Last Sunday Walk From Apartment To Green River Trail

Here are some snapshots from last Fridays little walk from the apartment.

Last Friday At Squak

Last Friday was a beautiful day and the forecast for Saturday / Sunday was rain. I had a new database to install on Saturday anyway, so headed out of the office early for a rare after work hike.


A bogie classic, I think this stream would be a wonderful place for a quick sit down.


Trying my hand at a nature shot of this massive moss covered tree.



Kind of funny but you see lost hats like this on trails all the time.


Eight stumps all in a row.


Hard to see but there is a pretty cool little waterfall way in the back!


Trying my hand at some nature shots, this grove of trees looked amazing in the afternoon light.


Another cooling stream sit down break for Bogie.

Saturday At Iron Horse State Park

Last week I picked up a couple new trail books and have been itching to try out one of their listed hikes. So today's guide was "Day Hiking Snoqualmie Region" and we picked out number 22, The Iron Horse Trail: Washington Creek. That part of the journey didn't turn out well. The book is a bit confusing, it makes it sound like there is an awesome trestle with a spectacular view but there isn't on that part of the trail. So we did 9.5 miles and didn't reach the intended destination and it still turned out nice.






The book makes it sound like the trail is over by Rattlesnake Lake, so we walked a trail around it. Had no idea there was a trail there and that mad the disappointment that our goal trail is no where near it. Still, we enjoyed this failed journey and bogie went for a couple swims. Bye the way, the other side of the lake is Rattlesnake Ledge, that we visited and I've written about a few time before.



We finally found the correct trail and we followed it all the way to Twin Falls (which we have also visited before).





It looks like the trestle that I wanted is quite a distance farther down the Iron Horse Trail from there even. Next time, I think we will start off at the parking lot for twin falls, follow it up to Iron Horse and then try to make it over to this elusive landmark.

Denied Mount Si - Rattlesnake Alternative

Left home a little after nine and that was evidently way too late to try and hike either Mount Si or Little Mount Si on a beautiful Saturday. Both parking lots were jammed and there were cars parked anywhere there was any free space! Went to Rattlesnake Ledge State Park as an alternative and even them had to park a mile or so from the park entrance.


It was so crowded that going into the park felt like going into an open air concert. Not what I'm looking for after having a stressful week at work. I knew that I couldn't go back to my other fallback hike (Squak Mountain) because there was a marathon trail run that was taking place. I knew this because a couple weeks ago I had seen the ad, came home immediately to check it out and saw that it was sold out. (Bummer).


Rattlesnake Ledge is a 4 mile hike round trip to a very popular ledge viewpoint, however the trail does extend out to a 8.8 mile round trip hike. A few years ago, I had explored the trails past the ledge but didn't go that far. Last month I only went to the ledge, turned around and came back.






As you can see in the pictures, the ledge was so crowded (people, kids & dogs) that it was quickly becoming unsafe. So we headed on down the trail to Snoqualmie Point. We didn't make it all the way because I was getting tired of hiking through snow. At one point, I set my iPhone timer for 30 minutes and decided I would turn around when it went off.




I don't mind hiking up in snow but coming back down without the proper gear can be a drag. Actually, I'd describe it more as a controlled slide and I wasn't really into it that day. However, in the back of my mind, I knew we would be back soon to finish this trail to the final peak.


Indeed we did jog or walk at a very fast pace all the way back. It was crowded again once we got back to the ledge to the trailhead but that was fine. Bogie got a ton of compliments (what a puppy) and even one person commented that "he will grow into a big dog someday" and this had me chuckling for a half mile or so!

Bullitt Fireplace On Squak Mountain

Because our first trail last Saturday didn't really do it for us, we headed back to Squak Mountain. Its ample parking, low traffic and variety of intersecting trails make it a great low impact training hike.

This time I took the South Access Road until it comes closest to May Valley Loop, then take that up to the Bullitt Fireplace. From there I really didn't know. You cannot see if there is a connecting trail to the towers we visited a few weeks ago.





Turns out there is a connecting trail but it isn't marked very well and twists around a bit. Saves a bunch of time and since we had already logged a couple hours on a trail, this turned out to be just about a perfect route to end the day.

Tiger Mountain Poo Poo Point Trail

Saturday, we wanted to try one of the trails we hadn't explored yet from the 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles Of Seattle. These last few hikes in this book have been disappointing and this one was horrible.
Confusing trail system with all sorts of forks and branches, few (if any signs), what appears to be a firing range, junk cars and almost no view to be found.

From now on, I will simply remember this as pure poo. I did decided to try Squak Mountain on the way back and was very happy with it.