I thought I would begin this year with a short history of the park. A number of people visit the park today, but that was not always so. Federal Way used to be considered the wilderness. City folks from Seattle would travel to Federal Way in the summer and stay in rustic cabins . They would send their children off to camp in the wilderness found around what is now 312th. Over time, more and more people took up permanent residence in the wilderness between Seattle and Tacoma, and the little bedroom community of Federal Way was born.
The West Hylebos Wetland is sandwiched between several major highways and directly beneath the air lanes leading to and from Sea-Tac International Airport. How did a wild little patch of wetland snuggled between apartment complexes, business parks, a metro park-n-ride lot, and a plethora of strip-malls become a city park? It's a long story which was twenty years in the making.
The property was once the home of Ilene and Francis Marckx. They loved their little patch of wilderness and wanted to share it with others; so, in 1991, Ilene and Francis donated the first sixty-eight acres of wetland to the State of Washington, with the stipulation that it be turned into a public park and always remain so. At that time, turning the property into a park was a dream far from reality, but Ilene's love for the wetland was too strong to be ignored. She, and a large group of like-minded citizens, formed a group called The Friends of the Hylebos Wetland, who were determined to work their magic on this wild place.
One of the first things they set about doing was to build a boardwalk trail through the wetland. That might not sound too difficult, but it proved to be a monumental task. The original boardwalk was built out of old recycled railroad ties, blood, sweat, tears, muscle power, and sheer determination. It was originally thought that the old boardwalk would last for a good thirty years before needing to be replaced, but in as little as fifteen years it became obvious that thirty years was little more than a pipe dream. Railroad ties are made out of wood, after all, and the very nature of a wetland is the fact that the land is, indeed, very wet. The railroad ties were laid directly upon the ground, so were saturated with water all of the time. In no time at all, they began to rot and fall apart. Not only were the boardwalk planks themselves rotting, cracking, splitting, and being displaced by tree roots, crushed by falling trees, torn up and blown about by wind storms, they had a tendency to lift up off of the ground and float during heavy rains. If the boardwalk managed to resist floating away entirely, many portions of it would become calf to knee deep under water for days or weeks at a time. Traveling around this wetland loop was always an adventure, usually reserved for the brave and/or foolhardy.
Building the boardwalk trail wasn't the only challenge faced by The Friends of the Hylebos Wetland. Large areas of the park were overgrown by invasive Himalayan blackberries, as well as other invasive non-native plants. The dream of The Friends was to return the wetland to it's natural native state, full of vegetation native to the wetland and free of alien invasives. To accomplish this, The Friends organized many, many work-parties of hardworking volunteers, who chopped and hewed and dug and pulled and hauled and covered and replanted the wilderness, trying to recreate what used to be the natural state of things. The Friends enticed volunteers to pitch in and help by providing the tools and expertise needed to perform the work, as well as coffee, bagels, pizza, and recognition. Depending upon the amount of time and effort they were willing to donate to the cause, volunteers could earn anything from a Friend of the Hylebos Wetland ball-cap to a jacket.
Still, in the year 2004, most people in the community hadn't heard of the West Hylebos Wetland and couldn't have found it if their very lives had depended on it. There was no signage along the main road to indicate the presence of a park in the immediate vicinity. There was no obvious evidence of a park visible from the highway. Access to the park was made through what appeared to be a small private driveway located next to an equally small nondescript electrical substation. Most people probably wouldn't have had any reason to drive down that tiny road unless they were lost and needed to turn around. Had that happened, it was still unlikely that they'd discover the park, as there were no signs at the end of the road either, just a big open field that was used for parking, with a little wooden information kiosk at the far end. Even if one had parked in the field and walked over to the kiosk, they probably wouldn't have realized that they were at the entrance of a park, as the only indication that something further might exist was a narrow, dark, overgrown, fairly uninviting path leading into the woods. A person would have to buck up their courage before deciding to wander down that spooky looking blue gravel trail into the gloom.
