Rock Trail and Fragrance Lake

Waterfall

Fifteen Senior Trailblazers met at the Senior Center to discuss today's hike. We were scheduled to hike from the Larrabee State Park trailhead up to Burnout Point, but we decided instead to hike up to the Rock Trail, which is a side trail off the Lost Lake trail that leads up to Gates Overlook. Then we would hike back down and stop for lunch at Fragrance Lake.

Running into Marjan and Frank on the trail

On the way to Rock Trail, we ran into Marjan and Frank, who were headed in the opposite direction. They both did a lot of the trail work on Rock Trail, and they hoped we would enjoy ourselves on the new trail. By the way, we hiked to Lost Lake back in December, and I got a picture of that same waterfall in the first picture, but it was mostly frozen. You can see it in this post if you want to see what a difference a few months can make (it's the last picture). Today was supposed to be iffy, weather-wise, but it wasn't at all. Last night's rain left, and we didn't see anything but a few muddy spots as we made our way to the trailhead.

Rock Trail plus a little mud

To get to this starting point, we had to hike upwards and then lose a fair bit of elevation before beginning this trek up to Gates Overlook, where we encountered almost 200 steps up. Notice that you can see some nice blue skies between the bare trees. It wasn't exactly balmy, but compared to what we were expecting, it was definitely pleasant. And then... the sun came out!

Licorice ferns draped nicely on the rock

Peggy was the one who told me that these are licorice ferns, probably having that name because their roots have the smell, but nobody was quite sure. One of the interesting features of this hike is the wonderful rock wall that one gets to walk next to, up close and personal.

Al explaining some of the characteristics of the rock

After we made it to Gates Overlook, we hiked along Chuckanut Ridge until we got to the Fragrance Lake trailhead, where we would stop for lunch. Peggy needed to be back home early, so the Ferndale Four left us once we were almost to the lake. We hiked around to the sunny side, so we could have a nice lunch in the sun.

Rebecca eating lunch in sunshine

After I finished eating my hot chicken soup in the warm rays of the sun, I decided to try to get some pictures of the little water striders I saw on the water's surface. At this time of year, I have no idea what they might be finding to eat, but there were a lot of them. I got this picture of one, just by chance, and I had to show it to everybody because I think it's so good.

Water strider on Fragrance Lake

You can see that the water strider is somehow balanced on the surface tension of the water, and he had just created those concentric circles as he moved forward. The squiggly line above him is the reflection of a twig in the water.

And then it was time to head back to the parking lot and our cars. By the time we got there, we had covered more than ten miles and our regulation half-mile of altitude, around 2,500 feet up and down. As I sit here writing this post (with wine by my side), I am feeling very content to be reclining. My body is tired but happy, and although I did my fair share of blowing and wheezing, the worst of my cold is behind me. I hope the coming days will bring us all glowing health!
:-)