The Twenty-Minute Walk That Turns Three Bothell Parks Into One Loop

The chain-link and camp signage came down at Blyth Park this week. For two and a half weeks, from July 17 through Monday, the disc golf baskets sat behind taped-off fairways while Camp Fire day campers ran archery drills and canoe lessons on the same ground. As of today, the course is open again.

Most residents treat that reopening as news about one park. It is actually the signal that Bothell's whole riverside corridor is functioning again as a single loop rather than three separate errands. Blyth Park, the Park at Bothell Landing, and the amphitheater and sports fields tucked between them are connected by roughly twenty minutes of paved trail, and this stretch of August is the first time all season that every piece of that loop is open, scheduled, and worth walking end to end without moving a car.

Three Parks, One Trail

The geography gets flattened on a map into three separate pins. On the ground, it is one continuous stretch of the Sammamish River Trail. Cross the Burke-Gilman Trail at its western terminus and you are standing in Blyth Park. Walk east along the river for about twenty minutes and you cross the arched pedestrian bridge into the Park at Bothell Landing, Bothell's downtown-adjacent riverfront park.

Here is what that loop looks like this month:

None of these require a car if you're already in one of them. That's the part that gets missed when residents pick a single destination and drive there.

The Disc Golf Course Comes Back Today

Blyth Park is Bothell's largest park at just over 40 acres, and it sits on the site of the city's old brick factory. The park itself is named for John Blyth, a former Bothell City Council member who helped acquire the land. Beyond the disc golf course, the park has a tire hill that functions as an informal climbing structure for kids, a community garden, and enough tree cover that the trails stay walkable even on a hot afternoon.

The July 17 to August 3 closure lines up with Camp Fire's Blyth Park day camp sessions, which ran July 20 through 24 and again July 27 through 31 this summer. That's a two-week stretch where the course regulars rely on simply wasn't accessible. If your last attempt to play a round there was in mid-July and you gave up, today is the first day since then that the baskets are back in play.

The Paddle That Starts Where the Trail Ends

Walk the twenty minutes east to Bothell Landing and the recreation changes from land to water. WhatsSup Rentals operates out of the park, renting kayaks and paddleboards for the roughly 3-mile route west along the Sammamish River to Log Boom Park at Lake Washington. It's a flat, slow-moving stretch of river, the kind where hikers along the adjacent trail have reported watching a beaver swim past just east of the Landing this summer.

The trail corridor itself, managed by King County as part of the 10.1-mile Sammamish River Trail from Bothell to Marymoor Park in Redmond, is described by the county's own parks department as offering "extraordinary views of the river, the broad Sammamish River Valley, Cascade foothills and Mt. Rainier." One detail worth knowing if you're planning to walk or roll the whole way: two short sections fall below standard ADA grades, one just east of 96th Ave NE in Bothell and another north of NE 145th Street, so wheelchair users and stroller-pushers may want to check those segments before committing to the full stretch.

Two Fridays Left, One Different Field

Summer Nights in Bothell has been running weekly since July 10, and the season is down to its final two dates. Friday, August 7 brings opener Lucia Flores-Wiseman followed by Heart by Heart featuring Steve Fossen and Michael Derosier of Heart, at the Park at Bothell Landing amphitheater starting at 6 p.m. Friday, August 21 closes the series with opener Caety Sagoian and headliner Nite Wave.

Separately, Movies in the Park has one screening left this month: Black Panther on Friday, August 14, on the 40-foot screen at North Creek Sports-fields, Field #3, starting at dusk, which in mid-August lands somewhere around 8:30 to 9 p.m.

Here's the detail that catches people off guard if they've only been to one of the two events. At the amphitheater concerts, dogs are welcome as long as they're leashed. At the movie nights, dogs are not allowed on the field at all, because Bothell city code, specifically BMC 8.60.240, prohibits dogs on athletic and sports fields, and North Creek's movie screen sits on one. Same summer series, same city parks department, two different rules depending on which patch of grass you're standing on.

A Car-Free Saturday This Month

If you wanted to string the whole loop into one outing before the season turns, here's a version that uses the trail instead of a parking lot:

1. Start at Blyth Park in the morning for a round on the Howling Coyote course, now that it's back open.
2. Walk the Sammamish River Trail east for about twenty minutes to the Park at Bothell Landing.
3. Rent a kayak or paddleboard from WhatsSup and put in for an hour or two on the river.
4. If it's a Sunday between April and October, time your arrival for 1 to 4 p.m. and tour the Hannan House, the 1884 Beckstrom log cabin, or the 1885 schoolhouse at the Bothell Historical Museum.
5. On a Friday evening, skip the drive home and stay for Music in the Park at the amphitheater, bringing a blanket since seating is first come, first served.

The Museum Only Opens One Day a Week

It's easy to walk past the Hannan House at Bothell Landing without realizing what's inside. The house itself was moved from its original site on Main Street to the park in 1978 and has been home to the Bothell Historical Society since 1969, furnished with period items from the late 1800s through the mid-1900s. Alongside it sit the 1884 Beckstrom log cabin and Bothell's first schoolhouse, built in 1885.

The catch is timing. All three buildings are only open Sundays, 1 to 4 p.m., April through October. Show up on a Tuesday during your disc golf round and the doors will be locked, no matter how good the light looks for photos.

What to Check Before You Go

• Parking for the amphitheater shows: free lots at Bothell City Hall Parking Garage, Pop Keeney Stadium, and Sammamish River Park, plus a smaller gravel lot near the Landing itself that fills fast.
• Movie night start times shift with the season since they begin at dusk. Confirm the actual start time the week of, rather than assuming last month's schedule.
• If you're bringing a dog to Movies in the Park, plan to watch from the edge rather than the field, or leave the leash at home and bring the dog to the amphitheater shows instead.
• The trail's two ADA-grade exceptions near 96th Ave NE and NE 145th Street matter if you're planning the full Bothell-to-Marymoor stretch with a wheelchair or stroller.

The loop has been there the whole time. What changed this week is that every piece of it, from the disc golf baskets to the amphitheater lineup to the paddle rentals, is open at once for the first time since early July. It won't stay this aligned all year. The museum closes for the season at the end of October, the concert series wraps August 21, and camp season will close the disc golf course again next summer around the same dates.

Knowing how a neighborhood's park system actually connects, not just how it's marked on a map, is the same instinct that matters when you're evaluating a property here. If you're thinking about what it would take to buy, sell, or invest near this corridor, Mary Pong can walk you through it with the same level of detail. Schedule a consultation with Mary Pong.