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No usable pics from last night – I took several pictures of a very cool lizard or salamander we saw on the trail but none of them turned out so I found a photo from last year (albeit looking northwest, we mostly looked northeast) taken from near where we were.

Derek, his brother Ryan and I hiked up to Hall’s Point last night/early this morning to watch the Perseid meteor shower.  One word review: wow!

We pulled into the remote parking lot about 11:30 pm and were astounded to see our headlights reflecting off an almost full set of tail lights.  Watching the Perseid in the dark was a popular plan.

However, none of the cars belonged to hikers.  There were a lot of people on blankets and sleeping bags hanging out in the picnic area of the South Fork of the Snohomish river where we parked.

We strapped on our headlamps and gear and headed up.

Those of you who have hiked Change Creek trail can vouch for the fact that it is narrow and rocky and steep.  Not an easy hike to do in the dark.  It was about 70 and felt muggy so we were sweating like whatever sweats a lot (do pigs actually sweat?) in short order.

We took a few breaks to rest our burning calves and gasp for breath along the way.

But in a bit more than an hour there we were, about 3,000 feet up on Hall’s Point with a terrific 360-degree view in the pitch dark.  Watching the meteor shower.

I estimate I saw about ten times more meteors last night in two hours (we were up there from 1am to just past 3am) than I had seen in my entire life before.  Every minute or so we were oohing and aahing at the streaks of fire in the sky.

There must be a word stronger than ‘fun’ that cuts the mustard here but I am not sure what it is.  I just have to thank Derek and Ryan for humoring an old man’s goofy idea to hike in the dark to see meteors, and Derek for picking out Hall’s Point, a perfect spot for viewing.

I am going back next year  to do it again.

Another Cedar River Watershed Education Center (CRWEC) tour, ‘Among the Ancients’ led by Clay Antiou to visit old growth forest stands in the watershed.  What a fun and educational day.  We left about 9am and did not get back until 4:30.  It was worth it.

We drove by Chester Morse Lake on the way to our first stop, a second growth stand so we could see the difference between the newer and the older trees.

As we walked through the forest Clay continually pointed out interesting facts about trees, lichens, mosses, ferns – and fascinating little plants like these Indian Pipes:

The first old growth stand we visited was the Lost Creek stand:

We then drove east at about 4,000 feet (along a very rough road) to the Findlay Lake stand:

We got to this beautiful little sub-alpine lake via a nice little steepish hike of about a half mile.  And at the trailhead was a challenging peak.  Too bad this area is off limits, or I and a few other hikers I know would love to give this one a try:

As always, a great tour.  I look forward to September and my next one, a reprise of last year’s ‘Adventures in Forest Ecology’.

 

Mark Garrett, Christopher Gronbeck (check out his beer, wine and whiskey bar in Seattle The Barrel Thief) and Jamil Haque and I hiked to Low Mountain on Sunday, the 24th.

This is not a hike I will do again.

The route is up the Denny Creek Trail.  This trail is fine but a bit on the rocky side:

We left the trail at Hemlock Pass, 4600 feet after passing a couple of gorgeous waterfalls:

The problems began when we left the trail to head towards the Low Mountain summit.

By the way, this mountain is low in the same way that 6’6″ Michael Jordan is short compared to 7 footers like Luc Longley.

Anyway, the mile from Hemlock Pass to Low Mountain (false) summit took more than two hours.  This is very tough bushwhacking.  It was so tough I couldn’t get my camera out to snap a shot.  I was afraid that if I tried that maneuver I might lose my footing.  Suffice it to say that much of it was very narrow, choked with vicious trees (I think they were not happy we were there), boulder fields to traverse, rocks to climb – it was a hard slog.

The last .25 or so miles were almost straight uphill, grabbing onto tree limbs and roots to pull yourself up.  I, an old man, was worn out.  Christopher, Jamil and Mark were already sitting on what looked like the summit before I got there, legs like putty, panting like a Golden Retriever looking for a tennis ball to chase.

Mark wandered off to examine a tower of rocks nearby and announced he was going to climb it.  And he did – see the photo above.  Great job!

Plenty of views around there.  During the bushwhack on Low we did find a small spot to sit down and check out the mountains in the neighborhood:

The bushwhacking was too intense for an old fart like me, but I cannot complain about the views:

Visualization:

http://adventures.garmin.com/en-US/by/djhiker/low-mountain-7-24-2016/#.V5Yag5Xlupp

10 miles, 9 and a half hours (!), 3,593 feet of elevation gain.  We were not slacking yesterday and I can check this summit off my list.  I will next check it out from the summit of nearby Granite Mountain (we could see the lookout from Low Mountain summit) and bid it a fond farewell.

