Wallace Falls Again

Today’s hike was about 5.5 miles round trip, and I was hoping that even though I had been here before, it would be a nice morning.  It was lovely.  The sun was out off and on, the flowers were blooming, the huckleberries were fully leafed out and the ferns’ fiddle heads had unfurled enough to look more like shepherds’ crooks.  I saw trillium, wild strawberry and bleeding heart, as well as other flowers.

The trail follows the Wallace River along, and crosses a couple of its tributaries.  The sound of water is a constant, along with birdsong which could be heard in between other hiking groups.  This is a popular trail!!

I wore my barefoot shoes and was not too sure about such a long hike and over some rocky terrain here and there, so I packed my hiking boots as well.  I didn’t need them.  My feet felt so light in these that I ran up all the stairs.  It was also nice that my footsteps were quieter.  I felt just that much more a part of nature, rather than apart from it.

The various fall areas along the river have been given pretty creative names.  One tributary with a falls is called Small Falls, and the main falls are Lower, Middle and Upper.  I had actually only ever been as far as Middle before.  Here is Cedar at Small Falls.

Lower Falls has a nice covered picnic area at the overlook.  It’s pretty, but one of its biggest attractions is the view of Middle Falls through the trees.

Middle Falls has viewing areas above and below and is the largest cascade at 265 feet.  It is really magnificent. 

Upper Falls was very much worth hiking further for.  It really crashed and churned, pumping copious amounts of mist into the air.  This falls won the enthusiasm award, haha.   In addition, Upper Falls has a beautiful view of the valley below. 

Here are some other pictures I took that I liked.  If you are going on this hike, go as early as possible.  There were really masses and masses of people on it. 

It was fun to see a little wildlife on this hike as well.  Really little.  : )

Portland, Multnomah Falls, Wahclella Falls

This Mothers’ Day weekend both Bradley & Justus were coming with me to camp at Beacon Rock State Park and do two 8 mile peak-type hikes.  Justus was sick and getting worse by the time we got near the campground though, and it was pouring down rain to top things off, so we changed our plans and it turned out to be a wonderful weekend anyway! 

We stopped in the small town of Camas and looked for a room.  By now Justus had a fever and we had been on the road for 5 hours.  We ended up getting a nice discount on the honeymoon suite at the Camas Inn.  The people who run it are very nice, friendly, and genuinely care about their guests.  Cedar was allowed to stay too, for a nominal fee.  I was armed with a list of good places to eat, where I could get a late night pizza if I wished, treats and a dog bed for Cedar, and would have gotten free movie tickets if we were going to be in the area the next day.  The room was lovely… I wish I had had time to use the Jacuzzi tub!  They had a hotel cat… a big friendly black cat, and they were celebrating 100 yrs in business, which is pretty cool.  The town of Camas was charming as well.

The next morning Justus’ fever had come back down, but there was no way he was hiking 9 miles with 2000 ft of elevation gain.  We decided to go to Portland for the Saturday Market.  My best high school friend has a booth there where she sells her artisan lampwork glass.  She suggested a short hike she loves to Wahclella Falls about 40 mi east.  It sounded lovely, and Justus could handle that, so we went.

On the way there, I was really excited to see Multnomah Falls!  I hadn’t been there since I was little.  The boys and I took Adventure Dog and walked up the paved path.  There was a Sherlock Holmes group there, for possibly a funeral of some sort and they had a bagpiper, so our walk up to the higher bridge was accompanied by bagpiping oddly enough.  Multnomah is one of the tallest waterfalls in the U.S. with a total drop of over 600 feet for both the upper and lower falls combined.  Breathtaking!

After dining at the Multnomah Lodge, we were back on our way to Wahclella Falls.  This is a pretty easy 2 mile loop, although it was pretty muddy in places and seemed like some spring erosion had been recently repaired.  Wildflowers bloomed everywhere along the trail and stream we were following.

As we neared the falls, the sound was what really captivated me.  The frothing white water crashing down was beautiful, and they thundered powerfully sending billowing mist out at us.

  After passing the falls, we found a cave (hole) into the foot of the huge basalt cliff.  It appeared pretty solid but I would have preferred not to enter.  Bradley and Justus were both eager for a bit of spelunking, so we crawled in.  Yes, crawled.  It was muddy on the bottom and with sharp  gravel.  I think it went only about 50 or 60 feet in and just ended.  We went in about 40 feet, and it was so fun to see this cave cricket.  I think the phrases that were uttered were “please tell me that isn’t a spider” and “don’t shine your light around- I don’t want to see if there are more.”

