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Halls Hill Lookout and Labyrinth donated to Parks Foundation

Halls Hill Lookout and Labyrinth donated to Parks Foundation

Halls Hill Lookout and Labyrinth, a beautiful meditative landscape that overlooks Blakely Harbor, has been donated to the Bainbridge Island Parks Foundation to be managed for long-term public enjoyment.

The Halls Hill property is being donated by IslandWood founders Debbi and Paul Brainerd.

The Brainerds developed the property over the past 15 years as a contemplative wayside stop for Bainbridge residents who live, walk and bike nearby. It has become widely known for its beautiful stone mosaic labyrinth and Tibetan bronze prayer wheel, while others use it to rest in nature for quiet reflection.

A wooded path connects the prayer wheel and the labyrinth, with native trees and plants that create a buffer between these two distinct works of art. There are several areas to sit and enjoy the surrounding forest and the views of the harbor below.

“The Halls Hill Lookout and Labyrinth has been a favorite stop for neighbors and […]

Halls Hill Lookout and Labyrinth donated to Parks FoundationDouglas2021-04-16T07:30:11-07:00

A big win for Ted Olson Nature Preserve

A big win for Ted Olson Nature Preserve

The last time the Ted Olson Nature Preserve was expanded, in 2010, Nancy Norton helped clear trails with her kids. This time around, she led the campaign.

In a whirlwind four-month effort, a neighborhood group rallied by Norton teamed with the Bainbridge Island Land Trust to add 2 acres to the north-end park.

The $350,000 “Ted Olson Nature Preserve: Protect and Expand” campaign wrapped up last week with a ceremonial check passing to the Land Trust from the Bainbridge Island Parks Foundation, a $20,000-plus grant that helped push the effort over the top.

“It’s been a great ‘COVID project,’” said Norton, whose family has enjoyed the north-end park for the past 18 years. “I was just really pleased that in spite of all the challenges people have had during COVID, we were able to raise this amount in such a short time.

“It’s a true treasure,” she said […]

A big win for Ted Olson Nature PreserveDouglas2021-04-22T09:27:38-07:00

A grand entranceway for new Founders Courts

A grand entranceway for new Founders Courts

Artist Michele Van Slyke creates an ornamental archway at the new pickleball center at Battle Point Park

Michele Van Slyke has been creating art on Bainbridge for decades, designing beautifully functional works for public spaces across the island.

Still, as her latest piece went up at the Founders Courts plaza at Battle Point Park, she mused that it might be her first work in a local park.

“It is nice to have a piece in one of the parks. It might be my last public piece,” said Van Slyke, who has stepped back a bit from large-scale installations.

In point of fact, it’s the second. Van Slyke also designed the stamped, fish-shaped placards honoring donors at the Hidden Cove Park pier.

It is, though, certainly the most prominent – 12 feet high, and wide enough for half a pickleball foursome to pass through abreast on their way to a […]

A grand entranceway for new Founders CourtsDouglas2021-04-22T09:28:00-07:00

KidsUp! Playground art gets a timely restoration

KidsUp! Playground art gets a timely restoration

Artist David Franklin revisits, will touch up the 20-year-old works

David Franklin was just finding his touch as a professional artist when he was commissioned to create pieces for a new playground called KidsUp!

Schooled in the Northwest Coast Native style, Franklin, of Indianola, saw a dearth of public art on Bainbridge that reflected the island’s first inhabitants and their culture.

Working with red cedar, Franklin carved a large-format Northwest Coast-styled mask and a smaller eagle, figures that would welcome visitors to the playground for the next 20 years.

“This cultural language is something I speak in support of Northwest Native artists,” he says. “It doesn’t represent me per se, but it is a language I’ve learned … A whole generation of Native artists are coming up who are really vital and doing great things. This is from an era where that didn’t happen as much.”

Now, as the playground’s new […]

KidsUp! Playground art gets a timely restorationDouglas2021-04-22T09:28:29-07:00

Summer Trails Crew building deep into autumn

Summer Trails Crew building deep into autumn

YOU’D BE EXCUSED for living on Bainbridge Island for years and never once seeing Sakai Pond, or even really knowing it’s there.

The satellites show a patch of blue in a larger swath of green just north of the High School Road Chevron. But until Sakai Park was created in 2015, the pond sat quietly out of reach on private land. Even then, you’d have to seriously bushwhack your way to the water’s edge.

That all changed over the summer, as the Bainbridge Island Metro Park & Recreation District’s Summer Trails Crew hacked, graveled, compacted and boardwalked new trails deep into the park’s lower bowl and around three sides of the pond.

While technically not quite ready for public use (more graveling is coming, and signage), islanders are already finding their way to the trails on their own. The pond as destination will surprise many local walkers and hikers, even those […]

Summer Trails Crew building deep into autumnDouglas2024-01-10T12:22:00-08:00

Pickleball finds a home at the birthplace of the game

Pickleball finds a home at the birthplace of the game

Play wouldn’t officially start for another 40 minutes, but early-birds to opening day at the Founders Courts pickleball center were already greeted by the staccato sounds of lucent plastic balls being whacked back and forth across the taut black web of the net.

