Rose, Dry Creek, Copper Creek, Ralph's Cave Road

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Glowing moss on the Copper Creek Trail

Last night I had a hard time deciding where I would hike today.  There is a lot of snow and I’m getting a bit bored with Dry Creek and the Lower South Fork Skokomish.   I wanted to do South Mountain but it was too cloudy for a view up there today.  I also wanted to do the Dosewallips today, but frankly I’m a bit frightened by the behavior of a man I’ve seen on the trail out there.  I think he does that trail on his bike pretty much every day, he’s a big guy, and he's made it clear that he wants to have sex with me. It just does not feel safe for me to be there anymore.

So in the end I decided to combine hiking and geocaching and hit more than one trail.  I started out on Mount Rose.  I hiked one mile up (900 feet) up Mount Rose to 1,900 feet and got a find on a geocache there.  After I found the cache I really wanted to hike further up Rose.  I knew that I would not want to try to summit Rose in the snow alone but I like the idea of hiking up high enough to get into the nice snow.  But when I found the snow at 2,000 feet the snow was patchy and slippery and nasty.  Also it was getting cold, ice pellets were falling out of the sky.  I knew I would be very miserable if I kept going up Rose, so I headed back down to my warm dry jeep. 

There was a brush picker on Rose, he was working his way straight up the mountain and he was up quite high for a brush picker.  There was no car at the trail head so I thought I had the trail to myself.  The brush picker surprised me.  It’s always a bit awkward when I run into brush pickers because a few of them are undocumented workers and they are scared.  I always holler out “hola” and that seems to calm them down a bit.  I’ve actually had the experience of having brush pickers run away crashing into the woods when they saw me.


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My route up and down Rose

After I got back down to my Jeep I tried to find a geocache on the road near the trail head but my GPS wanted me 100 feet up a cliff so I gave up on finding that cache.   But I did enjoy looking at all the bryophytes growing on the rock wall next to the road.


Next I went for a geocache just ½ mile down the same road.  This cache was in a dry cave and the cave faces water so I was tempted to go back to my Jeep and look for my flashlight so I could search for a certain type of moss.  But the rock was not very mossy and my hand lens was covered with fog and rain.  Perhaps I will return one day to look at that spot in the dark and see if anything glows in there.


After that I parked at the causeway and hiked in one mile so I could hide a geocache on ONF end of the Shady Lane nature trail.  I got a note from a ranger saying that it was OK back in 2007 but never got around to actually placing a cache there.  I had to cross a high creek to get there and I did not even try to keep my feet dry, it was easier just to wade through it.  Once the cache was placed I decided to head up the road but the snow got deep so I had to put on my snow shoes.  That would have been fine except for all the fallen logs on the trail.  It’s not real easy to climb over twisted tangles of fallen logs in snowshoes.  On this road I found the most interesting rock that was covered will all sorts of lichens, liverworts and mosses.  I could not get a good picture of it due to the rain.


I did not want to traverse over all the stuff in snowshoes so  I turned back and decided to head up the Copper Creek trail.  I left my snowshoes on and re crossed the creek while wearing them.  Wow snowshoes don’t just float on the snow, they float in creeks too, and that’s not such a good thing.


I headed up the Copper Creek trail and stopped where the trail diverges from the creek.  At that point the trail turns into a staircase and it’s not easy to walk up a staircase in snow shoes when the snow is just patchy and not solid.  So I stopped there and brewed up my tea and shared a candy bar with my dog.  I took off my snowshoes before I headed back down the trail. 

One the way back down the trail the light was hitting the moss in a way that made it glow, it was beautiful but hard to capture with my water covered lens.
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Dry Creek, Copper Creek, Shady Lane Road loop hike

After I left the Copper Creek trail I was still not ready to end my hike so I headed up the Dry Creek trail.  I walked down that trail about 3/4^th of mile and then cut down to the lake bed  where I turned around and walked back among the stumps until I reached the bridge.  I found the elk heard was hanging out in the stumpy valley and walking on the moss.  Moss is about all that grows in the stumpy valley, so I’m not sure what the elk eat there.   Patches is a good smart dog, she stays well away from the elk and so do I.  She did however almost run away after she flushed two geese.  She is a bird dog after all.

