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Pierce County Parks Update – December 2025

By Travis Curry, Regional Trails Planner, Pierce County Parks

The weather may be frosty, but trail work never ends! There’s a lot of exciting action in the Pierce County trails system.  

Foothills Trail Spiketon Ditch Bridge Ribbon Cutting 

Construction of the new bridge over Spiketon Ditch is finally complete! In June 2024, the original Spiketon Ditch Bridge was demolished due to extensive structural failure. The new bridge opened in September, re-establishing the full 24-mile route of the Foothills Trail from Puyallup to Enumclaw. Thank you to all who provided advocacy and input to kickstart this vital project.  

Foothills Trail Extension – Wilkeson to Carbonado Engagement 

Pierce County Parks, the Foothills Rails-to-Trails Coalition, the Action Mapping Project, and the National Parks Service Rivers, Trails, and Conservation Assistance program (NPS-RTCA) engaged with local communities and trail users over the summer to define public support of a trail extension between Wilkeson and Carbonado. The team launched a community survey to gather feedback on trail features and amenities. We are processing survey results and expect to publish a summary report this winter.  

The Wilkeson to Carbonado extension fits into a broader planning effort to extend the Foothills Trail from South Prairie to Mount Rainier National Park. Pierce County Parks will continue to evaluate routes between South Prairie and Wilkeson as funding allows.  

Parkland Community Trail  

Pierce County Parks broke ground on the Parkland Community Trail on September 27 at Sprinker Recreation Center. We expect to open the trail in 2026. 

The Parkland Community Trail will run 1.8 miles from Sprinker Recreation Center (Sprinker) to the north side of Tule Lake Road on the southern edge of the Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) Campus. Built in partnership with Pierce County’s Planning & Public Works Department, this project represents a new type of trail in unincorporated Pierce County. The trail will be built in the road right-of-way with a buffer from the street, offering a safe, accessible route for all users. The route aligns with the findings of Action Mapping Project’s youth engagement in the Parkland community and is the first phase of trail investments designed to enhance active transportation infrastructure in this dense, underserved neighborhood that has very few sidewalks or bike lanes.   

Phase 2 is in the planning stage and will connect the trail through PLU to Washington High School and Keithley Middle School, with more extensions under evaluation. For more details, visit: www.PierceCountyWA.gov/ParklandCommunityTrail.  

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President’s Message: December 2025

By Dan Bucci, President, Foothills Coalition

Hello fellow Coalition Members! I hope the fall season has been treating you all well, and as always, I hope you have all had some time to get outside and enjoy this cool and colorful season on our local trails. As always, we have been busy on our end, and I have a few updates to share. 

First, we were thrilled to celebrate the completion and grand opening of the new and improved Spiketon Ditch Bridge back in September. The loss of this bridge in late 2023 left a gap in a critical segment of the trail connecting Buckley and South Prairie with no available detour. We are extremely grateful for the outside the box thinking of Pierce County Parks to come up with an innovative solution to get the bridge replaced in a reasonable timeline and are happy to have our trail fully connected once again. It has been great to hear from trail users how happy they are to be able to yet again ride the full length of the trail.

Also back in September, the majority of our board attended the annual Pierce County Trails Conference hosted by ForeverGreen Trails. This event was a great networking opportunity where trail organizations, local governments, parks departments and community leaders gathered to discuss the state of trails in Pierce County and share information on how to best continue to grow and support our trail networks in Pierce County (and beyond). 

ForeverGreen Trails continues to do outstanding work advocating for trail development and construction in Pierce County. I encourage you to check out their fund drive to complete the “Puyallup Missing Link” that will complete a connection of two segments of the Puyallup River Walk Trail. This missing link is part of a broader 18-mile loop trail that will eventually connect the communities of Fife, Milton, Pacific, Sumner, and Puyallup and branch off the Foothills Trail. I strongly encourage all to donate to their fund drive here: https://www.forevergreentrails.org/riverwalk-fund

In October, we hosted our semi-annual board retreat where the Foothills Coalition Board got together and completed a refresh of our Strategic Plan that we developed back in 2022. During the retreat, our board did some teambuilding work and then dove into the strategic plan refresh and development of our 2026 work plan. It was great to get together and tweak our strategic plan to ensure it aligned with our current work activities and priorities and develop that into strategies and tactics to drive our work for the next few years. Needless to say, our top goals continue to be advocating and partnering to complete more miles of trail along and adjacent to the Foothills Trail.

