Meadowdale Beach Park

An early morning hike in Meadowdale Beach Park today.  This is a popular trail - it appears in virtually all of my books of hikes in and around Seattle - and is only about a 20 minute drive away from my place.  It's one I've done before a long time ago, and I remembered that you have to time it for the low tide in order to be able to access the beach.  It's not particularly long at only about 3 miles round trip, and it's quite a pleasant walk that goes downhill through some nice forest before you go under a railway track and you reach the beach and the views looking out over Puget Sound.  However, the first 1/2 mile of the trail is very downhill, which makes for quite an intense workout heading back up to the car.  And it's busy.  I got there about 8 am, thinking it wouldn't be too bad at that time, and the parking lot was already full and I was thankful to actually get a spot.  And I didn't care much for the other trail users - I wasn't expecting to see so many Chinese, who exhibited the same annoying habits they do in my workplace (think loud, obnoxious and disrespectful - I even saw a Chinese woman going to toilet in the outdoors, even though there was a restroom just 50 yards away from her at the end of the trail), plus my pet peeve (literally) - dog owners taking their dog off the leash when they shouldn't do.  But even on a cloudy morning, it was a good way to start the day.