Month: February 2022

I may get to Issaquah and Tiger Mountain tomorrow, but all my long trips to the CCC Trail, which is, round-trip, about 100 miles, have made me want to spend some time closer to home. Gas prices are through the roof again.

I parked near Bothell Landing, took the trail that is south of the Sammamish River to Blyth Park, then up Norway Hill (that alone is a terrific workout) and then Tolt to Sammamimish River Trail, back to Bothell Landing. About 9 miles.

Heading east on Tolt there is a great view of the mountains but my crappy camera and camera skills render the scene less than fascinating:

Good hike, very good workout. Sunny, cold, looking forward, as always, to my favorite season. Summer.

I took a slightly longer route today on this trail, still starting at Blyth Park but looping around the fringe of the former Wayne Golf Course on the way back, just to get the view above, a nice look at the river.

I hope to get out tomorrow. Too much snow right now farther east so my Garmin, if it is still on the trail somewhere, would be covered. But I will be back.

I was back on the CCC trail today, still looking for my Garmin. Again, no luck.

I did have my new branch clipper, much larger than the one that broke the other day and I was able to clip enough branches to make it through some of the more obnoxious blow downs.

But the one at the top of the blog is too tough to go through. Once again I had to go way off trail to get around it. I got to the other side, looped around across a little stream and headed back down the trail to the car.

In the summer, with a clear trail, the CCC trail is not one I would hike other than to get somewhere else, such as the southern approach to Quartz Mountain. But in these conditions, it is a great workout, albeit annoying, constantly going over, under, or around all the trees and tree branches.

I will try again next week, starting from the other side and see if I can have any luck.

I was back on the CCC trail, this time in the rain, looking for my Garmin. Once again I was stymied, the reason today: my branch clipper broke:

I turned around and on the way home picked up a new one. Unless the weather is even worse tomorrow, I will be back, looking for my poor lost little Garmin.

I went back to the CCC trail, looking for my Garmin but I was stymied at the spot where you have to go way off trail to get around the blockage. On Friday, somehow I found the trail again, but today I turned around.

Tuesday I will go back and start at the other end.

I did find the water bottle I dropped Friday but the Garmin remains elusive.

One slightly ominous note is that I found more and more bear tracks. Black bears do not totally hibernate in the winter and at least one of them is wandering around in the vicinity of the CCC Trail. I have my bear spray and I am definitely hyper-aware of my surroundings.

I almost always have fun on my hikes but today – not so much.

I had heard via WTA trip reports that the Middle Fork Road had been cleared of snow and trees so I figured I would drive to the Middle Fork parking lot and hike up Garfield Ledges from there. It was a reasonable plan but stuff happened.

The lot was closed today for plowing and maintenance. No problem. I decided to drive to the Garfield Ledges parking lot but about 50 yards down the road I could see it had not been plowed so I very carefully executed (the road is narrow) about a 15-point turn and drove back down to a turnout near the CCC Trail. I parked there and walked a couple of hundred yards down the road to the CCC Trail, headed NE (the trail also heads in the other direction).

Shortly after I got onto the trail I started to encounter nasty blowdowns such as:

I should have turned around but, like a stunned cow I kept going. It got even worse:

Several of the little bridges are out of commission such as:

Believe it or not, the pictures above, which I took thinking I would show how bad it got, were actually some of the mildest trail disasters. The worst ones were so bad I had no thought of pulling out the camera. Particularly after the one that was so thick I had to bushwhack off the trail, uphill in deep snow, post holing, about 50 yards, just to get around the blockage. And when I headed back to where I thought the trail should be there was no trace of a trail, but plenty of enormous bear paw prints, looking fairly fresh.

So, this was not fun. But I am going back tomorrow because somewhere along the way my Garmin fell out of its holder and I would like to at least try to get it back. I hope my experience today will help me navigate a tad better tomorrow, but if not, oh well.

I got back by walking along Middle Fork Road about 3 miles. I kept seeing vehicles driving NE, towards the Middle Fork parking lot, and then driving back the other way after they realized there was no way to park. There were a few spots at Camp Brown, about .5 miles from the Middle Fork parking lot, but they were taken by the time I walked back.

You can’t win them all.

I got out today to Cedar Butte. I have done this hike a number of times but I am not sure I ever described it.

It is on the low side of moderate in terms of distance and elevation gain. Today, I extended the distance a bit by strolling over to Rattlesnake Lake (it looks like a real lake right now) and the hike was still only 4.69 miles. But I had a good workout and a very nice time.

I divide the hike to the top of Cedar Butte into four sections.

1. 1 mile, flat, on the wide-open Palouse-to-Cascades trail.
2. About .35 miles to a spot where the trail splits. Both paths lead to Saddle Junction but the right path is longer and the left path is shorter, and therefore steeper.
3. I took the left path and that is about .35 miles up to Saddle Junction.
4. From Saddle Junction to the summit is about .4 miles and it is from the summit that I took the picture at the top.

About halfway up section four I sat down and just chilled for a few moments. I was not tired or in need of a rest. I just wanted to sit in the forest and enjoy the moment. Here is what I was looking at; very peaceful and quiet:

Less than a quarter mile from where I stopped to appreciate where I was is a little view point, looking back at Rattlesnake Lake:

On the way down, at Saddle Junction I took the longer path because I love the forest along that part of the trail, including this mossy growth, which reminds me of something you might find as a sculpture outside a modern art museum:

All in all a fun Tuesday morning.

Track below.

I did a fun but fairly gentle hike today, starting fairly late (lots of early rain). Up the Tradition Plateau trail, to Wetlands, to Bus, to Around-the-Lake, to Swamp, then Brink, to the last dregs of Big Tree, back down via Tradition Plateau Trail. Sounds like a lot but it is really fairly mild, the only serious elevation gain is in the first .4 miles.

Still, it was a nice 5.5 miler, through the forest, lots of fun. A decent workout. I will be looking for opportunities in the coming days and weeks. My favorite hikes are tough to do right now with so much snow, and possible avalanches. But Squak and Tiger are always around and there are no avalanches there.

The view at the top of the Tradition Plateau connector trail is over Issaquah, and you can see Lake Sammamish on the top, the silver slice:

An OK Tuesday.