A conservation area of about 165 acres now runs from Manzanita Park to the mouth of Little Manzanita Bay. The 120-acre park end is open from dawn to dusk and has a trail of roughly two miles. The preserves between the park and the bay, and the estuary at the mouth, are either privately held or closed to visitors. That means the public outdoor life in Manzanita this fall sits within a few hundred address numbers on NE Day Road West: a trailhead, a horse arena, two wine gardens and a pumpkin patch.
165 Protected Acres and One Trailhead
The Bainbridge Island Land Trust closed on the Little Manzanita Estuary in September 2025. That purchase linked a string of protected parcels in what the Land Trust calls the Island's largest watershed. The estuary covers 5.1 acres, with nearly 1,200 feet of shoreline and 2.8 acres of tidelands. The Land Trust describes it as one of only two intact estuaries left on the Island. It is the latest addition to the Land Trust's Stand for the Land campaign. As of the September 2025 update, the campaign had added 166 acres across ten properties since 2018.
Here is who can walk each piece of that corridor:
- Little Manzanita Estuary: "not currently open to the public," per the Land Trust's property page.
- Miller-Kirkman Preserve: not currently open to the public. The Land Trust says guided walking tours can be scheduled.
- Manzanita Ridge Preserve: classified as private, with 25 protected acres that help connect Manzanita Park, Miller-Kirkman and the surrounding watershed. The Land Trust lists no public trailhead.
- Manzanita Park: 120 acres run by the Bainbridge Island Metro Park & Recreation District, open dawn to dusk.
The park is the only door into the corridor. Its trail system measures 1.9 miles in the Park District's description and 2.0 miles in the same listing's length field. It is shared by hikers, mountain bikers and horseback riders. Dogs must stay on leash at all times. The trailhead is at 7644 NE Day Road, and the lot has oversized spaces for horse trailers. That tells you who the parking was designed around. The Washington Trails Association also lists the trail as a roughly two-mile round trip and says it is especially popular with equestrians.
The Park District's homepage alert list showed no closure notice for Manzanita when we checked. Its current alerts cover Grand Forest West and Pritchard Park. That is not a trail-condition report, so expect October mud on a path that horses share.
Day Road, Address by Address
Leave the trailhead and the rest of the public options line up along one road. The numbers below come from each organization's own pages. Hours are posted on live pages without update dates, so check before you go.
| Address on NE Day Road | Place | Posted hours | October dates |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7644 | Manzanita Park trailhead | Dawn to dusk | Shared-use trail open daily |
| 7650 | Bainbridge Island Saddle Club | Member grounds | Cavaletti clinic, Sunday, Oct. 11 |
| 7671 | Eleven Winery | Daily, noon to 8 p.m. | Crushed Glass Art, Oct. 9; live music, Oct. 18, 2 to 5 p.m. |
| 8989 | Bainbridge Vineyards | Friday to Sunday, 1 to 6 p.m. | Pizza pop-up, Oct. 11; Weinfest, Oct. 17 |
| 9229 | Suyematsu Farms pumpkin patch | Weekdays 1 to 6 p.m.; weekends 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. | Hay maze, weekend tractor rides |
From the trailhead to the pumpkin patch is a span of fewer than 1,600 address numbers. Each stop is described in more detail below.
The Arena That Shares a Fence With the Park
Riders at Manzanita Park are using trails that were partly built for them. The Bainbridge Island Saddle Club owns a large outdoor member riding facility at 7650 NE Day Road West. The facility has direct access to the trails and cross-country jumps in the neighboring Manzanita Equestrian Park, which BI Parks manages. The club grounds include a large arena with a covered viewing stand, a smaller warm-up arena, a judge's tower and a cook shack. The club is also home to the Bainbridge Island Pony Club.
The club's schooling-show series runs April through September, so October is the off-season for competition. The fall event open beyond the membership is a Cavaletti clinic on Sunday, Oct. 11. Nonmember riders can register for $95, and auditing costs $20. If you have watched riders cross Day Road from the trailhead and wondered what the training looks like, $20 for an audit seat is an easy way to find out.
Further Down the Road
Directly across from the club, Eleven Winery runs its Day Road winery at 7671 NE Day Road West. It is open daily from noon to 8 p.m., with tastings, glass pours, bottle sales and food pairings. Its calendar lists a ticketed Crushed Glass Art event on Friday, Oct. 9 and live music on Sunday, Oct. 18 from 2 to 5 p.m. The Fall Wine Club Party on Oct. 11 is for wine club members. Eleven also expanded this year. The Kitsap Sun reported in April 2026 on its new wine bar in Manette, which joins the Day Road and Winslow locations.
Bainbridge Vineyards keeps its wine garden at 8989 NE Day Road open Friday through Sunday, 1 to 6 p.m. Glass pours are $2 off all day on Fridays. Here is its October calendar:
- Today, Sunday, Oct. 4: John Willett and Molo Band, 3 to 5 p.m.
- Sunday, Oct. 11: One Two Kai pizza pop-up from 1 to 5 p.m., with music from Songbird from 3 to 5 p.m. That is the same afternoon as the Saddle Club clinic up the road.
- Saturday, Oct. 17: Weinfest, 1 to 6 p.m., with German wines, live music, wood-fired pizza, seasonal food and family activities.
At the far end, Suyematsu Farms has its pumpkin patch open at 9229 Day Road. The farm sells carving pumpkins, gourds, winter squash, cornstalks and u-pick dahlias. It also has a children's hay maze, tractor rides on weekends when the weather allows, and a visiting food truck most weekends. The farm notes that Google sometimes shows it as closed when it is not, and it points visitors to its site and social accounts for current hours. Suyematsu also farms in Manzanita itself. Its main dahlia u-cut was at its Manzanita location, and now that the season is over it sends late visitors to a smaller field on Day Road. Dahlia Dividing classes are scheduled for Nov. 1 and Nov. 8.
Fletcher Bay Winery is a short detour off Day Road at 9415 Coppertop Loop NE. Its Wine Down Wednesdays run from 6 to 8 p.m. with local live music and a Tacos El Barbon food truck. Its rooftop wine garden is open May through September, so October visits are indoors.
What the Closed Land Protects
The Land Trust describes what the closed shoreline end of the corridor holds. It says salmon and herring return to the Little Manzanita estuary to spawn, which supports orcas, eagles and shorebirds farther up the food web. Its Miller-Kirkman page cites a 2014 stream assessment that documented coho and cutthroat trout spawning reaches in Manzanita Creek and Mosquito Creek. Fall is when those fish move. Bainbridge's own salmon monitoring has run weekly fish and redd surveys over a two-month fall window, and the City now coordinates the program.
You won't find a public salmon-viewing spot on Manzanita Creek. The closest organized option is Kitsap Salmon Tours on Saturday, Nov. 7, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., at eight stream sites around Kitsap County. None of them are on Bainbridge. The same program trains volunteer Salmon Docents. For a look at the Manzanita watershed itself, the Land Trust offers scheduled guided tours of Miller-Kirkman. Its 2026 work-party calendar lists sessions on Oct. 7 and Oct. 18, with locations still to be announced.
The public way into this watershed is the trailhead at 7644, and the stretch of Day Road beyond it. You can read more about the area in our Manzanita neighborhood guide.
If you are weighing what the protected watershed means for your Manzanita property, or you want a short list of local spots for guests coming this month, the Amy McFarland Team is happy to talk it through. Contact your Island Life Concierge.