What a great hike today!  We were first out of the trail head and first to the summit today – left the lot about 5:45 am and got to the summit about 8:30.

This is one of those hikes where you can see the goal from a long way off:

That lookout is the goal.  The official trail apparently goes straight up that rocky ridge but we hiked up to the base of the ridge and found a trail that went down and then up around the less-drastic northern end of the summit area.  No way up that isn’t tough, but there are degrees and we took the milder route.

And then, all of a sudden, Derek got to a switchback and saw that we were really close.  A few minutes later, and Derek was up there:

The views up there, at just over 5,600 feet, are 360 with lakes and mountains dominating the view.

You won’t die of thirst, there were plenty of water sources today, periodically throughout the entire hike.

We shared the space with a family of Marmots.  Here is the Grampy:

And beautiful flowers along most of the trail.

Views aplenty:

I do think, looking at the map, that that peak is Silver Peak – if so, we can get up there and in fact that hike has been discussed lately.

Here is the visualization:

http://adventures.garmin.com/en-US/by/djhiker/granite-mountain-7-20-2016/#.V4_fkJXlupo

According to my brand new Garmin Montana (might not have worked perfectly the first time) the hike was only 8 miles.  I don’t believe it.  Officially it is about 8.6 miles, and Derek’s Garmin was about 8.5.  I think mine needs a little shakedown.

Anyway, totally fun hike today, I will definitely be going back to this one.

Once again I was aiming for Greenway, once again I came up short.  This time, way short.

My route today was going to be up Zig Zag trail to Hall Creek Road, south and then west to hook up with the road/trail that snakes up and south to Greenway.

My plan required that the blow downs that annoyed the [heck] out of me and Mark Garrett a few months ago be gone.  And for awhile, they were.  The first batch of blow downs was gone.

But about 1.4 miles south on Hall Creek Road the blow downs began and the situation was even worse than before.  Now, later in the year, all of the undergrowth was taller and thicker.  I bushwhacked about 1/4 mile through six or seven distinct trail disasters when I gave up.

I went back the long way, down FR9021 to Garcia and then west on IHT to Hall Creek and the junction with the Hall Creek Connector trail and back to the car.  Which was alone in the lot at 10:15 am on a nice July Sunday!

It is clear that dirt bikes have been using this trail.  I am glad I did not encounter any of them:

There was a nice western view along Hall Creek Road:

And the view on IHT along the Mine Creek Bridge (a very impressive structure) is nice:

I did note a trail going west from Hall Creek Road – marked by pink ribbons at the junction and down the trail a ways.  Might be the end of the Hall Creek Trail – it is worth investigating.

You can see the intersection spot on the visualization:

http://adventures.garmin.com/en-US/by/djhiker/zig-zag-to-hall-creek-road/#.V4vbs5Xlupp

10 miles, 2,400 ft elevation gain, just over 5 hours.  Another 5am start.  A good workout but I am still looking for Greenway’s summit.

All things considered today, our best logistical bet was for Derek to come by our house, with Camden, who was happy to hang out with Granny for a few hours (the feeling was very mutual) and drive into Seattle for an urban hike.

I parked near Green Lake.  We went west on 80th to the end, then north to 85th, and then into Golden Gardens Park, which is a nice little wooded area with plenty of steep trails and steps leading down to a nice beach and bay.

We kept a sharp eye out, going and coming, for interesting homes and yards such as this one, along 80th:

Based on my Boeing On The Move pedometer I figured about 9.5 miles, but looking at Google maps it was surely closer to 12.  Fun urban ramble and Shilshole Bay looks like a place where we can drive in with the inflatable kayak and paddle around the bay.

This part of the world sure is fun!

OK, I got closer than ever to the Greenway summit but just a bit short.  Now that I have looked at the map (see the  visualization linked below) I see I should have gone a bit farther on the logging road, just past where it turns north, and scrambled up to the summit from there.

On the other hand, the summit of Greenway seems to be pretty well protected from non-hooved intruders.  We shall see.

I started up the Mt. Washington trail at 5:20 am.  I took it to the Great Wall and turned east there.  I was curious to see what had happened to it, and why Derek and I, back in April coming down from Change Peak, had missed the old path.  I found the answer today.

The trail – which has one of my absolute favorite sections of trail, as it is nice and non-rocky and winds through beautiful woods:

The trail goes up to just short of the area where they have been working when, immediately following a ‘stay out/construction’ sign ends abruptly in a huge pile of stumps and trees and rocks shoveled over the trail by the guys working the excavators.  Coming back down I knew what to look for and where to look for it, but no way to see that little scramble to that section of the Great Wall trail otherwise.  So that’s why we missed it in April.

