Solitude seems guaranteed on this trail.
We hiked west from the trailhead on FR 2612 down river to the junction with Vanson Ridge Trail #213A and back, for 11.6 miles round trip, and did not encounter anyone else.
The price of admission to hiking among huge, ancient trees is the first 2 miles/last 2 miles of hike through "industrial forest." The forest here was blown down by Mount St. Helens' 1980 eruption, salvaged for timber, and replanted to a monoculture of Douglas-fir. The Forest Service appears to have emulated Weyerhaeuser's management of its "tree farm" to the west. The approximately 35 year old forest has closed canopy and is a rather boring hiking experience.
The Green River Trail is getting longer in that segment, too, as re-routes are constantly needed to bypass tributary streams that are eroding the deep pumice soils during high flows. These mini-canyons are taking out the trail tread and bridges, forcing the trail to be re-routed upstream.
It was a relief to reach the "fringe zone" at about 2.2 miles where snags from the 1980 blast are disappearing in naturally recovering forest. We could see up the flank of Goat Mountain ridge above us and across the Green River valley to the Mount Margaret Backcountry ridges and the glacial cirques of the Venus lakes.
At some point, we crossed over the unmarked national monument boundary. I was thrilled to be finally walking in the deep shade of big trees and we noticed a more diverse understory vegetation.
We crossed Minnie Lee Creek on a deteriorating bridge and paused for lunch at one of the riverside camps. After lunch, we continued on another 2.2 miles to enjoy the biggest of the ancient trees, most standing but some as large, fallen logs nurturing the next generation of forest. We crossed several streams on wooden bridges and just before our turnaround point, we encountered a brand-new bridge constructed just a few weeks ago from materials on site by volunteers from WTA, Backcountry Horsemen and Trans Cascadia mountain bikers. We turned around at the junction with the Vanson Ridge Trail.
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