Grisdale Hill

Just a quick jog up and down Grisdale
4 miles
1,000 feet

Carried my snow snoes all the way up and back.

Vincent / Grisdale Hill

Foggy Smoggy view of Mt St Helens



All of the pictures on this page will enlarge if you click on them.




Frozen chanterelles



I got my little one off to school, listened to my husband bitch about stuff before he went to work, took my car to the body shop and then went for a mini hike.

 I went up what I call Vincent Hill. I believe this hill has been misnamed. It would be a fun research project  to determine how this hill that is nowhere near Grisdale got to be named Grisdale hill. The benchmark at the top says “Vincent” the creek that flows from it is called Vincent and the closest logging camp to this hill is was not Grisdale, it was Simpson camp #3.

This is not a pretty area, but sort of close to home and the view is really nice when there is no logging. There was a lot of logging today so I wore my headphones to drown out the logging noise and I had a nice hike. It took me 40 minutes to drive to the trail head; I timed it so I would know what time I had to be back down so I could be home in time to pick up my little one from school. I needed to head down at 2pm so I could be at the bottom by 3pm so I could be home by 3:45.

Lumber prices must be up

At the start of the road someone had left an elk carcass, gee thanks! Well Patches thought it was pretty neat anyway. The meat seemed really fresh so I let her have a go at playing “cave dog” and picking at the bones.

I’ve never seen elk in this area so I really wonder where the elk came from. Two poles had been set up for butchering it right at the spot where I like to roast marshmallows with my family. A lot of rope and a bungee cord were left on the poles. It seems to me that this animal was maybe butchered in a big hurry and the bones quickly dumped. But I don’t know, there was no sign of blood or guts under the poles, so maybe the poles had been used for something else. Maybe someone had set up a tarp there? Perhaps the bones were just dumped there after being de-meated somewhere else.

The bones were too big to be deer. All of the hooves had been cut off. I know that deer hooves are kept to sell to Native Americans to use in rattles, is the same done with elk hooves? The neck was there but there was no sign of the skull. I’m going to assume that someone took the skull home. Some meat was left behind and it looked to me like the knife got really dull in the process of butchering the animal. There will be pictures of this at the bottom, if it’s not the kind of thing you want to look at don’t scroll all the way down... I will post one more warning before the pictures...

I sat at the top for quite a while waiting for the clouds to part so I could take a perfect picture. But the clouds never quite parted and the air was very hazy down below. I was glad to be above the worst of the air pollution. The I-5 corridor was covered with thick brown smog. I could see the smokes coming from the Centralia coal plant and I think I saw the Shelton Simpson smoke and I could also see some sort of slash pile or garbage burn just off highway 101. I also saw a source of smoke that looked to be coming from the area of Hoodsport.

In spite of the haze I could see Mt Rainer, Mt Adams and Mt St Helens.  It was too smoggy to see Mount Baker or anything else East of Seattle.



Full logging truck crosses the Skokomish on the High Steel Bridge

 I could see logging operations near Denney Ahl Hill but the hill its self was not being logged. I could also see a big orange crane between me and Lake Cushman. I could not tell what the crane was doing, logging I assume, but it could have been working on the road that goes down to Lake Cushman. You cannot see Lake Cushman from this spot because it is blocked by either Cushman Hill or Prospect Ridge.

The trees on the top have grown a lot since I first started hiking here and it is now very difficult to see Lake West from the summit of Vincent hill.  I hope someone goes and tops those trees, it's not like they will ever get to be old growth on a Simpson / Green Diamond tree farm.  In a couple more year there will be no view to the East.

The upper part of this road walk is pretty barren; there are not even an pretty lichens to look at until about half way down. Half way down there is a gravel pit that has a few bulls’ eye lichens. I found what will probably be my last chanterelles of the year. There were three of them and they were frozen solid, so I left them behind.

I still hope to go hiking again tomorrow. I still wish I knew what was wrong with my knee. My ankle brake worked great. It felt good to get out today in spite of going out to such an ugly and abused area. Maybe I can go someplace pretty tomorrow.

REI called, my bicycle is done, and perhaps I will go to Olympia and pick it up this afternoon. I have not released my lichens yet, but I think I will do it sometime in the next day or two; maybe I’ll do it during my next hike.

I removed my geocache from the hill today. I'm going to put it somewhere else.

It was not a good day for photography, the light was wrong and the sky was hazy.

4 miles
1,000 feet elevation gain

Wrong lens for this pretty lichen





Moss and lichens

The Skok from Vincent Hill



Used as a butchering pole?

My geocache and other stuff



If you don't want to see my dog eating a fresh elk carcass 
stop here

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Vincent Hill (Grisdale)

Huckleberries!

