Safety improvements underway on cliffside trails at Point Defiance Park

TACOMA, Wash. — Trails along sheer cliffs at Tacoma's Point Defiance Park can attract a lot of hikers, but they can also be dangerous.

Some of the most popular trails in the park are along eroding cliffsides, so the park is now working to make them safer.

Crews with the Washington Conservation Corps are digging holes for fence posts near the Narrows viewpoint along Five Mile Drive.

Some hikers say fencing along the sheer edges makes sense.

“I think it would make sense. I just don’t want them to be too high so that you can’t really see the views,“ said park visitor Amanda Harrod.

In many areas, unofficial trails carved out by years of people walking the edge for the view of Puget Sound can create potentially deadly hazards. Erosion has eaten away the cliffs in several places along the drive, and fences now block off areas where concrete viewpoints once stood.

People braving the trails along the edge have sometimes ended up stranded on nearly vertical cliffs, and KIRO 7 has covered several instances where people had to be rescued by the Tacoma Fire Department.

Those trails have prompted Metro Parks to make them safer. The route will be pulled back by closing about 1,000 feet of the unofficial trail while widening a parallel secondary trail that is a safer distance from the edge.

Park ranger Ben Monte Calvo says the hope is to guide hikers away from dangers on the trails they may not even see.

“Some of them are undercut as well, so you can’t even tell when you’re out on them that you’re not standing on anything that’s stable,” said Monte Calvo.

Crews began installing fences and opening the trails early this week. The work is expected to continue until about April 11.

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