Me-Kwa-Mooks Park

Click to skip down to:

HOURS

6 a.m. - 11 p.m.

ABOUT THE PARK

Me-Kwa-Mooks Park is across the street from the Emma Schmitz Memorial Overlook and immediately south of Me-Kwa-Mooks Natural Area. Picnic tables are set up on the lawn at the park entry (on Beach Dr. SW between SW Genesee and SW Oregon St.). Most of the park stretches up the hillside and extends north and farther south on land that is largely undeveloped. The dense trees provide habitat for many birds, including screech owls.

Immediately across the street, below Emma Schmitz Memorial Overlook, is rocky beach that is accessible during low tide. The tidepools here are rich in limpets, lumpsuckers, blennies, chitons, nudibranches, sea stars, sea slugs, sea cucumbers, hermit crabs, and an array of other tidepool dwellers.

HISTORY

Me-Kwa-Mooks, meaning "shaped like a bear's head" and pronounced sbuh-KWAH-buks in the Nisqually dialect, is what the Duwamish tribe called the West Seattle peninsula when the first European-American settlers landed at Alki in 1851. Today's Me-Kwa-Mooks Park is land that was the homestead of West Seattle pioneers Ferdinand and Emma Schmitz.

DIRECTIONS

BY BUS

> Plan a trip to Me-Kwa-Mooks Park

BY CAR

From I-5

• exit to the West Seattle Bridge.
• Proceed west on the West Seattle Bridge to SW Admiral Way exit.
• Exit onto SW Admiral Way and continue west to 63rd Ave. SW (stop sign).
• Turn left onto 63rd Ave. SW and proceed south until the street ends at Beach Drive SW.
• Turn left onto Beach Dr SW and proceed one mile.