Tok. TOK. Tok …. TOK. Tok tok tok … TOK!

“I told them they could warm up early,” said Clay Roberts, Bainbridge Pickleball impresario and event emcee, as if – Tok Tok TOK! – he could have kept them off the courts anyway.

“I wake up a lot of days and think, this is a great day for pickleball on Bainbridge Island,” Roberts said, surveying the already humming play. “Today it takes on a whole new meaning. This is a really great day for pickleball on Bainbridge Island.”

The Founders Courts at Battle Point Park opened for play Aug. 19 with festivities marking a permanent home for […]

Pickleball finds a home at the birthplace of the gameDouglas2021-04-22T09:29:25-07:00

Blakely Hills Trails dedicated for public use

Blakely Hills Trails dedicated for public use

It’s not every day that a mile and a half of already-built trails fall into the public domain.

Alice and Dave Shorett have hiked local trails for years and years, wrote the book on them actually, and they can’t recall an instance.

“I don’t know that there’s ever been a more significant gift,” says Dave Shorett, co-author with his wife of the definitive “Thirty Walks on Bainbridge.”

“It’s unusual for someone who’s buying property to think of trails first,” adds Alice. “It’s pretty phenomenal.”

And yet: The 1.5-mile Blakely Hill Trails have been donated to the Bainbridge Island Parks Foundation for public use by islanders Ty Cramer and Steve Romein, on approximately 55 acres they recently purchased east of the historic Port Blakely Cemetery.

The trail easements have in turn been transferred to the Bainbridge Island Metro Park & Recreation District for management as part of the island’s public trail system.

The name is new, but […]

Blakely Hills Trails dedicated for public useDouglas2021-04-22T09:29:44-07:00

Looking for green crabs in Blakely Harbor

Looking for green crabs in Blakely Harbor

Watchful residents and visitors might have noticed monthly activity at the head of Blakely Harbor, just inside the old log pond. From April through September, volunteers with Washington Sea Grant Crab Team look for evidence of invasive European green crabs. And no, none have been found in this area to date, thankfully!

Six traps are set at a low tide and retrieved the next day. The contents are then photographed, crabs are identified by species, measured, the sex noted, and then native animals are released back into the water. Native crabs found in the Blakely Harbor traps have included two species of shore crabs, Dungeness crabs, graceful crabs, kelp crabs and large numbers of red rock crabs.

The team has found more than just crabs in the traps. Other visitors, lured by the smelly but inaccessible mackerel bait, have included bay pipe fish, staghorn and tidepool sculpins, gunnels, shiner perch, flounder, […]

Looking for green crabs in Blakely HarborDouglas2021-04-22T09:29:56-07:00

Staycation! Because We Love Our Bainbridge Parks

Staycation! Because We Love Our Bainbridge Parks

A ‘Distance Socially, Connect Naturally’ Summer Contest

No travel? No problem! This is Bainbridge Island, so no matter what street we live on, how remote our lane or long our driveway, there’s a great park or trail not too far from our front door. Who needs to hop a flight to have a great summer vacation? And you don’t even need a passport.

Because we love our Bainbridge Island parks, the Parks Foundation invites islanders to join us celebrating the many special places right here in our own backyard. For the next six weeks, visit our local parks (respecting social distancing, or course), tell us what you’re doing for your Bainbridge Staycation and what makes it so great, and you can win a Staycation Prize!

READY? OKAY, LET’S GO!

PLAN THE PERFECT VISIT TO A BAINBRIDGE PARK – Visit a Bainbridge Island park, and have […]

Staycation! Because We Love Our Bainbridge ParksDouglas2020-07-31T08:57:19-07:00

STO becoming the island’s ‘linear park’

STO becoming the island’s ‘linear park’

Nobody knows the Sound To Olympics Trail like Don Willott, and even he was surprised by the root mass of a fallen Douglas fir lying just off the path, one he must have walked past a thousand times.

“I thought there was just some not-very-attractive, root-looking stuff sticking up in the air” through the underbrush, Willott says.

That was until workers hacking vines and briars along the shoulder exposed the tremendous roots, which once supported a giant maybe 80 or 100 years old when it fell.

“When you come and see it,” Willott said, “it’s huge.”

Bainbridge Island’s newest roadside attraction – make that, trail-side attraction – came to light last week during enhancements to the STO greenway. The STO’s first leg, from Winslow Way to High School Road, is enjoying an extensive restoration this summer through the Bainbridge Island Parks Foundation’s Friends of the STO Trail Fund.

Four days a week, island landscaper Bart […]

STO becoming the island’s ‘linear park’Douglas2021-04-22T09:30:19-07:00