Cloquallum Loop Hike in the Rain to finish up the year.

 

This area is not the most exciting but so far I have gotten total solitude out here, so I love it.  The plan was to hike a 7 mile loop on logging roads.

I hit the trail at about 10am, that’s early for me.  My days and nights are reversed.  I have done part of this loop before.  I decided to do the loop clockwise so I could see new stuff at the start of my hike.

The forecast was a 30% chance of rain and that is the best forecast into the foreseeable future. 30% may as well be 100% in December on the Olympic Peninsula so when I got up I put on my thin long underwear and my rain pants.  I think rain pants are uncomfortable when worn over regular pants, but they are quite comfortable when worn just over long underwear.

Shortly into my planned loop I hit an abandoned logging road.  I had used Google Earth and my old Western States Topographic map to plan my hike.  When I saw the closed and ditched up road I was a little worried that my plan for a loop hike would not pan out.

I was glad that I had not brought my bike for this hike.  It would have been very hard to push my bike up the closed road.  Luckily the abandoned section was only about half a mile if that and then it came out to a new road.  The new road was in an area that had been clear cut in 2018.  The view from the clear cut was grand.  This is on Greed Diamond Land and I don’t know how much land Green Diamond got honestly or how much was stolen with phony homesteads, or gifted or grafted in back room deals, but this area is a tree farm now. All the old growth is gone for good, so it does not bother much when they do fresh logging.

The view was nice but it seemed a bit early in my hike to have lunch and the wind was blowing.  I kept hiking and completed my loop much faster than I expected to.  There was no danger of me getting caught in the dark on this day.

I stopped and pitched my tarp to have lunch at about 2.5 miles from my car.  At that point the rain was coming down pretty good, so it seemed wise to pitch the tarp and take a break.  

I forgot my noodles so just had hot coffee with a dog biscuit (what I call a Mayday emergency bar).  On my last hike I spilled all my coffee water so just had hot noodles with cold water.  

 

This was a nice hike to finish up 2020 with.  I will add up my totals for the year soon. I know that I did get a lot of miles in though and I got in some great backpacking trips.

Happy New Year!

6.5 miles with 700 feet elevation gain

The end of my road

Old Chicken of the woods on an Old Growth Stump.
I sure wish I could have seen this area before the logging companies destroyed it.

The going got rough here

Back on the road

Cut clay caught my eye

I used to call road cuts that looked like this ham slices when I was a kid

Not the prettiest lunch spot but at least I was dry.  I sure miss hiking with Sage

My route, I went clockwise

Nothing but tree farms as far as the eye can see