  When I got up on the causeway bridge I could see that the park ranger was watching me again, but not from bear gulch, this time he was parked about ¼ of a mile past bear gulch.  I gave him the bird a few times, but it seems that he was not using binoculars so I got away with it. 

The last time I hiked here the watched me until I was done crossing the bridge and then he drove past my Jeep while I was getting in it and then he turned around and parked to watch me and glare at me on my drive out.   He recognized my Jeep because he called it in during his mushroom stomping tantrum last fall.  This time he stayed parked, hopefully he's getting bored with me.

As usual I had a huge hikers high on the causeway bridge. Why do I always get afflicted with hikers high when I am on the bridge?  Maybe I’m just happy to see my Jeep?  I don’t know... I could not possibly be seeing/feeling God among all those stumps could I?   Sometimes I like to play the "drums" on the bridge's metal guard rail with my trekking poles as I walk by it.  I’m always wearing my noise reducing headphones when I do that, so I don’t know, but I bet the sound is very, very, loud and probably carries throughout the valley.   I hope I did not startle the poor elk with my guard rail drum playing today.  Maybe I startled the ranger though.


My stitched up finger hurt from the cold and I was not able to keep my bandage clean or dry.  But I think no harm was done since if it was not a joint wound I could have taken the stitches out today.  Since it is near the joint the Doctor told me to leave my stitches in for ten days instead of the usual seven.

7.5 miles with 2,000 feet elevation gain

Everytime I edit this page more of those diamond shapes things show up.  Oh well, they are kind of decorative.

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Elk

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Copper Creek

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Huge stump, picture can not do it justice

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More elk in the stumps on a carpet of Climacium dendroides

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Moss is covering this new bridge already!

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Setting down my pack poles and GPS (r) to look for the geocache

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My hiking buddy

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Patches has suddenly become afraid of these bridges.  But a sign says new bridges will be coming in soon.

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Dry Creek register has been too wet to sign for months now..

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Tea time on the Copper Creek Trail

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This stump was used as a diving board, but the lake level has changed.  All the green stuff on the ground is
Climacium dendroides moss.  Mount Rose and Copper Mountian are in the background

Road 2353

I almost go off the road at 3:25 in this vid.. Don't try this at home kids!

Last night I decided that I would fix the locks on my jeep and ride my bike today.  But when I woke up I changed my mind and decided to go hiking instead.  So I packed up real quick and told my husband I was going.  He very cheerfully said OK.  Yes!  Not telling him I am going hiking until I am headed out the door is working out very well for me. He’s cheerful about me heading out when I don’t tell him ahead of time.   But if I tell him a day or two before he starts grumbling..how strange..

I took my Jeep broken locks and all, because there was sure to be lots of snow in the Mountains.   I was not sure where to hike, I had several ideas but I ended up going up FS road 2353.  The kind of strange thing is that I parked at the Lower South Fork Skokomish trailhead but completely ignored the trail and headed up the locked logging road instead.   I guess I wanted to be out in the open and not in the claustrophobic forest today.  Also I was worried about keeping my footing on the trail in the snow.  I’ve hiked that trail in the snow but it was not real easy to tell where the trail was.

Winter has become my favorite hiking season.  All the roads that are behind wildlife gate become trails in the winter.  It is also much easier to find solitude in the winter.    Getting to the trail head was a bit tricky, the snow on the road was not too deep but it was wet and icy.  I stopped and let a hummer pass me in the hopes that it would flatten the snow that was hitting my front differential.   I know I dragged my front differential in the snow a few times.  I wonder how much dragging a differential can tolerate?

I parked my Jeep at about 11am and I  brought my snow shoes with me but I could tell that I was not going to need them so I left them in my Jeep.  The snow was very crusty and easy to walk on until I reached about 1,800 feet.  I wish I had thought to bring my gaiters.

