For years, the story on Mercer Slough was what wasn't there. The u-pick rows sat behind construction fencing. The old parking lot was torn up for light rail work. The South Bellevue Park and Ride, the easiest way in for most of the Eastside, closed outright. If you hadn't walked the trails yourself in that stretch, the whole 320-acre wetland in the middle of Bellevue quietly became "the place that's closed right now."
The blueberries came back in 2025. But the park that reopened doesn't run on the map that closed, and a lot of people still driving out to 2220 Bellevue Way SE this week are finding their way there the old way, circling for a lot that no longer works the way it used to.
What Actually Shut Down, and For How Long
The disruption wasn't a season or two. East Link construction closed the Mercer Slough Blueberry Farm's u-pick operation for several years, and it took the South Bellevue Park and Ride with it, the same lot most drivers used to reach the farm, the Winters House, and the trailheads. A Washington Trails Association report from early 2025 confirmed the trails were finally open again without construction closures, something that hadn't been true for a long stretch before that. The city's own announcement, issued in June 2025, treated the return of u-pick picking as genuine news, not a routine seasonal opening. That framing matters. This wasn't a farm reopening on schedule. It was a farm reopening after being effectively unreachable.
The Redesign Underneath the Reopening
Here's the part that gets skipped in most write-ups: the farm didn't just reopen, it moved. The old farmstand was made inaccessible by the 2 Line construction, and a new one was completed in August 2024 at 2220 Bellevue Way SE to replace it. That new stand sits close enough to the South Bellevue Link Station that Sound Transit itself has published a guide describing the walk from the station platform to the farm as roughly ten minutes on foot.
That's the actual shift. For years, reaching Mercer Slough meant driving, parking, and hoping the lot near the Environmental Education Center had room. Now there's a second way in that didn't exist in the old routine: ride the 2 Line to South Bellevue Station, walk ten minutes, and you're at the farmstand without touching a parking lot at all. Most longtime residents still default to the car because that's what the park used to require. The infrastructure changed faster than the habit did.
The Season Is Actually Closing, Not Just Getting Marketed That Way
City and visitor sources place the u-pick window at mid-July through early September, with the exact end date shifting year to year based on weather. Today is August 24. That puts this week and next inside the historical closing stretch, not the safely-early middle of it. If you've been meaning to get out there, the honest read is that you're closer to the last weekend than the first one.
Hours haven't changed from the pattern the city has run all season: u-pick is open Tuesday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., closed Mondays. The farmstand itself, separate from the picking rows, keeps slightly longer hours, Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The current fields run about 19 acres and grow eight named blueberry varieties, on land the city has managed since it purchased the old Overlake Blueberry Farm in 1979, decades after it started as a working farm in the 1930s.
Picking a Loop Once You're Already There
The trail system branches out from the farm and the Winters House in three directions, and they're not interchangeable. Which one makes sense depends on how much daylight and patience you've got left after the berries.
| Loop | Rough length | What you'll pass | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heritage Loop | Shortest of the three | Blueberry rows, the Winters House, boardwalk sections | A quick walk before or after picking |
| Heritage + Bellefields | About 2.5 miles combined | Pedestrian bridge over the slough, a cedar grove, mild elevation gain | Residents who want real trail time without leaving the park |
| Periphery Loop | About 4 miles, paved | Runs closer to roads, connects to the Mountains to Sound Greenway and the I-90 Trail toward Mercer Island | Runners and cyclists, less about quiet and more about distance |
The Periphery Loop also passes the Mercer Slough fish ladder near its north end, built to let salmon and trout reach Kelsey Creek, the slough's main water source. It's easy to miss if you're moving fast, worth a stop if you're not.
What Changes Once the Berries Stop
The park doesn't go quiet when the u-pick rows close. It changes character. Visitors walking the Heritage Loop into fall regularly note the blueberry shrubs themselves turning a deep scarlet, a color shift that has nothing to do with picking season and everything to do with the plants heading into dormancy. Herons are a constant on the slough in any month, but bald eagles become easier to spot along the water's edge as the park empties out, particularly near where the slough meets Lake Washington.
If paddling is more your speed than walking, the window there is closing too, just on a different clock. Canoe and kayak rentals through Cascade Canoe & Kayak Centers at Enatai Beach Park run alongside the city's guided Saturday morning trips, which continue May through September. Counting from today, that leaves about five Saturdays before that program wraps for the year.
The Winters House Sitting in the Middle of All of It
Most of what draws people to Mercer Slough is the wetland itself, but the Winters House deserves more attention than a passing mention on a trail map. Built in 1929 for Frederick and Cecilia Winters in a Mission Revival style, it's the only building in Bellevue listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It now serves as the home of the Bellevue Historical Society and still books out for weddings and events, a working piece of the park rather than a preserved-behind-glass one. If you've walked past it without stopping, it's worth the five minutes.
If You're Going This Week
- U-pick hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.; closed Monday
- Farmstand hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- Address: 2220 Bellevue Way SE
- Transit option: 2 Line to South Bellevue Station, about a ten-minute walk to the farm
- Season typically closes by early September, weather dependent
The Part Worth Remembering
The lesson here isn't really about blueberries. It's that a piece of infrastructure most residents experienced as years of inconvenience, the East Link construction that closed the farm, the old parking lot, and the park and ride, ended up rebuilding how the park connects to the rest of Bellevue. The car route still works. It's just no longer the only one, and for anyone who lives within walking distance of a Link station, it's not even the fastest one anymore. That's the kind of shift that doesn't show up on a trail map. It shows up the next time you're deciding how to spend a Saturday morning and realize you don't need to find parking at all.
We keep an eye on details like this because they're part of what it actually feels like to live in this city, not just what it costs to buy into it. If you're curious how a neighborhood like this one holds up once you look past the trail map and the light rail schedule, Tarek Moghrabi Realty Group is always glad to talk through it. Let's find a time to chat.
