Westward, Ho!

In walking across Seattle, a chance to discover new territory and simple pleasures

I TOOK MY first steps decades ago, and I still love to walk. To test that love, I decided to walk diagonally across Seattle, from Sand Point to Alki Point.

I arrive in Seattle by ferry, then take a cab. In my anticipation and eagerness, I'm chattier than usual. I ask the cabbie, Isaaq, about his job, and we talk of sports, and our children. He asks why I am going to the dark, deserted beach at Sand Point. He listens to my plans, and knowing my route across the city could be longer, says, "It's not enough miles."

One hundred meters from the water, Isaaq drops me off in the crisp, fog-filled darkness. I walk to the empty shore. In my backpack I carry water, a hat, sunglasses, an old map and a lunch. I clip on my son's pedometer, which is almost calibrated to my stride. Since this is not an epic, continent-crossing journey, I do not ceremoniously dip my toe into Lake Washington. At 6:15 a.m., I face west and begin.

After a mile and a half, I stop to eat a small breakfast at a café on Sand Point Way.

Twenty blocks after breakfast, two bicyclists in bright green shirts catch my eye. They're on the Burke-Gilman Trail on a hillside across the street. Lacking a detailed itinerary, I take the trail, joining the smattering of joggers and cyclists. Small groups of people run by in "Naval ROTC" T-shirts. Eyes on the trail as I walk, the sound of birds reminds me to look up. While crossing a street, a single falling leaf hits my hand.

I'm reminded: This is not a travel guide about the most romantic strolls in Seattle. I walk to see what I can see, and to challenge and amuse myself. Walking is reality. Walking is traveling, and I love traveling in any form. Walking is simple and requires no paperwork, password or boss.

7:30 a.m., 3 miles. The chilly air is invigorating. Because I'm outside, I don't see office workers shuffling papers or typing on computers. I see people painting crosswalk stripes and drilling holes for concrete support pillars, which, like my job as a mailman, is the kind of easily understood work pictured in books read to small children.

I head south off the trail, onto a street I don't see on my map. Answering my question, a worker tells me I'm on the "in-back-of-the-hospital street." He directs me to a short trail leading to the Montlake Bridge. Before the bridge, I walk down 89 steps to the Montlake Cut. A tugboat passes by: The Diane, Seattle, WA. There are occasional rowers, singly or in sculls of six or eight.

Climbing back to the top, I cross the graceful, old bridge and find that my spit takes three seconds to hit the water.

Past the bridge, a trail takes me under Highway 520, through a park and toward a woman who gives me directions to the Civil War veterans cemetery. "If you're not in a hurry, you'll find it . . . eventually." I walk about 15 blocks, some of them steeply uphill, to the Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery. It's somewhat bigger than a football field. Here lie Civil War veterans (and spouses — one stone reads "wife of") who moved to Seattle after the war. There look to be a couple of hundred graves. Fallen brown oak leaves obscure some names. I meander for 10 minutes, looking at gravestones and trying not to step directly over anyone's soul. I leave a dollar coin at the base of a stone obelisk. Near the small gravel parking lot there will soon be an information board: Reading such boards can be useful, but I often like my ignorance, satisfied with the feel of a place.

I head downhill, turn onto 10th Avenue, and stop in St. Mark's Cathedral to rest my still living bones. South again, and 10th turns into Broadway. A crow pecks at the severed hind end of a rat in the gutter. Farther down, a shop owner sweeps in front of his door. It's too early for the hip people to be out, so I walk an unhip mile or more until I turn west at Pine Street.

10 a.m., 8 miles. The sun breaks through. I stop for tea and coffee cake, resting 20 minutes in a coffee shop with a view of the Space Needle. I begin again, downhill toward the water, then take First Avenue south to the Pike Place Market, where I wander a little and buy two persimmons.

About noon, I meet my friend Dane, who works on the 13th floor of the Dexter Horton Building. He says, "Took me awhile to figure out that we have a 13th floor and I'm on it." According to an informal (and perhaps inaccurate) poll of architects I took, only 15 percent of skyscrapers in Seattle have a 13th floor.

We eat and talk and realize that neither of us has been in the observation room of the 76-story Bank of America Tower. We pay our five dollars each and are escorted on the elevator to the 73rd floor. It never occurs to me to take the stairs. The view is grand but, from behind glass, somehow unreal, like looking at a giant postcard. We point out personal landmarks to each other.

1:30 p.m., 9.5 miles. Though I spent most of my lunchtime standing, I feel refreshed. I leave Dane and walk south through downtown, enjoying its tall buildings, alleys and semi-gritty feel. Stopping at Elliott Bay Book Co. to replace a lost copy, I buy "The Narrow Road To The Deep North," by the Japanese haiku poet Basho (1644-1694). Absorbed in the depths of nature, Basho took several trips on foot around Japan, leaving home for months or years at a time. At one point he writes that he's "determined to become a weather-exposed skeleton." My own goals for walking are less ambitious.

South of downtown, past the stadiums, I eat both persimmons while walking, leaving the inedible tops in planter boxes. I'm walking on a Wednesday, to see a working, not a weekend, Seattle. Some businesses here on First have warehouse doors open, and I see people making doors and window frames while standing on sawdust-covered floors. Moving west, I cut across parking lots, train tracks and under the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

2:17 p.m., 11.6 miles. I take Spokane Street west to cross Harbor Island, and before the road diverges I ask a guard near a booth for directions. He points to his cheek and, thankfully, waits until he finishes his mouthful of lunch before answering. I walk north for a mile or two on the sidewalk with a view of motel-sized piles of busted up concrete, a tow yard, light industrial buildings and weeds from around the world. Then the view opens up, and across Elliott Bay I see the downtown skyline to the right, with old beach houses on my left.

2:54 p.m., 13.3 miles. By now I could have walked across Singapore or Liechtenstein, but I'm still not across Seattle. I sit on a bench and eat most of a homemade, 10-hour-old lettuce, cheese and hot-sauce sandwich. At Fairmont Street I head west and uphill. It's steep, with no sidewalk, but cars are rare. Woods are all around, and I plod up the middle of the shaded ravine. I stop a bicyclist and ask directions to Alki Point. He says I should take "a left, a left, and then another left." Three lefts would seem to equal one right, but I say thank you anyway. At the top of the hill I ask directions from a woman shoveling dirt into a wheelbarrow. While I admire her arms, she tells me to take a right, then cut through Hiawatha Playground to Southwest Admiral Way.

3:37 p.m., 15.3 miles. Admiral Way is noisy and busy, so I take side streets through a residential neighborhood. Tiny clouds of tiny flies hover in the afternoon sunlight. At Stevens and 52nd (the top of a hill), I see the Olympic Mountains. It's downhill now, and I smile. At 64th I head north to Alki Avenue Southwest. Originally I had planned to follow the shore around the north end of West Seattle, picturing myself walking on the beach barefoot to finish my trek. What foolishness.

4:13 p.m., 17.2 miles. The lighthouse, Coast Guard station and Alki Point itself are off-season and off-limits, so I walk half a block south to the beach. While sitting on a log I finish my sandwich and watch a dog and master play fetch with a stick.

I'm more sore and less ecstatic than I thought I'd be.

Back on the street, I hail a cop driving slowly by, and he directs me to the nearest bus stop, about six blocks back. On the bus, I ponder the past 10 hours:

I got some exercise, I visited a friend, no dogs chased me, and even though I've lived in and around Seattle for 20 years, most of the ground I covered was new to me. It was a productive day.

Jeff Brown is a Bainbridge Island mail carrier and writer.