Trail View
What a wonderful hike today, I had such a great time.
I went 16.15 miles with about 3K elevation gain, 8 hours. Awesome fun.
My plan this morning was to drive to the ‘upper’ Rattlesnake Lake parking lot (the trail to the Ledge is closed and most of the parking near the Ledge Trail is also closed), the one that is east of the lake, the one you park at to go east on the Palouse-to-Cascades (PTC) trail.
I took PTC to Cedar Butte trail, went up to the saddle:
And then I had hoped to finally be able to hike the entire (.8 mile) length of the Southside Trail. I knew from maps and trip reports that the Southside Trail intersects the Olallie Bike Trail. I figured I would get to Olallie and then just loop back to the car, for a 6 mile hike. And sure enough, I was able to see the path very clearly today.
But when I got to Olallie I thought: what the heck? What else do I have to do today but hike?
So I turned right and took Olallie all the way to where it intersects the Mt. Washington trail, at where there used to be a little pond. From there it is 2.75 miles down Mt. Wa trail back to PTC. But I figured, well, I have gotten this far, let’s have a little more fun.
So I took Olallie to where it intersects the Great Wall Connector Trail and took that trail back to the Mt. Wa trail. I estimate this added about 1.5 miles to the hike. Whatever. I love the connector trail, there is never anyone on it and it has some very nice views:
So, all in all, a terrific Saturday. Track below.
