Our group met at the North Chuckanut Mountain TH and started up the trail around 9am with the North Lost Lake Trail as our target goal.  The trails was several intersections, including a horse detour so it can be a bit tricky to know where to go.  But the nice thing about this area is that every intersection has signage of some kind!  Just familiarize yourself with the map beforehand and head in a mostly southern direction (right) and you'll be fine. We decided to take an indirect route and visit the Chuckanut Falls, arriving there in about 35 minutes  and 1.5 miles from the trailhead.  It's always fun tThis stop is an in and out, but you don't have to go all the way back to the junction so we opted to take a turn left out from there and go up to Hemlock to connect with the Lost Lake trail.  We saw some recent trail construction in this section, you can see a lot of work went into the new tread. o start a hike out with some nice scenery.  From the junction with the Hemlock Trail,  you go right to find the North Lost Lake trail.  Once here, you are on decommissioned service road until you get to Lost Lake.  Shortly after leaving Hemlock and heading south on the North Lost Lake trail (the junction has a kiosk and map), we came to the intersection for the ridge trail at about 10:30 am and 3 miles in to our journey.  It was an hour at a social pace to get to the Lost Lake junction and GAIA totaled us at 5.27 miles so far.  When I had been here last month, the trail had been snow covered and icy, this time the theme was mud and slick.  Footsteps were carefully place as we navigated wet roots and rocks dodging puddles. There were several view points out onto the lake on this section, but we stopped at the outlet and waterfall for lunch at noon. 5.73 miles so far.  The waterfall was melted out from last time but I took the opportunity to visit it from a few different angles.  I really just love how the water comes down over the steps of rock. Our next destination was the Rock Trail, so we went back around the north end of Lost Lake (I didn't want to lead a large group around the south end as I was unsure if it was more than a boot path and we had varying levels of hiking skill with us today. This got us to the junction with Rock Trail @ 12:45 am and 6.8 miles.  The Rock Trail was just as cool as last time, but without the threat of large chunks of icicle falling down from the cliffs of rock above our heads.  From the Cyprus Gates parking lot (you can drive up Cleator Road to this TH), we walked down the road a bit to connect with the ridge trail and head back to  the junction with the North Lost Lake trail.  This is a really nice trail that I'm sure has some amazing views of Baker but we had nothing but eerie trees enveloped in fog.  No worries, though.  We needed our attention to be on the trail as it maneuvered rocks and roots, up and down, for the little more than 3 miles of this section.  We were back to the junction with North Lost Lake at 3:20pm, almost 2 hours later and our trip back from here to the cars was uneventful. Be careful as it is easy to leave the trail and end up walking down California St. instead (there are houses) or taking a right turn and walking away from the parking lot.  You won't go far but when you are ready to take your wet gear off and get dry it can be disappointing.  I was back to the car by 4pm with a total of 12.76 miles for the day. For more details and pictures, including my GAIA track, check out the link below.

We stated at Arroyo Park's easternmost trailhead along Old Samish Road. We hiked up to the Chuckanut Falls Trail and then the Hemlock Trail, which is an old road. This is where we started getting into the snow/ice. We hiked up Hemlock to the Salal Trail, briefly hiked that and then we hiked up the Madrone Crest Trail. We dropped down to the Lost Lake Trail and hiked that under some cliffs that had absolutely incredible giant icicles and frozen waterfalls. We hiked to Lost Lake, which is frozen over. We followed the trail around the east side of the lake on the little ridgeline that parallels the lake. We passed a large viewpoint of the lake and then reached the lake outlet. From here I made my way down to the waterfall. The way down was slick and results of a fall could prove fatal, so I strongly advise microspikes if you wish to see the waterfall, which was very cool looking with the ice on it! We hiked back to the Lost Lake Trail and then hiked up the Rock Trail, which goes between some massive huge boulders and under some towering overhanging cliffs with more great ice displays! Very cool trail. We reached the junction of a bike trail and continued straight ahead to reach the Cyrus Gate parking lot (under over a foot of snow and closed to vehicles). Here there was a great view out to Vancouver Island, Strait of Georgia, the peaks of BC, and even skyscrapers of Vancouver! We then followed the road briefly until the start of the ridge trail and continued north on that. There is a great view of Mt. Baker and the Twin Sisters. We followed the ridge trail north for what seemed like forever, but it was a fun trail despite lots of ups and downs. Be sure to stay right at any junctions along the ridge. Toward the north end of the ridge there were some great viewpoints looking north to Bellingham an the BC peaks beyond. The trail dropped down off the ridge to the Lost Lake Trail, which is an old road. We went left and hiked down until we reached an unsigned junction at a house. Stay right here (going left is a road leading out to Chuckanut Drive) to compete the loop and get back to the TH. About 12 miles and 6 hours RT. Microspikes strongly advised as there are some pretty icy parts of the trail.

