Jacques I.
Yelp
I'm a huge animal lover, so had been meaning to check out Northwest Trek Wildlife Park for years. We finally checked it out recently, and was glad to learn and see what animals are here.
Because of COVID-19, they do not do the tram around the park, which I had heard about. They only offer two different ticket options, the first being a wild walk where you can walk around the park and see specific animals or the drive-through experience where you can drive your own car and see the larger animals in their open space, such as bison and elk. To participate in both experiences, you must get two separate tickets, to reserve a time for each. Since this was my first time here during COVID-19, I am unsure if in under normal circumstances if the tram takes you to all animal encounters, so you can see everything? We only participated in the wild walk, since the $80 drive-thru experience was steep. The wild walk is only $12.
I was able to get tickets the day of for later in the afternoon. It's a little over an hour away from Bellevue to Eatonville and we did experience stop and go traffic around the South Hill area, so would recommend to leave early for your reserved slot. Once we were at the park entrance, I was able to scan our tickets from my phone.
The wild walk is one-way, with signs indicating guests where to go. Compared to other wildlife parks and zoos, for what we could see on the walk, it was smaller and shorter. We spent almost two hours here though, with reading all the information on the different animal exhibits and so forth. Animals we saw were eagles, owls, wolverines, red foxes, wolves, grizzly and black bears, beavers, skunks, raccoons, river otters and big cats. Reading about the eagles, we learned that they had broken wings, so were unable to fly, which is why they were housed here. However, for the other animal exhibits, there is limited or no information about the specific animals here, like where they came from, how they're rehabilitating, etc. They do have general information about the animal species, but nothing about those specifically here, like what you'd find at other wildlife centers. It would've been nice to know about the work NW Trek does to help these animals. Also, there were no staff around to talk with about the animals, which may be because of COVID. The only staff we saw were at the entrance, snacks area and managing the gift store outside.
I love animals, so had a nice time, learning about what's here. But I will say that compared to others wildlife parks, it's more limited, at least, from the walking experience. I wouldn't go out of my way to come back soon, especially for how long it takes from Bellevue. But I would recommend for small children. In fact, I told my neighbors about the park who have small children and love owls, and they were excited to learn that a place like NW Trek exists. I would be interested in checking it out when it operates as it normally does, post-COVID.
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