New Potential Course sites

[cefire]

I'm hoping this thread can become a general thread where we can writeup "trip reports" about different potential parks whether good, bad, or ugly.


Mod edit: Click here for a map of scouted areas!

[cefire]

So Sheila and I went down to Chainbangerz to check out their HUGE map of King Co. parks (although it also shows Seattle City Parks). We added some waypoints into our GPS and drove off towards Renton.

The first place we visited was Petrovisky Park (you can see it if you paste in these coordinates into google maps: 47.443066, -122.115269).

The unused woody portion of the park is fairly large (~35-40 acres I think) and almost completely unused. On googlemaps, it is bordered by the baseball fields on the left, a housing subdivision on the south, Lake Desire drive on the east and Woodside/Parkside Way on the north.

Terrain: Medium to heavily wooded kind of like Fairgrounds or Arlington, lots of brush (but not very many prickers ) in the form of ferns and perhaps salmonberry, I'm not quite sure. There are a few really old trees in here but for the most part, its 2ft diameter and less.

One concern I have about this park is the drainage. I was off trail most of the way through the park and it seemed fine but the one established trail was very mucky in some places.

Also, most of the trees in here are pretty rotted it looks like (similar to Terrace along the walk to hole 10/11) and many are probably ready to fall.

Elevation: The whole tract is on a slightly sloping piece of land but there isn't that much usuable elevation change

Overall impression: I think this piece of land could definitely support a decent (perhaps even monster) 18 hole course but I think there would be limited options for sculpting really great holes and would probably end up looking very much like an Arlington, which is ok, but I hope we can find a better piece of land than this.


A few pics which pretty well describe the terrain/features:
(You can find more at my photobucket album Petrovitsky Park)



Towards the eastern end of the park, the trees are thinner and the brush is much thicker.


Pretty thick stuff and a lot of low hanging branches


Out where I entered into the woods along the road, there are a series of drainage ponds

[cefire]

A little bit north of Petrivisky Park is another area that looked huge and promising on the map at CB'z. However, if you look at the map you'll see two things that don't bode well.

The first is a clearcut for powerlines which makes for really boring open fields and strange electricity (my car jolted me when I touched the door, not hard but still, thats freaky).

The second is that a lot of this land looks to be owned by the development to the south and the one right by the pin. Its a really isolated little community and appears to be a church community, which could prove difficult to work with - totally just my guess, but I'd bet that they aren't looking to have a lot of visitors rolling through that area.

Coordinates if you want to take a look:
(47.4579245965338, -122.11586952209472)

[cefire]

We also checked out the Soos creek area but from what we could see, it didnt look all that promising.

[Ken Smith]

Great work Andrew and Sheila! Petrovisky looks promising from your pictures, but of course more people would need to visit to confirm. Thanks for starting this process!

[Tim]

Cool beans. I've started a new Google Map for Potential Courses so we can see sites in map form ourselves. Andrew, can I put a link in your first post so people can find the map more easily? I'll try to update the map as more sites are scoped out, though if others want to tinker with map as well, just let me know and I can set you up as a collaborator.

As to the sites so far, Petrovisky does look to have some potential. As you pointed out though, there looks like a lot of alders there, many ready to come down. If we were to work with that site, we'd want to try to plan accordingly and not try to feature too many alders in the fairways. Parts of Terrace used to be far woodsier (and interesting) before all the alders started falling there. A lack of blackberries certainly bodes well to me. Good call about drainage too, though on the plus side, today would probably be a good example of some of the soupiest conditions with all the rainfall yesterday.

As to the place north (which I dubbed Maple Heights), I agree power line cuts aren't the most ideal spots, but I could see potential for holes shooting from the field into the woods and vice versa. Is there potential for parking around there without disturbing the neighbors too much?

[cefire]

Yes, of course! Great idea!

Hopefully someone else could check out the Maple Heights area as we didn't spend too much time there, but if you set up parking somewhere in between the two subdivisions, it might be less invasive. Still, I didn't see much I liked there.

[Adam Schneider]

Tool for measuring acreage: http://www.acme.com/planimeter/

[cefire]

Cool, looks like the Petrovitsky park is actually more like 38 acres of usable space.

[ChUcK]

That small stuff, is that all salmon berry? I'd want the city to allow us to judiciously thin that stuff out.

I like the looks of the place, though. It looks like a little clearing of the dead would spruce that park right up. Were there any possibilities of a "danger hole" around the drainage ponds? How big were they?

Pre-installed drainage ponds rock. That means another Terrace #11 won't happen. Cross one of the long list of ways to mess up a course.

[Getty]

We have 3 parks in Carnation. I've scouted two of them, Loutsis and Memorial, and they both can hold 9-hole casual courses. I still need to get over to Tolt River MacDonald. That park has the potential to house a championship course, but that is not my focus right now.