However, all I had to do was a minor scramble up a bank to hit the newly created section of the trail, which turned into the classic Great Wall.  I followed that south to the old logging road that runs along the watershed boundary and then east to the vicinity of Greenway.

I kept looking for a reasonable way up, there being no trail right below the summit and I finally found what I thought was a boot path.  Aha!  I thought.  This is it.  So I followed it up.

And soon realized I was following hoof prints rather than foot prints.  So I got near the summit but I did not quite make it.  Next time for sure.

It was cool and rainy today, pretty good hiking weather, but not much for the views.

12.5 miles in 6 hours, 3,450 feet of elevation gain, not a bad workout.  But not exactly the summit I wanted to bag.  Nice Fourth – we are going to Jill and Derek’s tonight for dinner and the local fireworks show.

Looking forward to going back to totally bag that peak….

Visualization:

http://adventures.garmin.com/en-US/by/djhiker/greenway-mountain-7-4-2016/#.V3rGhpXls5s

 

As I got to the base of the scramble at the summit a couple I had seen leave the trail head a few minutes before me was coming down from on top of the scramble.  Good job!  Me, I’m chicken of climbing up there.  Here is what it looks like if you fall:

Great day for this hike.  I left the car to head up the trail about 5:10 am and I was not first out (see above).  But I was up there second and had the summit to myself for a while.  As I hiked down many, many people passed me going up.  And why not, a Sunday in June with perfect (albeit slightly warm) weather.

There is one very pesky avalanche chute to negotiate.  This would have been even tougher than when we were up there looking for Mt. Kent except some kind soul put a very helpful rope up:

Without that rope I am not sure how I would have gotten down.  As it is I have rope burns on my right hand.

Plenty of views on this beautiful day:

This hike is never a piece of cake but right now it is a little bit challenging.  Aside from the avalanche chute, there is still some snow up towards the top:

Also, several very challenging blow downs, although someone has helpfully sawed a couple of the larger ones that were at a lower elevation.  Every bit helps.

Anyway, supposedly 10.8 miles (I think this hike is only about 10.2) and 3,700 feet of elevation gain.  A very fun day.

Visualization of the hike:

http://adventures.garmin.com/en-US/by/djhiker/mcclellan-butte-6-26-2016/#.V3A4dpXls5t

 

Short version of the railroad history of the Cedar River Watershed: lots of timber and railroads were the least inefficient and expensive way to haul out the timber, and it was a great way to get to Tacoma and Seattle from points east.

So there were a lot of railroads and train depots and fueling stations and housing for workers – it was a big deal for the first few decades of the twentieth century but now it is pretty much all gone.  But artifacts still exist and today the Cedar River Watershed Education Center (CRWEC) sponsored a tour of the railroad artifacts, hosted by Clay Antiou.

This imposing structure was part of a re-fueling process.  If I had turned around at this point and looked through the trees a little ways I would have seen the remnants of a fuel sump into which trains dumped excess diesel fuel.  This fuel was piped into the structure above, and then into trains that needed it, who parked on the tracks that were situated just above (to the right) of this structure.

Low-tech by our standards but it moved a lot of people and wood.

As always, the tour was extremely informative and totally fun.  Kudos to Clay and CRWEC, as always,  My next program is on August 6, and we will be investigating old growth forest in the watershed.  (yes, there are still stands that were never logged).

While in the CRWEC main building I snapped a photo of their nice diorama of the watershed:

The brown indicates old growth, the blue of course is water, there is another color for wetlands – it is a very educational diorama if you are interested in hiking around the watershed.

For Derek, I snapped Rattlesnake Lake.  He was asking about the water level because we might want to kayak on the lake – well, the water level has recovered from last year and the lake is looking very kayakable:

And while I was waiting for the time to gather for the tour I was sitting by the lake, listening to this little guy pecking away:

Great Saturday!  I am thinking of doing McClellan Butte tomorrow.  Latest trip report says the obnoxious avy chute is still clogged with snow but someone has attached a rope to climb around it, so it should be easier than the last time we were there.

Derek’s knee has been sore so we have been careful about doing too much elevation and distance until he feels it is fully healed.  Today was a good step.

We picked this hike because it is not very long (7 miles, out and back) and not very steep.  But it was a bit steeper than we anticipated.  Most of the ~1500 foot elevation gain was in about a 2 mile stretch, so that is reasonably steep.

Anyway, it was a decent workout on a rainy Thursday.  This is a popular trail for various reasons such as:

And nice views of the mountains that surround the alpine lake to which we were heading:

And a few fun bridges:

There was one tricky little spot to negotiate.  Approximately every other log was unstable:

And there sure are wildflowers aplenty these days:

All in all a nice hike, a good step on the road to recovery for Derek.