I had trouble deciding where to hike. I had a trip up South Mountain planned with a
relative, but they changed their mind the night before. I am still going on that hike though, so I
needed something different to do today.
Nothing appealed; I’m getting bored with a lot of my hikes.
I mulled over the different places to go,
nothing excited me. Then I remembered that
Wynoochee is really not so far away now that I have discovered Cougar-Smith
road. It’s really no further away then
the places I drive to from my Mother’s condo when I go there. Wynoochee is 45 miles from home, not too bad,
but the days are short, so I needed to get an early start.
I woke up at 8am.
Whoops, no early start today. I
tried to get out of the house as quickly as I could. I had to make a stop to get gas before I
could go. I finally made it to the start
of my hike at ten minutes to ten.
I drove a few miles past the dam and then down a little
side road that I knew would intersect the trail. My plan was to do an 11 mile hike to Maiden
Hair Falls and back. I did not want to
try to do the whole loop around the lake.
The days are too short for a 16 mile hike and with the water being so
high. I knew that a fording the river for a 12 mile hike would not be possible.
I had a very pleasant hike as it was a quiet day on the Wynoochee. No cars went down the road that parallels the
trail, so it felt like I was on a wilderness hike. There was a fair amount of debris over the
trail and I was sure I did not want to try to negotiate around the debris in
the dark, so I set 1pm as my turn around time.
I made it to the falls with just 5 minutes to spare. I had a short lunch break on the bridge. I gave Patches more hotdogs than she could
eat, so she begged for my lunch.
I finished my lunch break at 1:45, I had intended to take a
half hour lunch break, so I would have to hurry a little if I wanted to make it
out before dark.
I managed to keep my feet dry in my waterproof boots in
spite of all the stream crossings. I
stopped just before I made it back to my car to try to take some shots in the blue
light. When I reached my car it was
after sunset, but before dark. I drove my
car down the boat ramp to the river and then I had a nice cup of coffee on the
river break as darkness set in.
It was good and dark by the time I drove home and it was raining and there was no fog line on boundary road, so I took my time driving.
I enjoyed my hike; it was good to go somewhere a little bit
different.
People are hovering around me and it's hard to get this typed up.
11 miles with 200 feet elevation gain
