Oyster Dome - Northwest of Mt Vernon

It was a fantastic day for a hike this morning!  A little breezy, but the rain hadn't started yet and the clouds were high enough that I was pretty sure there would be a nice view from the top of Oyster Dome.
This is a 6.5 mi round trip hike off of Hwy 11, northwest of Mt Vernon.  A 1900 ft elevation gain, so with my backpack on, it would be a great training workout.

The trail was pretty steep in a few places, but mostly it just steadily climbed through a young forest, which creaked, groaned, squealed and rattled in the wind.  The wind in the tree tops sounded a little like the sea.

At about one mile there was a nice overlook with a bench.  It would be a fabulous place to take pictures of the sunset sometime.  I'll have to try to time that out right sometime.

As with most trails in the NW, it was cut with streams.  Cedar and I did pretty good getting across and staying dry, until the way back while I was laughing at Cedar as he was slipping on things as he tried to cross one.  Then I got down there and slipped myself and sprawled right into the stream.  I landed on my leg and elbow, so I was wet and muddy, but kept my face and camera out of it.  With the layers I had on, I didn't feel wet either, which was great.

 I thought this stump looked cool with its wild salal hairdo.

As we got closer to Oyster Dome, we took a little side trail to check out the bat caves.  First we had to cross the rickety-est bridge I've yet encountered on a trail.  I was really surprised that Cedar crossed it himself.  He usually doens't like bridges he can see through.  In fact he ran back and forth across it 4 or 5 times.  I do have to admit it was pretty fun.  It wobbled and the "handrail" swayed a little.  The batcaves themselves were hard to photograph due to the dark forest with darker holes under rocks.  I couldn't tell if they were just holes underneath or if there was some interconnectedness going on.

From the bat caves we could look straight up at Oyster Dome... our goal for today!

We re-crossed the rickety bridge and then began our last climb for the top.  It wasn't too bad and I met some people coming down that said I only had 15 or 20 minutes until I was on Oyster Dome.  That felt very encouraging. 

It was about that too, when we came out on the top.  The view was gray, but phenomenal and the wind blew cold, whipping Cedar's hair back.  We at a little lunch and then started down.  An excellent day, and it didn't start raining until we were back on the freeway.  : )