Stairwalking in Eastlake

Chris Leman of the Eastlake Community Council invited us to lead a stairway walk with Eastlake residents last weekend, as part of the Council's busy schedule of neighborhood activities. We did the route in Chapter 9, "Eastlake, North Capitol Hill, and Portage Bay," altering the sequence just a bit so we could meet and start in Eastlake, next to Colonnade Park.

Other than the change to starting place, we walked the route in its entirety. As always seems to happen with stairway walking, we again discovered new neighborhood treasures we hadn't noticed on multiple previous walks!

Goats Block Downtown Stairway

A reader alerted us that the Pine Street stairway just below Pike Place Market is now blocked by a chain-link fence. This is part of the "Downtown: City Hall to Pike Place" stairway walk detailed in Chapter 15, so we took a look and brought back some pictures to fill in the story, which revolves around goats: 

A nearby sign advises walkers to take the stairs running up the outside corner of the parking garage just to the south. We tested them and they work just fine. For additional route detour directions, go to our main "Downtown: City Hall to Pike Place" post. 

The goats, many of them rescued, are housed on Vashon Island when they're not helping the city do its annual cleanup of blackberries, thistles and other noxious weeds in hard-to-reach areas. The goat-running outfit, "Rent A Ruminant," says the goats should finish cleanup here by the end of June. Hopefully the fencing will come down right after that.