Author: DJHikers

Derek’s family has a long tradition of spending time every summer at Lincoln Rock State Park, in eastern Washington, not far from Wenatchee. The past few years we have joined them and the past two years we have hiked and we did another one this year.

We had planned to go to Lake Caroline, which is a pretty hefty hike, but the temperature was getting into the triple digits so we scaled back our goal. Lake Caroline is a side trail from the trail we were on.

In the moment, I kept looking for the Lake Caroline trail but I missed it. However, on the way back we briefly took a wrong turn, the trail labeled ‘Eightmile Trout Creek’. Looking at the track I see that this is the trail that leads to Lake Caroline. Note this closeup:

You can see a little fishhook-like piece of our track, out of which appears another trail (the switchbackish dotted line). That is the way to Lake Caroline. Good to know.

Eightmile Lake itself is, on a non-fiery day, a fairly mild hike. The first .75 mile section is fairly steep, but after that it is pretty moderate.

Eightmile Lake is the site of an infamous forest fire. Back in 1997 multiple firefighters lost their lives fighting the fire. Evidence of the fire is all around:

Eightmile Lake itself is a beautiful alpine lake – much of the hike is in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. The lake and the mountains around it are genuinely awe-inspiring.

The hike was about 6.7 miles round trip. We saw a mother deer with her three does just off the Eightmile shore. They were curious and did not bolt right away. It was fun hanging out to see them in their own environment, just living their life.

Great hike, fun time at Lincoln Rock.

For the fourth year in a row I did the Cedar River Watershed Education Center’s (CRWEC) ‘Among the Ancients’ old growth forest tour, led by the inestimable Clay Antiou. As always, it was an awesome seven hours in the watershed – lots of learning, some hiking, and the rare chance to be able to experience the otherwise off-limits Cedar River Watershed, the water source for about 1.4 million people.

As before, our first stop was in a second growth forest, so we could see the difference. This stand of trees also features a great view point:

We then headed up the road to the Lost Creek old growth stand. I wish I had the words to describe how beautiful and humbling it is to be in an old growth stand:

Clay gave us an overview of why old growth forest has a particular set of fauna that rely upon old growth trees to survive. It is sad that our logging has decimated the old growth, and now human-induced climate change is also having a negative effect. I wonder how long old growth stands will survive at all?

From Lost Creek we traveled up to the area of Findley Lake. The drive there features some bone-rattling, chasm-edged high altitude thrills, with unbelievable views. Just across from where the vans were parked is an impressive peak that looks like it would be a great challenge to tackle:

Part of the group at Findley Lake:

Along the trail to Findley Lake we came across an amazing purple mushroom. No one could identify it so a picture is going to be sent to a mushroom expert and when we get the answer I will update this post:

Another first-class CRWEC tour. I am already looking forward to next year’s crop.

Update 11/23/2020: I circled back with Clay about the mushroom and he sent me this link: https://biology.burke.washington.edu/herbarium/imagecollection/taxon.php?Taxon=Cortinarius%20violaceus

It is Cortinarius violaceus, AKA the purple cort. Very cool, thanks Clay!

Our plan today was to summit Mount Kent and we almost made it. For sure, the effort was actually a bit more than if we had navigated perfectly, but I have to admit, we did not quite hit the goal.

Below is a picture of our track in the vicinity of Mount Kent. The red line shows where we should have gone. The squiggly blue lines show where we actually were.

How did we go so wrong?

Start with how you get to the vicinity of Mount Kent. You hike up (and up and up) the McClellan Butte trail, to 4650 feet and at the spot where the trail turns west. At this point, if you are going to the top of McClellan Butte, you still have a good .7 of a mile to go, but the trail from that point is relatively (relative to what you go through to get to that point) easy.

Anyway, at that point you leave the trail and go down a talus slope to a service road. This is a nasty section, very easy to slip and fall. We took our time.

We headed east on the service road. I was looking at my Gaia app to see when we got near Alice Lakes (the lakes you see in the image below). I knew from the other time I did this hike, back in 2016, when we made it to the real summit, that you need to skirt the lakes to access the summit.

