Kirkland's Crown Jewels: Trail Guide Released on Finn Hill's Denny Park

The parklands on Finn Hill that protect one of the last slivers of virgin forest in Kirkland -- or anywhere in the Seattle area -- are the focus of a long-awaited new trail guide.

What most think of as O.O. Denny Park is actually three separate parks across 46 acres of Lake Washington shoreline and adjacent uplands on Finn Hill. And the new “OO Denny Park Trail Map” covers all two miles of path there, which weave from the lake uphill along Denny Creek, past stands of towering western red Cedar and Douglas fir and through deep-green forests strewn with sword and licorice ferns, salal and Oregon grape.

The guide is a collaboration of the Finn Hill Neighborhood Alliance and the Finn Hill Park District, which now maintains and manages the park. Although long a favorite of avid hikers in the neighborhood, the park is not widely known outside the immediate area.

With annexation drawing Finn Hill and two other northern neighborhoods into the City of Kirkland fold last year, local parks activists felt the time was ripe for a trail guide.

“From meeting people in the (lakeshore portion of the) park and even in the neighborhood, we found that a lot of people don’t even know the trails exist,” said Kristen Lloyd, a Finn Hill resident who helped create the guide. “I thought it would be a really cool thing for the neighborhood. With annexation, it became even more of an inspiration.”

Denny Park is as close to wilderness as a suburban park can get. Deer and coyotes are occasionally seen there. Bald eagles and barred owls are more common. Pileated, downy and hairy woodpeckers are fairly regular sights. But it’s the big trees that bend necks and drop jaws.

“You just walk and look at those and are just in awe,” says Lloyd.

One of them is a monstrous, 600-year-old Douglas fir, “Sylvia,” that was the largest of its kind in King County until a storm broke off its top several years ago. Patches of old-growth also remain in Bridle Trails State Park, which is bordered by Kirkland, Bellevue and Redmond. But beyond Denny and Bridle Trails, only two other virgin forests remain in the greater Seattle area, at Seward Park across Lake Washington and and Schmitz Park Preserve in West Seattle.

The guide, which is available primarily as a PDF file (3.3 mb) attached here, notes 10 points of interest, and maps trails in O.O. Denny proper, the separate Sue McDonald Memorial Preserve and a western extension of Big Finn Hill Park. Other local parks activist who helped create it include Ellen Haas and Francesca Lyman.

The trail guide is topical also right now because of Proposition 2 on the Nov. 6 ballot, a property tax levy for improved maintenance and renovations at Kirkland parks. If it passes, plans call for the Kirkland Parks and Community Services Department to take over management and maintenance of OO Denny from the Finn Hill Park District, which would be dissolved.

Hard copies of the guide will be available at Finn Hill community meetings, and likely at some point in the future at park kiosks.

For a previous Kirkland Patch story on .

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Have you hiked the trails at O.O. Denny Park? What did you like about them - or dislike? Please tell us in the comments box below!