Walked the Ames Lake Forest trails Friday morning. The tiny western parking lot is small, kind of hard to get to and doesn’t have any facilities so we just park at Tolt-MacDonald and walk over. Parking is free and plentiful there plus they have multiple well services sanicans. “Forest” trails are a bit of a misnomer as most of the forest was logged off a number of years ago, but the area offers a nice maze of converted logging roads and single track trails used by mountain bikers plus views up the Snoqualmie valley and to the cascades. A word about the trail that runs up the bluff, it’s had quite a bit of work done on it recently and it looks better than it ever has from what I remember, the new drains alone are going to make a big difference, super kudos. I’m 99.8% sure this must have been a WTA crew because… we found a WTA hand saw that must have gone AWOL from the tool cache while they were working. I grabbed it so it is safe - maybe a WTA staff person could shoot me an email using my membership contact info and we can work out a way to get it back to you. I know the draw of the forest can be strong but I’m sure it would be much happier back with its other tool friends.
The area offered a fair bit of wildlife this morning, a ton of butterflies, a bunch of little fuzzy bunnies, a couple little things that looked like maybe weasels of some kind plus a bunch of spring bird chatter, one lone juvenile eagle circling in the thermals to the east plus a few woodpeckers. One quick wildlife FYI - we did see some bear scat along one of the forest road paths in the southwestern corner of the property but saw no other sign, tracks or any other animals larger than those bunnies. The honeysuckle is starting to bloom and another neat surprise, there are bright pink native red currant shrubs blooming all over, more than I have ever seen. This also is one of the few local places I know of where if you get lucky and there are no airplanes overhead and the birds calm down for a minute it can be absolutely, completely silent - kinda neat. So while not a “cozy vibe” forest anymore, it’s still a nice walk, now with an improved bluff trail. Happy May Day.
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