Under the circumstances, it was very difficult to get the State of Washington to show much interest in this almost invisible, rapidly decaying, rarely visited, postage-stamp swamp. Funds are always tight, so the State is much more likely to invest it's limited funds in larger, highly-visible, and frequently used parks such as Dash Point State Park. Something needed to be done, though, and The Friends couldn't do it alone, so they launched a grass-roots effort to convince the City of Federal Way that this wonderful little wildlife refuge could be transformed into a huge community asset. This was easier said than done. A great many people devoted a great number of hours in negotiations with the City in an attempt to convince the City Council that this swamp was worthy of the time and expense it would take to fix the park up and provide public accessibility, including handicap accessibility. The Friends of the Hylebos Wetland breathed a great sigh of relief when, in 2004, this magical place was turned over to the City of Federal Way and the word "State" was dropped from it's name.
This was just the beginning of the story though. It took years and years of negotiations, planning, surveying, head-scratching, project studies, funding initiatives, and things of that ilk, between the City of Federal Way, the State of Washington, the United States Government, the Friends of the Hylebos Wetland, and many other parties, before the final plans for the restoration of the West Hylebos Wetland Park were developed.
In 2007, the Friends of the Hylebos Wetland held their collective breath as the wetland was closed to the public and the old boardwalk was removed. Adele Freeland and I had spent several days each week voluntarily clipping the vegetation away from the sides of the rotting 1.1 mile boardwalk loop, and we'd done this for years. Suddenly, we were forbidden to enter the park. All we could do was stand and stare at the entrance to the park, chew our fingernails down to the bone, and wonder what on earth was happening on the other side of those "Do Not Enter" signs. This was our baby! Our baby! And, now we'd been requested to turn it over to complete strangers and simply trust that it would be taken care of properly and that all would turn out well. I can't even begin to tell you how traumatizing this was, nor can I begin to estimate the amount of time we stood on the wrong side of that yellow tape, or on the wrong side of Brooklake, staring into the darkness of the wetland, desperate to know what was happening on the other side.
Over the years that we'd actively maintained the old boardwalk trail, we'd become quite attached to some of it's landmarks, to the point where we'd actually named them. When something happened that was too large for us to handle, like when the wind blew a tree down on top of the boardwalk and someone needed to come in with a large saw to remove it, we would request assistance by reporting that a tree was down between The Troll Hole and Jurassic Park, and Gary and Heather (the park caretakers at the time) knew exactly what we meant. Would The Troll Hole still be there when the new boardwalk was finished? What about Snoopy, and the Deep Sinks and the Dolphin? The people who were in the know kept assuring us that all would be well and that we'd be pleased with the end result, but it wasn't their baby, it was ours. To them, it was a project that needed to be finished on time and within budget. To me, it was like a chunk of my heart. I knew they would do a good job, and that, in time, I'd get used to the new boardwalk and be pleased with it, but I also knew that the old park was gone forever and the park would never be the same again.
I knew it was a gain, but it also felt like a loss. I was gaining something big and important, something that a lot of people had worked very hard to acquire. But, I was also losing something that was big and important to me. Something I'd never get back. Something that was special beyond my ability to express it. Something I helped save that had also helped save me. My sanctuary. My haven. The place where I went for peace and comfort, joy and excitement, a good fright once in a while, adventure, hard work, and renewing my contact with creation and this planet we live on, time and space and the great circle of life. This place was more than boards and handrails and directional signs and parking spaces and wildlife. This place had become part of me, my soul, my heart, my belief-system, my life. That's a big baby to hand over to strangers and simply hope for the best.
