Kennedy Creek Salmon Viewing Field Trip!
We offer FREE guided tour field trips for youth and adult groups Monday-Friday 8:30am-4pm during the spawning season. In 2025, we are scheduling field trips between Nov 3-26.
Kennedy Creek Salmon Trail gives students an opportunity to watch spawning Chum salmon in their natural habitat. It provides an ideal field trip opportunity for your students and is designed for group learning. Visitors learn about salmon and environmental stewardship through a series of interpretive signs along the trail. It is an excellent way to give kids a real-world connection to concepts they are learning in the classroom.
Trail visits typically take about 1.5 hours. If you would like more time, please contact us to see what options are available. Typically, we request that you don’t arrive more than 10 minutes early because our parking lot is very small and there may not be room for your group until earlier groups have departed.
We ask that your group (school classes, homeschool groups, scouts, senior centers, etc.) have at least 8 participants to schedule a tour. When making your reservation, please only book 1 class per time slot. A parent to student ratio of 1:10 is recommended for your visit to the trail.
Visits to KCST are free, however schools are responsible for their own bus transportation costs unless otherwise arranged. We occasionally have limited funds to assist high-poverty schools with transportation reimbursement but do not have anything nailed down for 2025.
2025 tour sign-ups will open early September
Time slots fill up VERY quickly. Limited parking as well as volunteer and staff capacity means that we cannot accommodate everyone who wants to visit unfortunately. We encourage you to sign up early. Due to the popularity, we also cannot accommodate most change requests. Unfortunately, cancellations due to weather may not be able to be rescheduled either, but visitor safety is key so in the case of high winds we will have to close the trail.
Field Trip Scheduling Notes:
- Reservations are required to visit during weekdays in November. Our schedule fills up quickly every year and we are often unable to accommodate change requests. Tours are free and last about 1.5 hours.
- Please do not register more than 1 class per time slot.
- If you have multiple classes arriving at the same time, please register for consecutive time slots with your earliest slot your desired arrival time. For example, if you have 3 classes and would like all classes to start their tours at 10am, please select the 10:00am, 10:30am, and 11:00am slots for that day and write in the NOTES that you will all be arriving at 10:00am. If there are not enough consecutive arrival slots for all of your classes, that means we do not have the staff or parking capacity ability to host your group that day.
- We will update your Calendar Invite to reflect the 1.5 hour tour after you reserve. Booking 15 minute appointments is just the workaround to schedule so many groups per day
via Google Calendar. Please do not arrive more than 10 minutes before your reservation. - Consider booking half your classes at KCST in the morning and half in the afternoon and have them visit the Squaxin Island Museum during the downtime. Great opportunity to incorporate Since Time Immemorial.
- The peak of the spawning season typically occurs in mid-November, but environmental factors greatly influence the timing and abundance of salmon. In most years, spawning fish can be seen from late October to early/mid-December.
- Please review the information on our website prior to arrival for a better idea of what to expect, lesson resources, etc.: https://spsseg.org/kennedy-creek-salmon-trail
- We do not have bus funding secured for 2025, but please email if you are a high-poverty school–we may be able to track down funding for a few schools, but unfortunately as in most years we won’t be able to pay for everyone’s buses.
- A typical tour involves observing spawning chum salmon behaviors, learning about riparian ecosystems, discussing the importance of salmon, and acknowledging indigenous peoples.
- Parking at the trail is limited. We can fit 4 buses and about 10 cars at a time. Please ask your chaperones to carpool/ride the bus as much as possible. Additional vehicles may need to park on Old Olympic Hwy and walk the 1/2 mile back.
- Portapotties are available at the trailhead in November. There is no potable water and no covered shelter. No lunch on site.