My contact on the city council is familiar with disc golf and seemed quite receptive to the idea of putting a course in. PM me if you'd like to check out my initial layouts, as I'm receptive to feedback and want to make the best use of a limited amount of land as possible. Once I'm comfortable with a layout I'll approach the council and the parks committee with a proposal, and we'll see if it'll fly.

Does anyone happen to know how much a 9-hole package from the DGA, Innova or any other quality basket manufacturer costs thses days?

[Tim]

Getty, can you give me coordinates or at least cross streets of the parks? I only see "MacDonald Memorial" and "Valley Memorial" in Google maps.

As for baskets, you can count on ~$3000 for 9, if going with premium baskets. If you wanted to step it down to Mach 2 News, you could save ~$600-700.

[Getty]

Tim,

Tolt River MacDonald Park and Campground
31020 NE 40th Street
Carnation, WA 98014


Valley Memorial Park
32000 E Blanche Street
Carnation, WA 98014


Loutsis Park
32401 E Entwistle Street
Carnation, WA 98014

[Getty]

Tolt MacDonald with the huge potential. It's part of the King County park system, too! Anyone want to meet me over there soon to do some scouting?

http://www.kingcounty.gov/recreation/parks/inventory/toltmacdonald.aspx

Enjoy a quick get-out-of-town experience without straying too far! King County Parks' Tolt-MacDonald Park and Campground , which is located in Carnation, just 40 minutes from downtown Seattle and a short drive from Redmond, offers a true recreation destination with a little something for everyone. The 574-acre park sits at the confluence of the Snoqualmie and Tolt Rivers in the beautiful Snoqualmie Valley. A 500-foot suspension foot bridge crosses the Snoqualmie River and offers terrific views of the river and Cascade foothills. During the fall, you can observe spawning salmon in the river below and eagles and osprey soaring above.

Like the park? Stay the weekend! Tolt-MacDonald offers RV, tent, and yurt camping for the year-round 'staycation' experience. The park's picnic shelters and beautifully restored barn can be rented for company picnics, weddings, or other special events and the grass ballfields are available for softball, baseball and soccer.

In addition to picnicking and hiking, Tolt-MacDonald is also a favorite destination for exploring trails on foot or mountain bike.

[DMajor]

I was just looking at the King County parks page link and the two of the parks listed on their front page have huge disc golf potential. Tolt Macdonald park out in Carnation 574 acres. And Cougar Mountain Park in Issaquah 3000+ acres of land. I have been to both of these parks and am sure their is plenty of room for all types of different courses to be put in at either or.

Do we have a contact with the county who could tell us if either of these would even be a possibility?

There are about 175ish parks listed on their website many of which are to small or too crowded for disc golf. But parks like the ones listed above with lots and lots of land and are a little farther out seem like ideal places to me. Even if it was limited to a corner of the park.

The best strategy/idea to me is going through the parks list and eliminating the ones that we know would not work and then submit a list to the county of possible sites to see if any of them would be automatically ruled out due to nature/wetlands or any other reason.

I don't know if any of this possible but with so many king county parks trying to find the best possible disc golf course by scouting them out and then trying to get approval seems much less efficient than narrowing it down to parks with a legitimate possibility and then sending a team of people to each site to figure out actual layout potential.

We could even end up with multiple approved sites to pick from.

Was there any mention of State Parks at the meeting. Lake Sammamish State Park in Issaquah would also be a fantastic place for a new disc golf course.

[Tim]

I've updated the map with Westcrest Park, from this thread

[The Course Bro]

While scouting, watch for wetlands (streams, marshes, swamps) due to the buffer required under the Critical area ordinance: link HERE

My friend, Darren Nienaber, is the assistant city attorney for the city of Olympia and is an expert on land use (he cowrote two amendments to the Growth Management Act). Any environmental question? Shoot me a email at nativeson66@gmail.com and I'll ask Darren.
Cheers, Bro

[Adam Schneider]

FYI, I've integrated you guys' potential sites into the main Washington map:

http://www.oregondiscgolf.com/washington_map.html

[Choco]

I live in Duvall and would welcome a course at Tolt McDonald. I've hiked around it before, but that was before I was into disc golf so wasn't thinking about it along those lines. If memory serves me correctly, it should be a good candidate. I will go check it out maybe even tomorrow.

I think we need a throw across the river, too short and your disc is gone.

I've also been in contact with some parks people and am working on getting some support. Will tell more when I know more.

[Choco]

What are your thoughts on

Magnusson

Marymoor

St. Edwards

I've scoped all these out and they have possibilities. What about Discovery Park?