Update: Inside the Jungle

(Picture courtesy of Beacon Hill Alliance of Neighbors website)

Craig Thompson of Beacon Lights and the Beacon Hill Alliance of Neighbors gave me permission to publish a note he sent out describing his recent visit to the Jungle:

Four service workers and an AmeriCorps team leader joined me to go through the woods of Dr. Jose Rizal Park, then down the service road, up to about Massachusetts, then back to the trail that finally leads to the Judkins deadend off 12th Ave. S.

We saw other people down there, most of whom looked like junkies. I haven’t seen them up on the streets of Beacon Hill, though. A white 19-year-old woman, around 5-4, brown hair, pale skin, black pants, a brown hoodie; she has the complexion of someone who’s doing meth. There was another similarly dressed white woman who avoided contact with us. We saw two people walking together, African American, 6-4 black guy, middle-aged, rough looking, and an early 20-something black woman; they both looked strung out. The women all seemed sad and embarrassed to meet us, the guy did, too, but angry about something. These four people all wore variations of black or brown clothing – odd circumstance.

We also saw people with dogs using the park and the off-leash-area, and several small groups of people came by to enjoy and photograph the view. We did not see any drug deals, and we didn’t find drug paraphernalia. We did find evidence of prostitutes turning tricks on a ledge just west of the Judkins deadend; we cleaned up the area. We packed out a total of eight bags of trash, half to three-fourths full, plus cut most of the suckers from the cottonwood tree by the overview, near the bench midway along the parking lot.

There were about 40-45 liquor containers, about a third of those were for beverages not sold in the Alcohol Impact Areas north of us in the Rainier Valley, Chinatown/ID, and Pioneer Square. We didn’t go very far south in the woods, but did find an abandoned campsite that was pretty trashed out, with mildew covered clothing scattered around. We picked that site up, it was uphill from the access road on the road that turns into 10th Avenue. Where it cuts back north at the top, we walked back to Parks property and Judkins. We found a site that looked like it had been used recently, but the shelter (a large piece of white plastic, almost a tarp) had collapsed and there were no personal affects. We left that one alone, because there was so much, and in case someone comes back for the plastic. A lot of the trash we found was rotting clothing. We left the slopes clean.

In the last couple of weeks, a professional forestry crew planted what looks like around a thousand native plants and removed a lot of exotics and some troublesome native plants like poison hemlock. Amazing what five pros can do in a few days. The plants range along the southern slope, down to the bowl area by the southeast corner of the OLA, and all the way down on the east slope to the entrance of the OLA. A lot of work!

Two upcoming events: Dec. 12, Saturday, EarthCorps will have a work party of 30 volunteers, plus we’ll have around 6-7 service workers; nice to see some neighbors, too! The EarthCorps crew will be mulching the soil and planting 300 native plants, plus a few I’ve wintered over from bare root stock or propagated, and preparing the site for a much larger event on Saturday, Jan. 16, which will be the kick-off volunteer event for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday / King County United Way Day of Caring. Both of the EarthCorps events are from 10 AM – 2 PM; the service workers will be onsite from 9 AM – 1 PM.

It’s been a while since service workers have gone to the Bayview Stairs, between 14th and 13th; if someone in that neighborhood is interested, we could get a crew there likely on Saturday, January 9; we might even be able to get a regular crew working there once a month if someone wants to volunteer to be the contact.