High Tide Holiday Adventure!

Here's how adventurous readers can engineer a unique stairway adventure along the "Alki From Above" route (Chapter 18). It's not for the faint of heart, because you'll need to do this route specifically when the tides are high and the weather is terrible. Under these conditions you'll get a bonus of spectacular waves crashing over the Alki breakwater and running high across the walkway. We tell you how to do it, below.

Meantime consider that Seattle Stairway Walks: An Up-and-Down Guide to City Neighborhoods could be the perfect holiday present for your favorite urban explorer or cabin-fevered mountain hiker. You can purchase it online, direct from Mountaineers Books, right here!

The picture above is a relatively tame example of what we're talking about. It was taken this morning when the tide topped out at 12 feet, with only mild winds. Gusts up to 60mph are possible tonight, but high tide tops out at just 8 1/2 feet, so conditions won't be bad enough to be really good.

Still with us? The Washington State Department of Ecology has this handy chart predicting when "King Tides" are expected for Seattle. King Tides are the highest, most humongous of the high tides. It just happens that our next King Tide, topping 13 feet, comes on Christmas morning and for the next two mornings after that. So if these extremely high tides are accompanied by stormy winds, a holiday stairway walk on the "Alki From Above" route may come with an extra adrenaline treat for you and yours!