You are on the Warbler Trail, deep enough into the fir cover that the golf course sounds have faded out, when the path splits and neither branch has a sign. One track looks worn and confident. The other looks like it was cut once and abandoned. You guess, walk for ten minutes, and hit a private property sign nobody warned you about. You turn back.
If this has happened to you in McCormick Woods, it is not because you read the map wrong. It is because there is no single map. What residents call "the trails" is actually three separate systems, built by three different owners over three different decades, stitched together loosely enough that the seams show the moment you stray off the main loop.
Three Trail Systems Wearing One Name
The oldest piece is the HOA-maintained network inside McCormick Woods proper: Big Pond Trail, the Ledum Loop, and the connected run of Beaver Dam, Orchid, Grouse, Foxglove, and Huckleberry trails that thread the northern wetlands. Residents in the north part of the neighborhood, as well as visitors entering from the Old Clifton Road trailhead, have several walking and hiking options where these trails wind through wetlands and forest with good spots to view waterfowl. This is the part of the system with actual signage at the major junctions, the part that shows up when someone says "the trails are why we bought here."
The newest piece belongs to the City of Port Orchard, not the HOA. Adjacent to McCormick is the newer 65-acre McCormick Village Park, a playground for all ages that includes a one-mile loop walking trail, sidewalks, picnic shelters, a playground, restrooms, and a splash pad for summer. A city-run trail behaves differently than a homeowner-association trail. It gets city maintenance schedules, city liability rules, and city amenities like public restrooms that the older HOA loops simply don't have.
The third piece is the one nobody officially claims. The McCormick Woods area is named as such because most of it is not an actual park at all. Its trail system spans several connected parks and privately owned areas, and at the very north end, the city-managed McCormick Village Park trails only virtually connect to the much longer trail network run by the neighboring HOA. Between the HOA loops and the city park, there is a band of older, rougher paths that predate both.
Where The Signage Stops
This is the part that explains your dead end on the Warbler Trail.
Maps of the McCormick Woods area show a set of optional trails west of and parallel to the suggested route, running to the southwest, and it is unclear who owns and maintains these optional trails, since none of them have directional signs and they are in a more rustic state than the well-marked route.
That single line from the Kitsap Trail Guide's field notes explains more about the neighborhood's trail experience than any marketing page does. With only a few official Coulter Creek trail signs, one at the Big Pond Trail intersection and another at the Sunnyslope Road terminus, hikers who follow the trail south from Big Pond to Southwest Lake Flora Road will hit a private property sign, and it is unclear whether these trail segments are off-limits. The system was never built as one continuous, fully signed loop. It was assembled in phases, and the phases don't all agree on where the public right-of-way ends.
Here is how the three pieces actually compare on the ground:
| System | Who built it | Signage | What you'll find | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| McCormick Woods HOA loops (Big Pond, Ledum, Beaver Dam/Foxglove/Grouse) | Original 1980s-2000s master plan | Signed at major junctions only | Ponds, beaver activity, wooded quiet | Distance walkers, dog owners |
| McCormick Village Park | City of Port Orchard | Fully signed, paved | Splash pad, dog park, restrooms, playground | Families with young kids |
| Southwest spur trails | Unclear, likely private or unmaintained legacy paths | None | Rustic, narrow, occasional dead ends | Nobody, honestly |
Big Pond Trail is the longest and most popular stretch in the system, at 4.7 miles with a modest 114 feet of elevation gain, rated 4.6 stars across 838 AllTrails reviews. That length and gentle grade is why it works for strollers and older dogs alike. The route passes several ponds with benches along the way, shows evidence of beavers in the chewed trees near the water, and is a stroller-friendly favorite where hikers regularly spot great blue heron, hawks, and Canada geese.
Planning Your Route Around The Seams
Once you know which system you're on, the routing gets easy:
- Want the full loop with no surprises. Start at the Deer Park trailhead and take Big Pond Trail. It is the longest signed stretch, it circles the largest water body in the network, and it dead-ends into nothing unexpected.
- Have a stroller or small kids. Skip the HOA loops and head straight for McCormick Village Park. The one-mile paved loop, the splash pad, and the dog park are all city-maintained and signed.
- Want a shorter fern-forest walk. Take the Ledum Loop, a scenic nature path through fern forest and wetlands on the pond's southwest side, starting on McCormick Woods Drive and following Big Pond Trail to the lollipop loop, where waterfowl are common.
- Curious about the unsigned spurs. Turn around when the signage does. The southwest trails past Coulter Creek are the ones locals mean when they say a route "just stops."
The Same Split Shows Up At The Clubhouse
The trail system isn't the only place in McCormick where "open to everyone" and "residents only" get blurred together. The golf course and its restaurant are public. The Clubhouse Restaurant and Bar is open to everyone, featuring seasonal Northwest cuisine and views of the golf course. Anyone can book a tee time or a table.
The recreation clubs are a different story. Membership in the McCormick Pickleball & Tennis Club is limited to residents of McCormick Woods, Trails, or Villages in Port Orchard. Annual dues run about $20, billed each May. If you live in one of the three McCormick developments, you're in. If you live nearby but outside those boundaries, the courts at Mary McCormick Park are visible but the club itself isn't open to you the way the golf course is.
The golf side has its own internal structure worth knowing if you're new to it. The Men's Club focuses on both competitive and non-competitive play, facilitating ten tournaments a year including a member/guest invitational, the Club Championship, and the Red Elkins match play tournament, with regular play days on Wednesday and Saturday. The Women's Golf Club welcomes players of every skill level who want to advance their game or just enjoy a round with other women in the community. The Open Couples Mixer meets one Sunday afternoon a month for golf and dinner at the Clubhouse.
What's Actually On The Calendar This Month
If you're deciding whether to make the drive to the Clubhouse this week, a few specifics worth knowing.
A member tournament called Sea to Tee is set for the morning of August 27, 2026, starting at 7 a.m. at the golf club. It's the kind of event that fills the driving range early and the Clubhouse patio right after.
The pickleball and tennis club has its own tradition along the same lines. The Pickl' in the Woods Tournament, named for Steve Higbee, runs as a scramble format where players of different levels rotate through round-robin games, and no partner is required to sign up. In past years it has run as two sessions, an intermediate level and a novice level, with entry fees around $10 for members and $15 for non-members. Worth a check with the club before assuming this year's date.
At the restaurant itself, the setting changes with the season more than the menu does. The Clubhouse Restaurant & Bar pairs locally grown produce and seafood with seasonal wines and American-raised beef and poultry, by its own description. In summer, that means the outdoor patio with views of North Lake. Once the weather turns, seating shifts indoors near the fire.
The Takeaway For Anyone Who Lives Here
None of this changes what makes McCormick Woods a good place to spend a Saturday. It just means the neighborhood's amenities were never built as one unified system, they were layered on across forty years by an HOA, a golf club, a city parks department, and a private tennis and pickleball board, each with its own rules about who gets in and where the signs stop. Once you know which layer you're standing on, the walk stops being a guessing game.
If you're weighing a move to McCormick Woods, or you already live here and are thinking through what a change in home or lot might mean for your daily routine, Catt Johnson knows this stretch of Port Orchard block by block, trail spur by trail spur. Book a call and get a straight answer, not a marketing page.
