High Steel Bridge Mushrooms

 

Cold and geocaches at Haven Lake on Bike

 

I woke up and remembered it was hiking morning and I just wanted to go back to sleep.  What happened?  I used to be so excited to get up on hiking morning, but I’ve not felt that for a few years now except for when I have a new hike planned.

I think I’m just bored to death of all the local trails.  I’ve done them all dozens of times and they are getting more crowded.

This morning I wanted to go back to Haven Lake to place a geocache, find some geocaches and to look at the old road that runs next to the lake.   

I woke up and looked out the window and saw rain and it made me happy, it meant that I could cancel my hike with no guilt.  I used to hike in the rain all the time though.  

I was not able to fall back to sleep and the sun came out!  I checked the forecast and it said that more rain was likely but only 1/10^th of an inch.  The hike was back on.  

I felt a bit more inspired to hike remembering that I had geocaching missions in mind and that the gate to the evacuation route and or the 800 line is probably due to close on December 31. 

Once those gates are shut I will probably never get to go back to South Mountain or Haven Lake again since I am moving to in the spring.  

So off I went on my bike and with a big heavy geocache in my backpack. 

Soon it started raining, but no worries 1/10^th of an inch is nothing! 

 

Of course the weather guessers were wrong  the rain kept falling harder and harder and being on a bike I was really getting soaked.  Soon the rain drops began to get fat and white, but never quite turned into snow.

I gave up on finding any geocaches, it was too cold and I was not patient enough spend much time looking for them.

I  continued on to Haven Lake to hide my cache and it was just pouring.  It was okay though, I always have a tarp in my backpack these days.  I leave it in all the time no matter what the forecast so I will always have it when it is needed.

I pitched my tarp at the lake shore, started up my stove and hid my geocache.  Then I had a nice hot lunch and hot coffee at the lake under my cuben fiber tarp.

The trip back out was short but cold.  Thanks to my bike I finished my hike well before dark. 

I was home for about 4 hours before I felt warm again.

6.5 miles 600 feet elevation gain

 

Hike and Bike off CLQ Road

 

                                             Lunch / Dinner at one of the Mud Lakes

Sage is not fit to hike anymore so I am taking advantage of not having a dog to hike with me and riding my bike instead.  It is fun to find out how much faster I can cover the distance on my bike and it is easier on my joints than walking.   

I like riding my bike but it scares me too.  I've had a few bad bike accidents in my life resulting in chipped teeth, broken bones and a sprained ankle that never fully recovered.

Today I wanted to go up a hill that is near another hill that I like to hike up.  I plotted my route with Mapsource and Google Earth.   My Mapsource map turned out to be too old and I had to turn back short of my goal, but I had a great time anyway. 

Today was the last day of modern firearm season and it was a Saturday, so lots of hunters were out prowling in there trucks.  I wish I had remembered to wear bright colors.

13 miles 200 feet elevation gain

                                The end of the road and almost the end of the road for me

                                                     I took my shoes off and pushed my bike across this only to find                                                                 another just like it.  I turned back when the map showed me there may               be a few more of these crossings on my route. 

                                                      Today's journey.  I did some side explorations when I could not make my intended goal.

Off the Beaten Path in the Skokomish Valley

More off trail exploring in the Cushman area

We did about 16 miles hiking and biking. 8 on bike and 8 on foot.  Some of the biking was actually pushing bikes up hill so I'm going to count 2 miles of the biking as hiking miles.

So 10 miles with some elevation gain.  My body feels like I did closer to 14 miles of hiking though plus I'm sore in places that don't normally get sore just from hiking.  I got a work out for sure.

I have a new camera lens, but I did not bring it for this hike.

5 photo panorama

Hunting without a permit on Crawford Mountain

Teasel with a hover fly at the parking area

Crawford Mountain is just outside of Tenino and south east of Olympia.  It is owned by Weyerhouser.  The mountain was popular with geocachers but that has just changed...

Weyerhaeuser will be closing open general public access to the Vail Tree farm which includes Crawford Mtn. Beginning August 1, 2013, there are only two authorized ways to travel on these lands.

1) Purchase a $150 recreational permit, which covers Aug. 1 - Dec. 31, allowing for keyed access to the gate for motorized access. This permit is subject to closure for fire and logging.

2) Bid for a year 'round group recreational permit. These are expensive and unfortunately the bid process closes in late June. The annual period runs from Aug 1 to July 31 and again is subject to closure for fire and logging.

For more Weyerhaeuser information:

Phone: 360-446-2704
Email: Vail.Recreational@Weyerhaeuser.com
Website: Wy.recreationnw.com

I wanted to see this place before public access is shut off to all but the well-to-do by the new permit system. Timber companies were given a lot of land and got other lands on the cheap and pay a much reduced agricultural tax rate. The justification for the low tax rate is that tree farms provide sport and recreational opportunities.

With each cache owner’s permission we removed 21 caches from the tree farm as probably no one will want to pay $150 to access the land for just a few months each year at the peak of hunting season, for the sake of geocaching. It’s probably not even safe to be geocaching at that time of year in such a popular hunting ground.

 12 miles with 1,200 feet elevation gain.  I'll count six of these mile as hiking miles since we pushed our bikes most of the way up.

Starting at the gate with a trailer to haul the caches out in

Nice second growth on DNR land behind the gate

our star on top of the mountain

checking off caches as they are removed

Bagged our limit of caches

Track and elevation log