Unfortunately, the lakes seem to have disappeared, at least (and hopefully) temporarily so without those landmarks to aid in navigation we headed up the talus slope farther west than we intended. Here is what it looks like:

However, we are not discounting the actual experience. The talus slope was tough enough, but when we got to the top of the talus the ground was slick (rained most of the day) and pitched at somewhere around 45 degrees. It was literally a case of, for almost every step, having to investigate the immediate surroundings for a way forward that looked possible, grasping whatever branch or tree trunk or bush that offered itself to help.

When we got to the top of the ridge we were on, panting and feeling like our legs were made of Jello, we noticed the actual peak was east of us and above us as shown in the image at the top of this post. But the sky cleared for the few minutes we were up there and the views were pretty nice:

On our way to the vicinity of Mount Kent was saw a not-very-timid deer ahead of us. She held her ground until I could get a halfway decent picture:

We saw numerous birds and different wild flowers, chipmunks and squirrels and Derek spotted a Pika.

We had a great time, notwithstanding the difficulty of the hike. Coming down from the Kent Ridge I was sliding on my butt part of the time, aiming for trees to stop my momentum. The talus going down was also tough, and going up the steep talus slope to get back to the McClellan Butte trail was just about the last good measure of energy. Fortunately, once you get back on the trail it is literally downhill all the way.

Very good workout, excellent training for our upcoming Ireland adventure.

UPDATE: Here is a picture of Derek going up the talus. You can get an idea of what this entails:

It has been a while since I hiked – I had a slight calf strain and I thought it wise, given the long hike Derek and I are doing in Ireland in a few weeks, to rest. But I was not happy about it.

Because I hadn’t hiked in so long I chose a relatively mild hike today. I will have to work back up to the tough ones, I guess.

I took the Christmas Lake trail back, and then wandered over to Rattlesnake Lake. It is looking OK, but by next month it should be fairly low:

On the way home, driving the “back” way through Carnation and Duvall (thereby avoiding the annoying freeways) it occurred to me that I hadn’t visited Snoqualmie Falls (the waterfall shown in ‘Twin Peaks’) in years. But I drive by it quite often. Free parking, an additional bit of hiking, why not?

So I parked, walked over the pedestrian bridge and checked out the view of the falls:

After snapping a couple of pictures from on top I took the .5 mile trail down to the river. It is rather steep so it was an extra bit of hiking. The trail goes down to the Snoqualmie River:

It was nice to get back into hiking, my calf is not sore at all, I should be good to get back on my training plan.

On Wednesday, 7/3, I hiked to the summit of Mount Teneriffe with Carl. It was spitting rain the entire way up. About 200 vertical feet below the summit we apparently got above the rain because it stopped. The summit itself was relatively dry:

About halfway down the sky really opened up. And, stupidly, I had relied on a pre-hike radar scan to determine it wasn’t going to rain, so I only had my water-resistant cap and a light jacket.

I was totally soaked by the time we got back to the parking lot. My bad.

Still, it’s tough to beat a day when you start at the bottom of a mountain and, 6.5 miles later, there you are on the top. The clouds kept us from seeing the surrounding mountains and forests but it was kind of cool in a spooky way.

And virtually every foot of the trail holds something interesting, for example:

Here is a picture of the track, 13 miles, about 4,300 feet of elevation gain:

Great workout, fun day.

I wanted a good workout but I was not in the mood for a long drive (most of the hikes I do are 30 to 50 miles away) so I drove to the next town, Woodinville, to hike the Tolt Pipeline Trail, going up and down Heart Attack Hill.

Here is the hill, looking down:

As I was going down, shortly after I took this picture, I saw a guy on a bike at the bottom, trying to ride up the hill. Even though he was decked out in the full regalia of Spandex and what-not, and had a very expensive-looking bike, he just couldn’t get the momentum to go up.

He was frustrated and vented to me on the design of the gate at the bottom of the hill. He said you couldn’t fit the bike through it and therefore could not get much of a running start. He was disgusted with the design and suggested that whoever did it was not a cyclist.

