Mercer Slough

This was the first time I'd had the boat in the water since my trip to Jetty Island last fall and it was nice to get back out. I've been wanting to paddle here for a long time, and every time I drive across the Slough on I-90 on the way to the office, I think about it.

Mercer Slough is sort of a strange channel that cuts a straight line north through the berry fields, then loops around a business park on the south side of downtown Bellevue. Before they lowered Lake Washington early in the last century, this would have been the marshy lower end of Kelsey Creek and whatever other streams drained what is now Bellevue.

It was a quiet paddle - at least away from I-90 at the south end and I-405 at the north end. The only running water was Kelsey Creek itself where it emerges from it's long tunnel under 405 and the discharge of pumps draining the agricultural fields along the west side of the channel.

There were lots of turtles - most were skittish, but some were unwilling to give up their place in the sun when I passed. The water lilies were thick and I suspect by later in the summer it might get pretty hard to paddle around the loop at the north end.

There was no one at the boat launch when I got there at 8 last Saturday morning, but by the time I got back, there were several more kayaks and a whole fleet of canoes on the water.