I did my test hike of 4 miles on a level surface today. I went up Vincent hill. The test was to see if I had pain later, the last time I did a 4 mile hike my ankle started to hurt about an hour later. My ankle did not roll at all on this hike and it does not hurt right now. There was mild pain while I was hiking but that might be normal for me.

The hike was not very peacefull thanks to the Forest Service Helicopter logging operation. The forest service is yanking 2,000 whole trees out of the ground and dumping them in the Skokomish river in the name of habitat restoration. What a crock of shit!!! That river is already filled with logs thanks to the 2007 rain on snow event. Anything to make a buck, and they got some nice grants to pay for this B.S..

The only view from the top was the helicopter logging. There was too much smog to see the cascades or anything else beyond Tacoma. I wonder if we will ever get our clear views back?

We are still fighting biomass incinerators in Shelton, it's goint to be a busy summer.


4 miles
elevation gain?

Lower Forest

Smoggy (no)view

Wood left to rot.  Not burned in an open pile or an incinerator in town

Cutting down trees and dumping them in the river (can you say boondoggle?)

In this close up you can see workers in orange and trees laid out on the bank

Same picture uncropped

Pano of view from the top.  Without the smog you can see the cascades from here.

Grisdale Hill from the 23 line overlook

Crabapples rotting on the long abandoned tree




Click to see the car on the High Steel Bridge




Salal left behind by brushpickers. I hope it does not go to waste.




Rainbow from the Summit of Grisdale Hill




Dog in Lake West near camp 3




Moonscapes




Little White Mushrooms, not to be confused with little brown mushrooms.



Lake West with South Mountain reflections


My first hike with my new dog, she is a Springer Spaniel and that is a breed that is bred to do a lot of walking and running. I started my hike in the rain and cussing out my husband because I could not hike in the sun yesterday. But after I reached the summit the rain stopped and a nice rainbow or two came out. The on top must be seen to be believed.  Every time I make this hike, I am once again surprised at the view.

I found out that some of the fruit trees on the banks of Lake West are crabapples. Logging camp #3 was on the banks of lake west for 50 or so years.

The nice woods around Lake West are now tagged for “selective harvest”. That sounds better then a clear cut but it is still disappointing.

We are out of groceries but the local discount store is selling stale power bars five for a dollar so I packed 5 power bars for lunch. I forgot to pack dogfood so the dog got a third of my lunch.

Doggie enjoyed her hike and of course had no trouble keeping up. She walked about 200 feet ahead of me for the entire trek. She made several wrong turns but she checked to see where I was often enough to realize when she made a wrong turn without me needing to call her. She did not hesitate at all to go for a quick swim in Lake West.

I had company on the summit for the first time ever but they did not stay long, so the company was pleasant enough. Some people where doing target practice before Lake West but they were very polite and stopped shooting as I passed by. They were shooting pumpkins. One of them looked like it would have made a very nice pie, it had beautiful thick flesh.

 A lot of people were out enjoying the national forest today, some of them were getting Christmas trees on Simpson property, they were probably thinking they were in the national forest. Gun fire could be heard echoing in every valley and I saw a frowning bow hunter on the forest service 23 road.

I saw a few soggy chanterelles and some puffballs but no other edible mushrooms. The woods on top of Grisdale Hill look like an ideal place to find chantereles. Around here it is best to hunt for them in second growth douglas-fir forests with mostly moss for groundcover.

I am home now and I am very tired, I have the chills and I have a sore throat. But I can not seem to sleep. I have my usual December fever or cold or sinus infection or what ever.

My house was in pretty good shape when I got home, it only needed to be picked up a bit so I guess the kids behaved. My husband went grocery shopping and is now cooking dinner. I think this is the first time he has done a real shopping trip since before I broke my wrist. He must have finally gotten hungry. After I had been home for ½ hour he asked how the dog worked out on the hike but has not asked how my hike went. I guess he is distracted by something on Usenet. He is a Usenet addict.


10.7 miles with 900 feet elevation gain
140 miles on my hiking shoes

GPS also says
Total Ascent 1289
Total Descent 1552
Weather changes make these numbers different.

Starting Coordinates
N 47*20.430
W 123*17.488

Other times I have blogged Grisdale Hill

Friday, April 25, 2008

Sunday, January 20, 2008






False Morels





Close Up




View from the site of the old Grisdale Lookout




Track Log, I did some wandering around on the top




Elevation Profile Log




Rainbow Dog View




Fog rising




Dyers Polypore, it is everywhere and is used as an excuse to cut down trees. It is not a good excuse. You can make a yellow dye with it.





Camp #3 area



Dog swimming fetching dropping stick and unable to find it. Camera noises due to using zoom lens.




Made it out just before dark