Point Defiance Tacoma Washington

Point Defiance

Do you know what the largest intra city park is in the United States? New York's Central Park, of course. Do you know what the second largest intra city park is in the United States? Tacoma Washington's Point Defiance Park (of course).

While a lot of people know about Central Park, not nearly as many are familar with Point Defiance park.

First thing to realize is that Point Defiance is not only a park, but it also has a zoo. One of the more interesting things about the zoo is the holiday season display. During December, the zoo sets up a lighted display throughout the zoo that you visit in the evening. It is a beautiful spectacle of lights.

From a runner's perspective, this park is a mecca for great trail running. The park is situated on a pennisula surrounded by the beautiful Puget Sound. The east side faces towards the port of Tacoma and provides great views of Mount Rainer. The west side faces towards the Olympic Mountains and the famous Tacoma Narrows Bridge - infamously known as "Galloping Gertie". If I recall correctly, it was in 1940 that this bridge buckled and swayed and eventually collapsed into the sound on a stormy weather day.

The Point Defiance running trails provide an almost infinite combination of trails to run. The most traveled loop hugs the perimeter of the park as much as possible. There are occasional glimpses of the Puget Sound as you pop from one trail to another. The "Five Mile Drive" is the outer road that cars travel on and the road that you cross on your way through the running trails. In no way does the traffic interfere with your running.

Just to give you a better picture of a great run, let me spell out the "Loop" that I became intimately familar with during my high school running career. Starting from the main parking lot at the entrance, you follow the gravel trail across the lawns for a quarter mile or so until you come to the bathrooms at the Japanese Gardens. After the required pit stop, continue through the small gardens, cross over the pedestrian foot bridge and stay right through the picnic groups. At this point, you are on the east side of the park above the Puget Sound, you will catch glimpses of the bay at this point. You can even take a foot trail down to the gravel service road right on the water and follow that for a mile or so before rejoining the main trail. If you do continue through the picnic ground, you'll come up to the main road which is now if the woods.

Now cross over the road and head up the slight hill on the gravel trail. You are at the Rhododendron garden. The rhododendrons here grow to monstrous proportions. I'm talking taller than 10 feet tall for most of the rhododendrons you can see.

The trail continues through the woods and the trail becomes softer as you are running through damp woods. Over the years, a lot of trees have fallen in this area and trails have been rerouted. I have gone for a run in the park during the winter after a storm and had to climb over newly fallen trees to run.

Keep in mind at this point, you are in the woods. For the most part the trail is well defined, but there is just about no chance of breaking a new trail as the woods are heavily forested.

You will come out of the woods again and cross the road, and then repeat the same thing about another hundred yards. Back into the woods and stay right.

At this point, you are about two miles into the run and the gradual climbing has turned into a slightly downhill rolling trail.

Now one of the great feelings about running on a soft trail with the trees and bushes so close is that you feel like you are running fast. I don't know why exactly that is, but it just feels that way.

Eventually, you are going to pop out of the woods again, cross through a small parking lot where you can see the Puget Sound, then back into the woods on the right hand side of the trees. A ways down the road, pop out, cross through another parking lot and depending on your preference you will either stay right and hug the perimeter of the park or (this is what I recommend) cross the road and into a wooded trail that stays more towards the middle of the park. And if I remember correctly, there are some big tress that have fallen down in this area that you will pass by.

At the point, you are about three, three and a half miles into the run. You'll come out of the woods and cross the road and run across another small parking lot. Now you are on the west side of the park facing towards Gig Harbor and the Olympic Mountains.

If it's a hot summer day, here's were you will notice the weather. Because up until now, you have been in the cool, leafy woods. Now you are running along the west side of the park and are slightly more exposed.

The trail continues gradually up for another mile until you hit the highest part of the run at Fort Nisqually. If you weren't out for a run, this would be a perfect place to take the kids as they would love seeing the inside of a real fort. Plus there is a Humpty Dumpty park tucked away in the woods.

But since you are out running, you are now of the final leg of the loop. From here it's almost all downhill for the final mile. You're on pavement for less than a quarter mile, then through the train station and finally along the south border of the park. This is first time you see signs of civilivation again. After four plus miles of running through the woods, you are running past the Toby Jones retirement home and heading down to the parking lot that you started from.

This loop is about 5.1 miles and is my favorite run of all time. Also, the famous Sound to Narrows road race goes along the Five Mile Drive (on the pavement) and finishes up outside of the park.