Howarth Park

The railroad and the high bluffs make access to the beach between Seattle and Everett a tricky proposition, but there are places where stream valleys, pedestrian overpasses, and public parks conspire to make it possible - Carkeek Park, Picnic Point, and Howarth Park, for example.

The natural stream mouth at Howarth is obscured beneath the railroad grade and the big pile of dirt that surrounds the stair tower -- the creek tumbles out of a long culvert onto the riprap. From the look of the wetland next to the parking lot, this stream might have had a sufficiently low gradient to result in a nice little estuary (probably behind a small spit - sort of like the one down the beach at Merrill and Ring Creek).