The new boardwalk was completed in 2008. Unlike the old boardwalk, the new boardwalk was composed of a manmade composite material and handicap-accessible. Unlike the old boardwalk, which was built directly on the ground, the new boardwalk was raised on concrete pillars and huge truck tires, allowing water to wash under it, instead of over it. Wooden benches were replaced by sturdy metal benches. Numerous platforms were built so that wheelchairs could pull off of the main trail and turn around. The wetland is now handicapped-accessible. I've seen just about everything you can imagine on the new boardwalk: wheelchairs, walkers, strollers, wagons, bicycles, skateboards, and even a Segway. The parking lot in the meadow was closed to vehicles and left to revert back to meadow. People picnic there now. A new paved parking lot was built in front of the historical cabins, alongside of S.W. Campus Drive, out of a new permeable material that allows rain water to drain through it, instead of forming puddles on top of it. The old rutted trail leading from the cabins to the sign-in kiosk was gracefully curved and covered with nice blue gravel. A sign was placed beside the road letting people know about the park and brand new, beautiful directional and informational signs were installed throughout the park.
The City of Federal Way held a huge ribbon-cutting ceremony full of dignitaries and speeches to celebrate the reopening of the park. I couldn't have been less interested in ceremonial rites and dignitaries and ribbon-cutting. I just wanted somebody to cut the darned ribbon so I could see what they'd done to my park. The dignitaries were going to make a ceremonial walk of the new boardwalk before the public was allowed in? Not on your life! They barely got the ribbon cut, and were standing around being photographed, when I zipped around the edge of the crowd and crept down the trail. It looked all wrong. It felt all wrong. It was beautiful, but it was different. It was too high, it didn't bounce up and down, in places it actually had side-walls and handrails. It didn't quite follow the route of the old trail. I wept over the things that were lost and smiled over the beauty that was created in it's place. The new wood wasn't real and didn't look real. Not only did it have that unreal look, it didn't have any patina on it. It didn't look old and rotten and covered in slime and moss, with holes in some places, and all tilted up in others. It looked like Disneyland! When I reached the Old Sitka Spruce, they'd built a lovely platform right beside the tree and placed a park bench in that very spot, but they'd also had to remove a tree on the opposite side of the boardwalk and someone had taken a chainsaw and transformed the stump into a huge wooden mushroom. Inside, I knew that whoever did that had done it as a gift to us and I appreciated the gift. I really did. But, deep inside, my immediate reaction was one of instant dislike. I hated the fact that they'd had to cut down a tree and I hated the fact that the tree had been transformed into a mushroom. The mushroom was one more thing that added to that whole Disneyland vibe. It wasn't right. It didn't belong there. It was fake. In time, I've grown used to it. It's gaining patina and starting to grow moss and look a little scummy. I've even given it a name. It's now referred to as The Magic Mushroom. When you mention The Magic Mushroom, everyone knows exactly what you're talking about.
The new boardwalk is starting to age. The composite material is gaining patina, growing a little moss, and starting to get slippery. It's weathered some really serious storms, one of which literally ripped parts of the boardwalk up and tossed them around, but the new boardwalk was built in such a way that the damage, severe as it was, could be repaired by a gang of forty-five hearty volunteers in a single day. The new park is visited by thousands of visitors from all over the world. The muskrats, beavers, raccoons, barred owls, great-blue herons, Douglas squirrels, snakes, amphibians, and all manner of wildlife have returned. Land snails have returned to make their annual migration across the blue blue gravel trail. Coyotes actively hunt for rabbits. Classes of school children travel through the park with their teachers in tow, looking for, finding, and checking off birds, amphibians, native plants, and a plethora of other things from their lists. Every year, schoolchildren rear salmon fry and release them into the creek.
In 1991, Ilene and Francis Marckx bequeathed us sixty-eight acres of swamp with which to build a park. In 2011, that sixty-eight acres has grown into on one hundred and twenty acre, public and handicap-accessible, wonderland that's visited by people from all over the world, is written up in tour guides as a fun place to visit, and has truly become a gem in the crown of Federal Way.
Teri I. Lenfest
OMG that is terrific! I admire your work! Guess I am not as up-to-date as your usual readers! I swear I have fallen in love with your blog... Great writing! You're an amazingly talented person, keep up the individuality :)
Posted by: Jay | October 05, 2011 at 02:15 AM
Thank you so much! Have you ever had the opportunity to visit the park? Teri
Posted by: Teri Lenfest | October 14, 2011 at 03:14 PM