After our short hike, we crossed the highway to the Bonneville Dam and fish hatcher y on the other side.  We didn’t view the dam, but enjoyed feeding monstrous rainbow trout, and viewed white sturgeon.  The largest they call Herman, and he is 10 feet long and 70 years old.  They can grow to 20 feet!  I like sturgeon.. they had kind of a sweet homely look and moved in both a ponderous and graceful way.  Adventure Dog likes sturgeon too.

This was a great Mothers’ Day weekend!  The only thing that would have made it better is if my Mom was there too!  : )

Baker Lake Trail

Today’s hike was supposed to be an 8 mile round trip hike along Baker Lake at the dam end.  The road was out (if you can make it out in this picture, there is actually a large piece of road this is just space) so I ended up driving wayyyy up to the other end of Baker Lake and hiking 9 mi round trip.  I talked to a local hiker and he let me know that if I turned on the next road after the washed out one, that I could still get to that part of the trail, but he hiked the whole thing last weekend and apparently the trail was washed out about 1 mile in.  He said if I wanted a longer hike the other end would be best. 

 The last 5 miles or more of road is dirt.  Most of it was fine, but there were a lot of potholes to watch out for.  Not so bad unless you need to use the bathroom and then potholes become a horrible endless torture.  The trail head had a nice big parking lot and outhouse (yay!).  About 8 cars were already parked there, but I think some of them were fisherman, as I guess fishing opened on that lake this weekend. 

It was a gorgeous sunny day.  Supposed to be around 65 in town, and was close to 60 even up in the mountains.  After half mile on the trail, we crossed the Baker River on a suspension bridge.  Cedar wasn’t thrilled, but got all the way across under his own power. 

The forest seemed especially enchanted today with sunbeams shining down in gleaming rays, butterflies and hummingbirds flitting around, and the sleepy hum of bees.  I wanted a picture of a hummingbird, as I could hear a lot of them, but was lucky to even glimpse one, zooming around so fast.  Luckily the trees hold still.  After this hike, I did a quick ½ mile loop called Shadow of the Sentinels, and there were huge fir trees on it around 600 yrs old.  On the main hike the biggest trees were cedars and they were monstrous.  They had to at least be as old, if not older.

Here is some artwork done by some kind of wood boring worm.  Not cool for trees, but I had to admire this masterpiece.

Flowers bloomed everywhere.  Trillium along the whole hike, and bleeding hearts were starting to bloom. There were little yellow violets near the sunny river’s edge, and coltsfoot near some of the streams that crossed the trail.  Huge fat buds were appearing at the end of the viciously thorned stalks of the devil’s club as well.  I love the spring.

Most of the trail was too far to see Baker Lake, but once I got close, I could also see Mount Baker reflected in it.  Dazzling!

There were a lot of lovely streams that burbled across the trail. Some had bridges, and some didn’t, but they were all crystal clear and ice cold. 

At the end of the trail, for us anyway, was Noisy Creek Hiker Campground.  We didn’t have our lunch in the camp ground, but went a little further and ate lunch on the rocks of Noisy Creek.  I soaked my feet in the icy water while I ate.  Afterward I was rewarded with a beautiful view of Mount Baker from the beachy area there.

I wish I had more pictures of the birds we saw and heard.  I heard a grouse in the distance, and saw the ruby throats of hummingbirds.  I heard woodpeckers drilling into the bark, and at one point I even thought I heard an owl.  It sounded a little bit like when my Dad sneezes loudly though, so maybe it was someone’s dad up ahead on the trail somewhere.  I did get a picture of this raven, which landed right next to the road as I was driving back out.  The minute he saw my camera he flew to a further tree and turned his back for this picture. 

 The Shadow of the Sentinels was supposed to be a nice paved and boardwalked ½ mile loop to finish off our day.  Most of the pavement was taken out and replaced with crushed rock.  Also, it said to use the interpretive signs to journey “back in time” and I saw no interpretive signs at all.  Still it was pretty and Adventure Dog and I walked down this “path” which was actually the top of one of those old firs which had fallen, and was lined on each side with a nursery of new trees.