Illahee Preserve — Attraction in Washington

As a preserve it is pretty great. You got just a nice slice of forest in an otherwise urban developed area. It's nice to visit a spot that is able to get oneself secluded from the bustle of city life. Located in a nice little corner, it is also easy to get lost on the many trails that have been carved into the forest. I would recommend taking a picture of the trail map before diving in and thus navigating using the numbered markers found all within; or you can take the fun route with an hour or two and get lost. That being said, it's so small that getting lost may be anxiety inducing easy but practically difficult and you will pop out one of the many egress points, that is if you miraculously avoid encountering anyone else who is walking a dog or enjoying a nice stroll. The past are nicely defined over the many thousands of people over the years walking the paths and they are kindly enough to have mulch added to them, making a nice soft padding for trail joggers. With picnic areas setup around the egress/ingress points it could be a nice place for a lite picnic date and stroll or a family bonding with a bit of food. It's not a park, as there are little areas to lounge and relax and the trails are for traffic only. And golly dies it...

IF YOU HAVE KIDS OR DOGS READ THIS: Last night at about 6PM my fiancé and I went for a walk with our dogs & approached two homeless people having intercourse right there in the middle of the trail. So that was lovely. I can only imagine if I had kids with me.

Also, beautiful well kept trails but there's soooo many people who let their dogs off leash back here. I have two tiny dogs and they are reactive. I do my part and keep them leashed but I've been approached at least 5 different times by dogs off leash with no call back. Now my dogs are tiny so I mostly worry for them but if they were big and I did my part, keeping them leashed and they were approached by another dog and attacked then that is on YOU for not leashing your dog.... Protect your dog and yourself by leashing them! I understand wanting to let our perfect babies run free, but these trails are not the place. Law suits waiting to happen back here.... so I can never walk comfortably with my dogs back here. Families & dog...

We (Bremertonians) used to call the land that is the Illahee preserve "Hells Hole". Why I don't know. It used to be a bunch of really tight 4×4 & dirt bike trails, and I mean tight like old school Toyota or Datsun 4by and you don't care about the paint job and are willing to potentially have to fix your suspension when your done. But people would be back there in those doing just that. When they finally started moving on the dirt and transforming it into what it is today? What a difference. It was called Hells Hole because in the middle of all that acreage was an open clearing roughly 100 yards in diameter where we would throw bonfire keggers and the cops were never interested in coming all the way in lol 😂. Now it's just the neatest little jewel in Bremerton. It gets use year around. If you've never been up there you should plan a time to check it out. Try and imagine it as I just explained it to really understand the transformation and see that level of beauty and peace and...