Biking the Burke-Gilman Trail

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day, and we were excited to go for a longer bike ride! We mapped out a route that would take us across Lake Washington to the Burke-Gilman trail, which we’d ride around the north end of the lake. We started in downtown Kirkland and had planned on taking the bus over to the Montlake Freeway station,

but when we got to the stop, we discovered that the bus was running 20 minutes late. Instead of waiting around, we decided to just bike through Kirkland along the lake and catch the bus at the last stop before it crosses the bridge. There aren’t any bike lanes across the bridge, so the busses will let you ride for free if you are just going one stop across the lake!

After crossing the bridge, we rode through the University of Washington’s campus for a bit in order to get on the Burke-Gilman trail.

It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed the views of Lake Washington as we rode around.

When we reached the north end of the lake, we rode through a park to this dock that had a great view. We added this to our list of places to go kayaking!

We even saw a bald eagle soaring overhead!

And we also saw where all the sea planes park!

We continued on the Burke-Gilman trail around to where it connects with the Sammamish River Trail near Woodinville. We’d ridden about twenty miles at this point and were ready for some lunch! We stopped to get a picture with Mt. Rainier in the distance. I’ve lived here for almost a year now and still get excited every time I see this mountain 🙂

We’d planned our route so that we could stop at Redhook Brewery for lunch. We’ve done this a few times now, and I think it’ll continue to be a tradition. Delicious food and great beer are an excellent reward for a long day of biking!

After lunch we continued back down the Sammamish River Trail, then cut over to the Cross Kirkland Corridor bike trail and headed home.

Our route was about 28.75 miles of biking, plus about 4.5 miles riding the bus across the bridge. It was a great route on a perfect, sunny day. Looking forward to the next ride!