Finally, it is with great sadness that I write that we recently lost a long-time board member and fierce supporter of the Foothills Trail. Pat Johnson passed away in early September. Pat was involved with the Foothills Trail and the Coalition from the early days and was a board member for nearly three decades. Additionally, she served on the Buckley City Council for fourteen years and then as Mayor of Buckley for 16 years from 2005 – 2021. Pat’s leadership during her tenure as mayor was instrumental in getting the White River Bridge project on the Foothills Trail connecting Buckley and Enumclaw completed. She served as a strong voice for trail and parks development at the local, county and state levels. 

Pat was also a frequent trail user, walking along the Foothills Trail or other local trails almost daily. It was always great to work with her, and anyone who spent time talking with her could see her deep passion and deep love for the Foothills Trail and how much it meant to her, and her community in Buckley. As our longest serving board member, she was also our de-facto historian and had deep knowledge of the history of the development of the Foothills Trail, as well as all those individuals that helped to make it a reality over the last forty years. To say that I, and this organization will deeply miss Pat is a gross understatement. The Coalition will be taking steps to place some type of memorial along the trail to honor Pat’s decades of love and stewardship of the Foothills Trail.

I wish you all the best through the holiday season, and as always am filled with thanks and gratitude for all your support.

-Dan

 

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Board Member Spotlight: Janine Williamson

For Foothills Coalition board member Janine Williamson, the trail isn’t just a place to ride or hike, it’s a living thread that ties her past, present, and future together. She joined the board just three years ago, but her connection to the trail goes back more than a century.

Janine’s great-grandfather emigrated from Finland in the early 1900s and made his way to Wilkeson where he worked in the coal mines. Her grandfather and great-aunt were born there, attended Wilkeson’s historic school, and grew up in a community shaped by mining, timber, and the rail line that once carried people and coal through the Carbon River Canyon. Her great-grandmother was a dressmaker in town, supporting the family after Janine’s great-grandfather became ill from his career in mining and passed away in a sanatorium in Tacoma.

As a child, Janine’s dad took her and her four siblings for long walks along the railroad tracks on the weekends, each carefully stepping along the railroad ties over the Carbon River outside of Coker while the water rushed underneath.

“I felt so small, like I could fall between the tracks, but my dad was there with me making sure we were all safe,” she said. “We just kept walking the tracks and made our way toward Wilkeson where there wasn’t any trail at all. We kept going until we got tired.”

Decades later, during the pandemic, Janine returned to the trails again, this time on a gravel bike. At first she didn’t make the connection of the trail to her childhood memories, but when she did, everything clicked.

“It was the same sound of the water, the same maple trees, truly heaven on earth just as I had remembered it,” she said. “I fell back in love with that stretch all over again.”

When she learned that the section was a missing link in completing a trail all the way from the Puget Sound to Mt. Rainier National Park, she discovered that the Foothills Rails-to-Tails Coalition was leading the effort to complete the trail and she was inspired to get involved.

Sharing her vision at the Coalition was Pat Johnson, former mayor of Buckley, who shared a similar Finnish ancestry. The two would imagine their ancestors riding the train and enjoying the same majestic views of the mountain that they did.

“This particular stretch of trail is why I’m on the board,” Janine said. “I’m obsessed in the best possible way and love being out there. I respect the people who came before us in this effort, everyone who has worked for decades to get the trail to this point, and I want everyone in our community to be able to enjoy it.

She also emphasizes the importance of the tribal lands the trail traverses and the stewardship of tribes like the Puyallup and Nusqually, whose fisheries and salmon habitat remain essential parts of the region’s history and future.

In addition to a personal love for the trail, Janine brings a strong sales and financial background accompanied by the refusal to take “no” for an answer. She believes the final miles of the Foothills Trail can be completed, but it will take partnership, persistence, and major investment.

“We need about ten more miles to close the remaining gaps,” she said. “That’s all – but those miles will take time, relationships, and big-time funding.”

In total, Parametrix estimates up to $40 million may be needed to complete the remaining stretch of trail but she believes it’s possible with the support of large local companies, estate gifts, and expanded trail membership programs.

She has seen first hand the possibilities interconnected trails create – herself riding 170 miles the week the Spiketon Ditch Bridge reopened (just because she could), and has talked to people who’ve made even longer treks – one pedaling from Kirkalnd, WA to San Francisco, CA in just five days. One day, rail trails could even connect Washington State to Washington, DC.

What energizes Janine most is the sense of unity she feels with the current board members and organization leadership.

“This group is so cohesive. Bre’s leadership is really moving us forward. She understands the vision and I think with this great group on the board, we’re going to make real progress,” she said. “We’re all passionate about exploring the outdoors, the potential of longer rides, and more adventure. It’s why we all live here in the PNW and we want these possibilities and amazing experiences not only for ourselves, but for our communities, and the generations to come.”