Yauger Park — Attraction in Olympia

I've always thought the main parking lot of this park was under the water since it has that pond next to the parking lot. I was like, why would someone build the parking lot at such and angle where it fills up with water all the time? Then I saw foliage and such growing out of the pond area which I still thought was the parking lot and I was like, "Wow, that's mega-triflin', yeah...so um...somebody might wanna get that". Then after closer inspection I saw it was a pond/marshy/walking trail thing. Way to go genius!

Anyway, this park has quite a bit of space to do various activities. There is a community garden, nature trails, horseshoe pavilion, a playground with newer looking and safe looking equipment whereas your children may not get tetanus playing on it, playing fields for baseball & soccer. You really can get a workout here. There also is a food kitchen that appears to be were they service hot dogs and such when there are baseball games.

What kind of sucks is that parking lot that I mentioned earlier is always closed it seems when I come. There is another parking lot behind an apartment complex next to the community garden so don't worry if that other lot is closed. There also seemed to be a lot of construction behind the park, so I'm not sure what's going on there. I will say that this park seems decently safe, but maybe not at night and maybe not in the bathroom when the main doors are closed. The bathrooms kind of look like a haven for the homeless so be careful. And who knew Olympia had a Horseshoe club? I was like what the what?...

This place is fairly safe during the day. There are a lot of smokers, drug users, and people with poor hygiene. So it’s hard to find fresh air at the park and a lot of homeless people live there. They leave their things stashed in the bushes and you can usually find at least one person sleeping in the sun. There’s a camper living there now, they’re in the parking lot all day and parked on the street at night. There’s at least 3 people, 2 dogs, and 5 cats living in that little camper. One of them is a child. I wish CPS and Animal Control would rescue them from these irresponsible adults. I’ve heard others say they’ve seen bullets and drug paraphernalia. There’s always a lot of garbage, litter, and swearing, even by the playground. I won’t go here at night. Supposedly it’s closed but there’s always people there and the drug dealers don’t even get out of their cars, they just meet up in the parking lots. It seems there’s always at least one car running, waiting in the lot, no matter the time of day. We recently watched a van flee from police by driving through the park and along the trail where squirrels and bunnies hang out. Magically, the PD didn’t see them, or didn’t want to. It didn’t really seem like they were trying and a bright van leaving a trail of dust through the park where no cars go is pretty obvious. The police are there a lot but I doubt they’re making much of a difference and I wouldn’t count on them to protect me. They took “to serve and protect” off their cars...

You can say a lot and do a lot at this park it is huge . It seems like a downtown park with the malls and shops and rows or upscale apartments kinning the entrance road to one side of the park. The other side of the park is an entrance that you got to know where it is or you'll drive right by it it's about 10 feet wide and grass on both sides don't even look like you can fit your car down but you can you can basically do any outdoor activity in this park and they are prepared for you. They have five or six baseball\softball fields. In between a couple fields are huge lots of grass to stretch and warm up to get ready for the next game or play soccer or football, there is also a big field behind the northern fields. There is a huge snack bar area and restrooms and the garbage was picked up several times during the day so it didn't get out of control. They have a full size skate park for BMX, skateboard, or even scooters I see they have a couple areas in a off building that is like a kitchen and outside of those there are about 19 horse shoe pits that are really nice. Competition ready . They also have trails all around and out of the park and lots of stores all around the outside perimeter of the park. And prolly so much more oh yeah and very nice playgrounds for the young and old alike. Good job Olympia. Very nice park but someday they'll prolly charge to get in cuz of all the high end homes and apts around the entrances. Good day...