Fir Lake

We are under a stay at home stay healthy order, but I did my research and this fits with the order.  As usual, I did not see anyone else all day long.  Just the way I like it

9 miles with 1,000 fee elevation gain

Wynoochee Road Walk

Scary times!  Covid-19 is here and my anxiety is through the roof.   Luckily hiking is the cure and is still allowed.  Hiking is the cure for everything.    My favorite hobby is to socially isolate myself on a brush crash or track where I will see no one else all day long.  That means I'm set as far as knowing all the places to go to avoid people.

That also means that I've gotten rather vague about most of my hike routes over the past few years.

Skokomish Road Walk

Dayton Falls II

This pretty stand of trees will soon be gone

Dayton Falls

Still sticking close to home with the bad weather and some lack of motivation to go for long drives.  I'm driving a lot on the job now and so I like to save some wear and tear on my car. Also with the days being so short it is nice to be able to hike close to home so I don't have to get up too early in the morning.

I wanted to try to get down to Goldsbourgh Creek and explore and area past where I turned around the last time.  I knew it was not the best idea to try to get through a wetland in the winter but it was worth a shot.

It got too swampy well before I reached the Creek so I turned back and then attempted to make a loop.  I did not know if I could connect the loop but I was so close I had to give it a try.  I was on an old road and it looked sort of okay. 

I was almost able to complete the loop on the old road when the road suddenly turned to pure swamp.  It seemd a better bed to cut through the woods to make my loop than to try to continue on the road.

The woods, really an herbicide drenched tree farm, were easy to cut through cross country due to the lack of undergrowth.  I decided to roughly follow a little stream that had turned into a raging torrent with all the recent rain.  Then I saw it, a waterfall!  The things you can find when you go just a little bit off trail or road always surprise me.

It was hard to get a good angle to view the falls and the banks on either side of the creek looked very unstable.  The creek had cut a ten foot deep (about 3 meters) gouge into the soil.  I've seen this in tree farms before. 

I was so ready for lunch at this point but I did not feel like I could relax enough to enjoy my lunch until I knew for sure I was going to be able to complete my loop without back tracking.  It was getting close to sunset and if I had to back track I would risk getting caught in the dark.  So I did not have my lunch at the waterfall and instead I hiked out to a road to complete my loop.

Once I was at the road I could have taken my lunch break but I realized I was so close to my car with a can of root beer in it,  I decided to just hike to my car and have a root beer. I could then have lunch in the comfort of my home.

5.5 miles 400 feet elevation gain