My goal was an over look that I had seen only once before when I was headed down this road after doing a big loop.  I was not sure where the over look was.  I passed a couple overlooks and went about 4 miles and reached 2,000 feet before I decided to turn back.  The snow was starting to get into my boots and the going was getting tough and a big switch back loomed above me.

I was happy to find a thalliod liverwort on this hike.  This is my first discovery of  the “great scented liverwort”.  I had it pointed out to me last week, but this time I found it on my own.  I was keeping a sharp eye out for such a thing and had an idea of where to look for them.  I also found a new to me leafy liverwort and a semi aquatic moss.  The only fungal thing I found was a sneaky little lichen.

I thought I had found black moss then I looked at it under my hand lens and discovered that whatever it was looked rather fungal.  Was it a tiny complex thalloid liverwort or was it a fungus?  I looked around for more and soon found a well grown rosette of the same stuff and it looked a lot like lichen.  I took a micro photograph of it and in the photograph I saw apothecia.  Ah ha!  It was tiny lichen growing in the moss.   

 I took a bit home to key out and the key took me to Massalongia.  If this is massalongia I guess it is very well grown.  But that would not be surprising since fungi do grow very well in this area.

Massalongia with apothecia?

Massalongia

Look at the nearby moss, this is a very small fungus... Massalongia?

At my turn around spot I brewed a cup of tea and that is all I had to eat on my hike so I was pretty hungry on the hike back.  I had not packed an instant food and I did not feel like sitting and cooking in the cold.   But on the way back I got quite a surprise!  A cougar had crossed our tracks and walked down the road along side our tracks (but going in the opposite direction) for about 1/10^th of a mile while Patches and I were out hiking!  Oh my, this meant that there was a cougar on the road ahead of us.  Would we catch up to it or would it hide?  I’ve never seen a cougar in the Olympics but I often seen their tracks.   It was not surprising to see cougar tracks here as there were deer tracks ever where and we even saw a deer today.   Cougars eat deer so where there are deer, there are cougars.

I also saw some small canine track and some rabbit tracks.  Hiking in the snow is fun because I get to see  the tracks of all the animals that have passed the same way.

When I got back to my Jeep I cooked my lunch on the hood.  Maybe not the smartest thing to do but it did not hurt the paint and the hood was just warm to the touch when I moved my stove.  My lunch was dehydrated chicken soup with parsnips and onions.  Yes you can dehydrate soup.  It was actually more of a stew than a soup when I put it in the dehydrator. I finished my hike at about 4:30

On the drive out I saw all kinds of activity.  The guy who had been cutting fire wood near where I parked was parked down the road with his truck so full that I wonder if his springs broke. 

I saw a pickup truck that had been hauling snowmobiles blocking the road.  The driver had to get in his truck and move for me.  He had chains on his truck but his tires were spinning like crazy.  He looked angry as I passed him.  I wonder if he was angry at having to move or angry with his truck and jealous of my snow tires? 

Further down the road I saw two men in orange ball caps, one with a Christmas tree in his hand.  As I got closer I saw he was actually carrying a load of brush.  He was Guatemalan and he seemed really surprised when I gave him a friendly wave.  Guatemalans are at the very bottom of the pecking order, despised by both rednecks and Mexicans they have to spend the day in knee deep snow cutting salal for a living.  They are tribal people who have been pushed off their ancestral lands by the force of capitalism.  It must be really bad in Guatemala for them to want to come here to pick brush in the snow from dawn until dusk.  They are mostly Mayan Indians and they don't speak much Spanish but everyone but the Mexicans call them "Mexicans".  The Mexicans have a special racial slur for them, Mexicans derisively call them "Guats".  They are a very long way from home…  Last year a Guatemalan brush picked was shot and killed by a bear hunter and the bear hunter fled the scene.  He was later caught and no charges were pressed against him.  I guess it’s ok to murder Guatemalans.   The only repercussion of the entire ordeal was that Guatemalan brush pickers now wear orange hats so they won’t be mistaken for bears.

Even further down the road I had to pass a van that was going way to slow and sliding all over the place.  I also saw two cars parked at the road that goes to the high steel bridge. Then when I got down to the fish hatchery I saw a big convoy of 4 wheelers.  One of them had a Jeep like mine except that it was lifted way up.

