A hike in Dead Horse Canyon isn’t nearly as scary as it sounds

A TRIP TO A place called “Dead Horse Canyon” feels slightly dangerous, evoking Old West adventure and a whiff of cinematic peril. Such a place sounds like it should exist somewhere like Utah (and indeed there is a Dead Horse Canyon in Utah, one in Arizona and even one in Oregon.) But Seattle has a Dead Horse Canyon of its own, located in Lakeridge Park (10201 Holyoke Way S.) in South Seattle, just south of Rainier Beach and a stone’s throw from the rather quotidian Renton Municipal Airport.

Taylor Trail winds through most of the park, a 1-ish mile teardrop-shaped loop (sources disagree on the distance, though the average seems to be 1.2 miles). The park is very much a neighborhood secret — it doesn’t even have a proper parking lot, just a pullout at the trailhead — but once you step inside, the lush fecundity all around virtually swallows you.

The trail wends along a steep ridge carved by Taylor Creek (named after a local sawmill — Taylor Mill — built in the 1880s where the creek meets Lake Washington), which rushes by 12 months a year at the bottom of a deep ravine. This sounds more dangerous than it is; actually, the trail is muddy but quite safe. Where the trail crosses the ravine, you walk across a series of well-maintained wooden bridges. The hike at Dead Horse Canyon is considered a stair walk because in several places you climb and descend built-in timber stairs, comfortable for the casual walker but definitely requiring a little careful footing when they’re wet.

At the turn of the 20th century, deliveries of lumber were hoisted up the canyon with a name as literal as it sounds: In 1909, a popular local horse (horses could be hometown celebrities back then!) died in the ravine. The name of the horse is forgotten, but the man who named the area — logger Charles “Chas” J. Walker — decided to memorialize the incident with that macabre (but thus, intriguing) moniker.

The path runs through Lakeridge Park, a tangle of vegetation whose rather bland name (courtesy of the Seattle Planning Commission who, it seems, did not have the same theatrical tendencies as Walker) is made up for by its fairy-tale atmosphere. But despite feeling like a dip into a lost Jurassic paradise, the park is a product of much local restoration and volunteer love. Garbage has been removed (the area was once used for quite a bit of illegal dumping) and invasive plants rooted out (take that, blackberries!). Indigenous vegetation has been planted to create what feels like a wild, unspoiled environment but is, in reality, a kind of overgrown garden full of nurse log stumps and thickly matted with ferns. The area was logged in the 1880s, and the trees are second-growth upstarts, most of them coated in thick moss (thick, even for Seattle). The cedars and alders and maples reach high out of the moist creek bed for a sip of elusive PNW sunshine.

Seattle Parks acquired the property from King County in 1947 for $1, primarily to build a local sewer line. The sewer line still runs underneath, but at Dead Horse Canyon, even the access points become an evocative part of the atmosphere, the concrete structures thickly coated in moss like miniature green ziggurats. Lakeridge Park feels bigger than it is, immersive, lost and untamed like a set from some post-apocalyptic drama. This is enhanced by watershed structures that are said to be remnants of the sawmill activities along the trail loop, making it feel even more picturesquely abandoned.

Taylor Creek is one of only three in Seattle that flows year-round, and is the fourth-largest creek in Seattle. The trail was, for a brief period, somewhat endangered; the city had plans to restore the creek to improve it as a habitat for baby salmon in a way that would have potentially destroyed the space as it exists now. But efforts by a local group called Friends of Dead Horse Canyon got the project put on hold and the city changed its scope; according to seattle.gov, the rejiggered restoration plans kick off this year — plans that hopefully will retain the wild beauty of this neighborhood mini-adventure.