I can’t blame him for not being able to go up this hill from a stopped position. At least he tried, which is more than I would care to do.

This hill is about a twenty degree grade – so it is not drastic – but it is just plain steep and it is about .4 mile from bottom to top. It is a grind. It always feels pretty good when you get to the top.

My route takes me about 3.5 miles out, so 7 miles out-and-back and along the way there are numerous long ups and downs. It is definitely a good workout and on a nice day like today there were plenty of runners, walkers, and cyclists (and evidence of equine activity as well).

On the way back, nearing the parking lot, I noticed cows and sheep in a pasture off the trail:

I should do this one more often, I tend not to think of it but it is a nice walk with plenty of elevation gain and loss. No awesome forest or mountain peaks but it is nice anyway.

Finley and Camden were staying with Derek’s mom, Jill was at work as usual on a weekend, so Derek had a hiking opportunity and we did not pass it up.

Because it was raining and because we wanted to hike with their little mutt Eleanor (Ellie or Ell-Dog) we chose a 5.5 mile Tiger Mountain hike. We did my typical conditioning hike, including the extra mile and steep trail section via the Talus Rocks Trail – it is about .5 mile and connects the Nook Trail to the Tiger 3 trail, and it is a very fun .5 mile – and Ellie did great.

You wouldn’t think such a tiny pooch could heave her legs over 5.5 miles, including about 1.5 miles of steepness but she does it. Good dog!

A fun way to start a Sunday.

I hiked to Granite Lakes today with Carl. We got pretty soaked because it was raining from the car all the way to the lakes and back. It isn’t as bad as it might sound because when you are in the forest, the canopy keeps most of the rain out.

However, much of this trail is very brushy and overgrown so we got soaked from that anyway.

When we got to the lakes we couldn’t see much of the peaks above us:

I have read about an abandoned logging road that allegedly leads to what used to be a mine. Based on the description of where the (former) road intersects the Granite Creek Trail, Carl and I believe we have found the spot. The route, if it exists, is on the map as per below (see the dotted line called ‘Logging Road’):

A very nice hike, just over 8 miles, 2,500 feet of elevation gain. We got wet, sure, but we didn’t melt.

This was one of those hikes that showed me I am not as fit as I thought.

The Thompson Lake hike is about 12 miles out and back, which is a nice long way but nothing outrageous. The first 5 miles of the trail go from 890 feet in the parking lot to just over 4,000 feet. So that’s 3,100 feet of elevation gain, nothing to sneeze at but hardly a killer.

The challenge of this hike comes in the last mile. From the point where the Thompson Lake Trail intersects the Thompson Point Trail to Thompson Lake is about a mile. During that mile you go steeply down about 200 feet in a hurry then steeply up 400 feet in another hurry, and the last section, between .4 and .5 miles goes down yet another 600 feet.

And that’s 600 feet back up on the way back, then down again, and then 200 feet up before you get back to a less drastic grade. I was sucking wind.

However, the lake itself is fabulous to visit:

Looking up at various points on this trail show how high local peaks like Dirty Harry’s, Dirtybox and Mailbox Peak really are:

The flowers are still out and being impressive, for example:

To this non-botanist it seems like different flowers like different altitudes. And not just the flowers – the various bushes and weeds and trees change the higher you go. Aside from being assaulted by the steepness of the last mile of trail, this hike was just a wonderful meander to a peaceful sub-alpine (about 3,600 foot) lake.

A picture of the track:

All in all an exceedingly worthwhile workout.

I did a relatively moderate conditioning hike on Tiger this morning – the typical Section Line, with a little additional elevation and mileage via the Talus Rocks Trail, to Tiger 3 and back the usual way.

The intersection of the Section Line Connector and Talus/Nook shows a busy intersection:

A fairly decent workout. I am thinking of doing Thompson Lake on Monday – based on trip reports and maps this is a tough one – and I am scheduled to do Thompson with Carl on Thursday. Monday will be a nice scouting expedition.