My plans to hike into Glacier Basin were thwarted today when I woke up and realized that I was having an allergic reaction to a tick bite of a couple of days ago. Fun times. So, my morning was spent at the urgent care clinic in Mt. Vernon, but undaunted and Benadryl'd up, I figured I could get a full day in if I didn't drive too far. So, my favorite close-in hike was the ticket......South Chuckanut Mt. I usually leave this trip alone in the summer when I can get to the high country, but I figured it was a good work out at least. I did my usual loop up the Fragrance Lake road to the turn off to Lost Lake and a quick turn onto what we locals call the "Chinscraper". This used to be a nice lonely trail that has been taken over by trail bikers and you take your chances hiking it. I've had to jump out of the way several times here when they were thundering down. This takes you to the high point of North Chuckanut Mt. and the start of the newish "Rock Trail" which goes down lots of stairs and a fair amount of elevation ending at a junction with the Lost Lake trail. A left takes one to Lost Lake, but today I took a right for about a half mile and a left turn which takes you to South Chuckanut and the views. The entire top of this minor summit was logged off several years ago making for fantastic views, but lots of logging slash to look over. Today, I found that summer hiking brings a riot of wildflowers here. I don't think I've ever seen so many low elevation flowers anywhere and gorgeous! Foxglove, Shasta daisies, Fireweed, Pearly Everlasting, and bright red elderberries. There were other nice things that I couldn't name. I had lunch all by my lonesome except for the seven or eight red tailed hawks swishing around above and beneath my perch. So, I guess you never know what you might find when your plans go awry.

Excellent trail, challenging for newcomers like myself and my daughters. Will do it again. Downside is we returned to our vehicle parked at the trail head and one of the windows was smashed, the car broken into and everything stolen.

The road isn't in the best condition, deep potholes and ridges all over. I only saw high clearance vehicles on it although I think if you went slow and carefully you could make it up in a 2wd. I hiked/ran this loop from the Cleator Overlook- up the Chuckanut Ridge via an unmarked trail soon after the TH, uphill and left where the first sign for the Rock Trail indicates to go right. The ridge trail is no fun to run except in a few short sectinos, it's pretty gnarly with lots of roots and rocks to climb around. It's quite impressive that mountain bikers can ride it! Lots of ups and downs here. Then steeply down and right along what looks like an old road to the Lost Lake trail, which also looks like an old road. I had planned to go to Raptor Ridge but Chuckanut Ridge had taken me far longer than anticipated and I was worried about running short on time to catch my ferry and a little concerned about another section of roots and rocks to contend with. I regretfully passed that junction. Too bad as I would have had time! I'll have to go back. I followed the gently graded old road through some muddy sections, contouring west and above Lost Lake and then took the Rock Trail back to the TH. The Rock trail, as you might guess, has a lot of large erratics and heuco looking cliffs. I really enjoyed it. It ends with a series of stairs uphill towards the TH. Route as described about 1500 gain/7.5 miles (Averaged from 3 GPS tracks)