In Search of Trolls
January 2024 – Seattle Trolls, A New Year Adventure
New Years Eve, as we were waiting for the New Year festivities, being the party animals we are, we were feeling a bit like we wanted to get away. Lizs had been talking about the trolls that are visiting the Seattle area so we decided it would be fun to go explore that.
We checked out Airbnb and found a place in West Seattle that looked like it would work for us. We chose West Seattle becaus of proximity to one of the trolls and easey acces to the Vashon Island ferry.
New Year Day
On the way over we stopped by Snoqalamie Falls for a cold and blustery walk around the grounds to see the falls. We were thinking that with the warm temps of December this year, the water might be flowing pretty well. Not so much.
After visiting the falls, we stopped inIssaquah to see the first troll, Jacob Two Trees. We had never seen the historic part of Issaquah before or the Rainier Trail where the troll is located. Old Town Issaquah is really nice and needs more exploring. The Rainier Trail runs through old town to Gilmsn Rd where it would be fairly easy to connect to the East Lake Sammamish Trail. This needs more research as I believe you could eassily connect to the Burke-Gilman in Redmond, making this a very extensive network of bike trails.
After seeing the Issaquah troll, we went to LincolnPark in West Seattle to find Bruun Dun on the beach. Lincoln Park has a nice beach area with a paved trail that goes form at least the Ferry Landing to what looks like a loop that can go all the way to Alki Beach. Lincoln Park has multiple trails that network throughout this huge park. We finished the day with dinner at Duke’s in Alki.
The next troll we saw was Oscar the Bird King on Vashon Island. We had never been to Vasho Island before. The island is very rural and not a lot of amenities. After driving around the island, we felt there was no need to spend any more time there, so we headed back to the ferry. We had enough time left in the day to go to Ballard to find Frankie Feetsplinters. After seeing Frankie we went to have a greatItalian dinner at Palermo.
The last full day of our trip we went to Bainbridge Island to find Pia Peacemaker. We have been to Bainbridge before and like that island. We found a little hike in Grand Forest East. There are two parts, east & west which can be connected together for a decent hike. After hiking our walkabout, we headed back to the ferry. After returning to our Airbnb, we walked over to California Ave in West Seattle where there is a huge selection of restaruants. We got takeout from Talarico’s and returned to the Airbnb for the evening.
We had a great time finding all the trolls and seeing parts iof the Seattle area we had not seen before. Some of the things we saw need to be investigated further, another trip to plan!