus. Walk around the right (east) side of a playfield with an oval running course. At the end of a paved parking area, trails head into the woods of Shoreview/Boeing Creek Park (Technically, the area south of the creek is called “Shoreview Park” and the area north “Boeing Creek Park”, but it’s all the same to the hiker).

Signage is completely absent from the trail system; just follow any path that strikes your fancy. One trail drops down to the shady depths of the Boeing Creek canyon, where there is a sizable, clear-running stream that supports a salmon run. The walls of the canyon are composed of layers of almost pure sand. A rough trail heads downstream along the canyon’s floor, sometimes crossing the creek on crude log bridges. Where a tributary creek comes in the from the north, a major trail climbs the hill into the “Boeing Creek Park” part of the wildland, offering more hiking opportunities. After a quarter mile or so, the creekside trail arrives at the shore of pretty Hidden Lake, A house occupies the far shore, which is on private land.

Beyond the lake, the main trail climbs up a slope, swings close by Innis Arden Way, then reaches the edge of the developed part of Shoreview Park, which features parking lots and playfields. Here you can follow a trail through the thickets of scotch broom lining the perimeter of the developed area to its east end, where more trails may be found that drop back down to the canyon and climb a wooded slope back to the SCC campus. When you are done exploring the park, walk back through the SCC to the bus stop at the south end of the campus.

Old guidebooks suggest you can follow a path from Innis Arden Way down Boeing Creek to the Puget Sound shore, but a massive fence blocks the way these days.

Getting Back

Return to Seattle on the M5 bus.

Rev 02.12.06