While I was gone my husband worried about me because there was a scanner call on the 23 line for someone in a red jeep that was having a medical emergency.  I sent my husband lots of SPOT messages today but that seemed to worry him even more…. Or so he said.  When I got home he was sound asleep and the house was a mess.  I woke him up by putting the dog in the bedroom after I had given her a bath.

I guess he did not understand the maps well enough to see that I was not even in the search area.  The search area was the pass betweent the Skok and the Wynoochee.  That spot just past spider lake is a bit scary in the snow.  I've never drove over the pass in the winter.

I only brought my point and shoot camera today so I don’t having any stunning landscape photos but I took some nice Macros and an underwater shot.  My pack felt so light without my DSLR in it that I thought I must have forgotten something at home.

7 miles with 1,600 feet elevation gain left the house at about 9:45 and got home at about 5:30, just before it got dark.

Lobaria oregana

Cougar Track

Cougar tracks

This is an underwater picture of moss.  I put my hand underwater, the surface of the water
is at the top of the picture.  This was the first time I put my camera underwater.

Great scented liverwort

Conocephalum conicum

Patches surpirsed my by laying down and playing king of the hill  while I
was trying to decide if I wanted to turn around or not.  Clearly she was ready for a rest

I think this is a leafy liverwort, it seems to have 3 ranks of leaves,
 one on each side and one on top of the stem

Maybe this was the view point, I think the backside of Grisdale hill and the Oxbow are in view

After hike lunch cooked on hood

Fire wood harvest from trees that fell in the windstorm

Same possible leafy liverwort

Very pretty moss

Pilophorus acicularis

Deer in the distance

Dry Creek From the South

The wild life gates are open so this was a much shorter hike today. I could not reach the trail head in my Jeep due to a large boulder sitting in the middle of a steep water bar.

There were a few places where snow shoes would have been nice to have, but over all I am glad that I did not bring them. The weather was strange. Alternating snow and sun shine with hurricane force winds on the ridge. It was fun to watch the snow blow off a nearby ridge and turn into clouds.

On my drive in I saw a rainbow that spanned the entire Skokomish Valley from North to South, it was very pretty.

Brush pickers are taking full advantage of the gate opening, they have moved right up the road in their vans. I've been told that there was a brush shortage, I bet the pickers are glad to have their range expanded with the gates open.

I did not bring my camera today.

6.29 miles RT
2,100 feet elevation gain

I did a lot of post holing so it felt much longer.

A track log from before the gate opening.

Dry Creek Trail 2353 loop

I had a great hike-n-bike today!

I’ve been wanting to see the top of the Dry Creek Trail for a while now. I had been up the trail a few times but unbeknownst to me I had never made it to the top. I always turned around at a little campsite on the ridge because I thought that was the top.

The shortest route to the top is from the Southern Trailhead so I tried to get there from southern trailhead a few months go but the snow stopped me. This time there was a lot less snow and I made it to the pass.

I set my alarm for 7:00 and when it went off I turned it off because I did not feel like getting up and going hiking in the dark. Then at about 7:30 my oldest daughter woke me up to inform me that she had missed her bus and needed a ride to school. This happens all too often. I was almost packed to go and I thought about going directly after dropping her off at school. But I decided I needed time to wake up so I could pack a bit better so I went back home and had some breakfast and then loaded up my bike and dog into the Jeep and headed for the trail at about 8:30.

I meant to get my waterproof hiking shoes out of my car and put them into my Jeep for this hike, because I knew that I might run into snow. But the added stress of dealing with my daughter caused me to forget my shoes. So I had to hike in an old pair of running shoes that were not at all waterproof and had very little tread, but at least I had my gaiters with me this time.

When I reached the Lebar Horse Camp trail head I saw 4 brush picker vans parked up there and I wondered how far in the brush pickers hiked to reach their salal. I left the Le Bar Horse Camp trail head at about 9:15 and I rode my bike until I reached the steep turn off to the right. Then I mostly pushed my bike all the way to the Dry Creek Trail Head.

