Let’s take a walk! Pedestrian and walkability advocates Feet First are once again organizing a day to celebrate Seattle’s ultimate urban trails. Details on February 8th’s Feet First  Stairway Walks Day 2014 tour on the edge of Capitol Hill are below.

Eastlake, North Capitol Hill and Portage Bay
This stairway walk carries us from the top of Capitol Hill down to the edge of Eastlake, with views all along the way, before it heads back up the hill to Portage Bay. As Seattle stairway walks go, this route has one of the most. In fact, we’ll visit the longest stairway in Seattle, the Howe street stairs, with more than 300 steps in total. Don’t worry, we won’t take it all at once, and indeed, we’ll even reveal the shortcut!

Walk Leaders: Feet First Board Member, John Stewart, and Seattle historian and Landmarks Preservation Board Member, Rob Ketcherside
Numbers: 2.3 miles: 349 steps down, 337 steps up.

More on Feet First’s big day:

What: Stairway Walks Day 2014—Featuring eighteen unique stairway walks across the Puget Sound Region

When: Saturday, February 8, 2014, from 10:00am to 12:00pm

Where: Two in Capitol Hill (Eastlake, North Capitol Hill & Portage Bay and The Olmstead Vision: The Arboretum, Interlaken Park, & Volunteer Park) and sixteen others in Bellevue, Burien, and various neighborhoods of Seattle

RSVP: Space is limited to 25 people per walk. Please RSVP in advance at www.feetfirst.org or stairwaywalks2014.brownpapertickets.com

Feet First Neighborhood Walking Ambassadors will lead 450 participants along several of the region’s most impressive stairways, collectively traversing up and down more than 100,000 steps. The stairway routes featured on Stairway Walks Day are from Cathy and Jake Jaramillo’s book Seattle Stairway Walks: An Up-and-Down Guide to City Neighborhoods. The book is intended to help urban adventurers appreciate the many stairways that make up the vivid fabric of our neighborhoods, and their connection to local greenspaces, history, art, and architecture.

According to Neighborhood Walking Ambassador and author Cathy Jaramillo, “Seattle has a world-class network of more than 650 publicly accessible stairways, many well over 100 years old. Stairways make important walking connections to parks and transit, and they create scenic urban byways that are very fun to explore. Stairways are a valuable built legacy for us to enjoy and preserve!”