It’s the first day of Fall, so hiking we will go! We changed our original plans and searched through our saved hikes in our WTA backpack to see where we wanted to go that was new. We settled on rock trail at Larrabee State Park and we are so glad we did. This might be our new favorite trail! 

Road: rough in places. Mostly near the beginning and the end. Easy to navigate but the shadows from trees hide the few potholes. So take it slow.

We parked at the Cyrus Overlook Parking lot and hiked down rock trail. We counted 218 steps on the way down. A few trees starting to yellow, but mostly you are in luscious, green forest with lots of moss. We love rocks. Any trail with rocks is amazing. Boy did we find some amazing rocks to climb and look at. The rock features here are the highlight of the trail. Take your time in this area so you can really enjoy their stunning beauty.  The trail has one tree down towards the bottom of rock trail and few areas where the ferns and grasses are encroaching the trail. Overall in great shape! Once we finished rock trail, we hiked over to Lost Lake. I see why it is “lost lake.” My littlest asked if we were lost because there was no lake. We were also the first on the spur trail to Lost Lake, so we encountered all the spider webs. We eventually found the rock overlook of the lake and did some water coloring and had lunch. We also thought we heard other hikers but it turned out to be our echos. This was fun for the kids to hear. We only saw 1 hiker and 2 horseback riders the entire 2.5 hours we were there. Came back the way we came down and while it seemed like it would super hard, the mix of stairs and flats were nice. Much easier than a straight up. I highly recommend rock trail. I think the other lakes near Larrabee are better lakes to visit than Lost Lake. Next time we’ll probably include Fragrance Lake in our trek instead of rock trail. 

Took an Uber to our local state park this morning and set off towards Lost Lake. The trail network here is awesome, lots of options, and includes many beautiful, huge, legacy forest trees--Doug fir and cedars. Lots of maples, too. And cool rock formations throughout the park, including along the North Lost Lake portion of our route.

We made a sort of V-shaped hiking route in order to get some hills and miles in today, as well as hike back towards a closer, cheaper Uber ride back home. After leaving the South Lost Lake lot, we headed up Fragrance Lake Road, took the cut-off towards Lost Lake (on the South Lost Lake trail), then picked up the North Lost Lake trail and followed that to Arroyo, where we caught our ride home. We saw four people total, two towards the very end of the hike. It was a peaceful, lovely day in the woods. RT 8.7 miles.

Mosquitoes were sort of lazily hanging out when we stopped for lunch, but only a couple bites. Great hike for quietude, no crowds, big trees, and good fitness maintenance. Looking forward to our Rainier/Tahoma camping trip in a few weeks. Jonesing for The Goddess! Happy hiking, All :-)

Another Monday morning not in my classroom, another chance to get into the trees! Today I went up to the Raptor Ridge Viewpoint, starting at the North Chuckanut Mountain Trailhead. There is plenty of parking, and there is a Honey Bucket as well. Good news - Highway 11 (Chuckanut Dr.) is now open if you are coming from the south 

I've only gone on the trails to Fragrance Lake and Oyster Dome in this area, so I was excited to explore some of the other trails. There are a LOT of trails, though - most intersections are well signed, but some are not. AllTrails helped, but really the most useful was the map and description in Craig Romano's Urban Trails: Bellingham book (I took pictures of the pages). I had a Square One map of the area, but as previous reports indicated, this map is outdated, and doesn't show this trail as a loop. Romano's map is definitely up-to-date, I highly recommend it!

These trails are just BEAUTIFUL. Ferns galore, trees shrouded in moss, it was so nice to spend the morning surrounded by LIFE. The trail is in great shape, thanks to everyone who helps maintain it.

There are lots of ways to get to the viewpoint, I went on the Hemlock Trail, to the Raptor Ridge Trail, then back on the North Lost Lake Trail. There were some short uphill sections, but never anything too steep or too long. I wore trail runners and used poles for my old man knees.

I did hear traffic for the first mile and the last mile, which at times can be distracting. It's worth the trade-off, though, having these trails so close to town. My favorite part was the Raptor Ridge Trail - traffic noise gone, meandering through giant moss-covered boulders ... and then a lofty viewpoint to enjoy. I sat there for a half hour, snacking, hydrating, and reading, then hit the trail. It was nice to continue on the loop, knowing I didn't have to retrace all my steps.

I didn't see anyone until the last mile or so, the solitude was exactly what I needed. I did see my second barred owl, which was SO GREAT. We shared a moment together, eventually it flew off. Magical.

Total of 8.1 miles, 1,650 feet elevation, on the trail for 3 hours 30 minutes total. I look forward to coming back and trying some of the side loops next time. And always grateful to be out in the woods :)

This year's version of our Chuckanut Tour was a north-to-south traverse totaling about 15-18miles one way.

We left a car at the Oyster Dome TH on Chuckanut Drive, then continued on to the North Chuckanut TH where we started hiking.  

Where it got interesting was at Lost Lake, where we took a minor mountain bike trail along the east side of the lake.  This was a cool trail that went along a short ridge that hems in Lost Lake.  It's broken only by a sandstone notch where the lake's outlet pours out.  An easy jumpover.  From there it was old logging roads and current logging roads/clearcuts as we worked our way over to the British Army trail.  Gaia was essential to get through here; as we also used various mountain bike and motocross trails as well.  The British Army trail is a grunt of a climb by this time of the day, with 10 miles on our odometers.  But finally we reached Lizard Lake and had a chilly lunch stop.  After that, there are a lot more people as we took the Lizard / Lilly Connector.  No side-trip up to North Butte....it was totally socked in.  Luckily by the time we arrived at Oyster Dome the clouds had parted for wonderful views.

The stretch from Oyster Dome down to Hwy 11 was tedious but well-kept.

Took my mother-in-law out for a hike on this beautiful sunny day.  We started from the North Chuckanut Mountain parking lot, turning left on the Interurban Trail.  This passes Arroyo Falls and climbs through old growth forest to the junction with the Hemlock Trail which we took up to the North Lost Lake Trail junction.  We climbed this road/trail to the Lower Salal Trail which we used to work our way back to the Hemlock Trail for a lollipop loop back to the parking lot.  Roughly five miles roundtrip.