Taking a break on the ride up

The last time I was there I turned back at Lebar creek because the water was high and deep snow made it hard to see the river bank. This time I ditched my bike at the creek and easily waded across it in my bare feet.

At this point the Dry Creek trail is just an ugly old logging road that was abandoned and “converted” into a trail. After a mile or so the actual trail is reached.  

This trail used to start at Staircase (the shady lane nature trail was part of this trail) and go all the way to Le Bar Horse camp where my Jeep was parked, but the high country in this area was savagely logged by Simpson under the 100 year sustained steal contract. So, not much of the trail or the forest is left. About a mile before the actual trail I saw some huge mountain lion tracks. Those tracks made me a bit nervous; I had never seen such large cougar tracks before. A cougar that size could have taken my down with one swipe of its paw.

I was glad when I finally got off the ugly abandoned logging road and reached the trail.

The woods there were a very nice mix of hemlock and cedar. At the start of what is left of this trail I found what looked like an old shelter site. What a shame so little is left of this trail and this forest! There was a fair amount of snow (complete with cougar tracks) on the trail and the snow was hard and slippery. I was not sure if I was going to be able to make it to the pass in my shoes with no tread and with no trekking poles. But I found a nice walking stick in the woods and I managed to pick my way up to the pass.  

At the pass I was surprised by the view. I was not expecting to see Lake Cushman from there. There was snow all around me and it was beautiful. But still, there were ugly signs of logging all around to remind me of how this land has been raped. Only the narrow ridge that the trail was on had been spared from logging. This area has been logged up to at least 3,800 feet.

I can see how it would be easy enough to find my way up to the top of Dry Mountain from this pass and I intend to try to do that this summer when the gates are open and I can start my hike at the current trail head.

Dry Mountain

I lingered on the pass for a while and then I started my trip back down at about 1:30. The trip down would be much faster and would just be a matter of coasting down hill on my bike, or so I thought.

After I passed Lebar creek and the current trail head I bombed down the logging road on my bike and it was great fun coasting over all the water bars. I think that is the most fun I have ever had on my bike without breaking a bone.

Lebar Creek

I thought the trip out would be all downhill but I decided to take road 2353 out and make a loop. I was not expecting to have to regain so much elevation on the 2353 and I felt a little bit discouraged because I was tired but still, over all I was in a good mood.

From one vantage point on the 2353 I could see clouds down below me. I was only at 2,500 feet but I was above the clouds. I decided to linger at that vantage point for a little while so I could enjoy the sunshine before I had to drop back down into the clouds and below.

At 2,500 feet we were above the clouds

Just barely above the clouds now


The clouds are on the road ahead


Now we are in the clouds

The air quality in Shelton has been terrible this winter and I was enjoying the relatively clean air up above the smog and cloud layer. If we get a biomass in Shelton I’m going to be very tempted to move to Oregon where the air pollution laws are stricter.


After I reached that vantage point I had a long and fast downhill ride to my Jeep. I had to stop a few times so my dog could catch up to me and rest. I hope that I did not put too much stress on her body. She always tries to run directly in front of my bike and I know that one day I am going to run over here and we will both get hurt. To avoid running over her I ride just a little bit faster than she can run.

About 1 mile before I got back to my jeep I saw three South American Indians walking down the road I was bombing down. They carried HUGE loads of salal on their backs. The bundles of salal were almost as big as they were. I sure was glad to be coasting down the hill on my fancy bike instead of having to haul out loads of salal on my back.

I really enjoyed my hike and the new things I got to see.

19 miles

2,700 feet elevation gain
no miles on my new shoes


Some ups and downs




View from the pass



Either Mount Tebo or Copper Mountain


Some sweet light on my way back down the trail



Ugly old abandoned logging road


Nice crusty snow


Perhaps lightning peak



Prospect ridge from the 2353


One puffed pup

Uploading images to blogger is a PITA. For one you can only upload 5 at a time and the folder view is always in alphabetical order. I want it in order of the time I modified it. When I upload to my flickr account my folder view is always in the order the picture were modified and I can upload the whole folder at one time.