South Lookout Mountain 2017

Old spiral snag in the forest

Eleven Senior Trailblazers made our fourth trip up the South Lookout Mountain trail today from Cain Lake parking area. It was raining when we started out, and we bundled up in our rain gear and began our hike, with no expectations of any views and lots of muddy steep trail.  But, as usual, my preconceived notions were not what we ended up with today.

Trillium

Instead, not long after we began our hike the rain began to let up, and then stopped. As you can see from this trillium picture, there was even some sunshine beginning to appear. However, as we climbed in elevation, we ended up inside a cloud, with plenty of mist and soft views through the forest. It's incredibly green with lots of new spring growth all over the place.

Spooky old tree stump

I saw this moss-covered old stump in the mist and thought it looked like it could be one of those forest monsters I've heard about but never encountered. So much of the forest is covered with moss. There would be no way to use it to tell which direction is north, because it's everywhere.

Lake Samish just beginning to appear behind Ellen

We made it to our usual lunch stop, and although we'd been in fog the whole way, just as we sat down to have lunch, it began to clear. It came and went while we enjoyed a fairly quick break; there was some breeze and even with all our extra clothes it wasn't exactly warm.

Lake Samish

Just before we left, we saw plenty of the view as the clouds lifted temporarily. We saw them bearing down on us again, so we packed up and headed back down the way we had come.

Tree root

This beautiful tree root in the trail has been burnished by years of bikers and hikers running over it, as well as the changing seasons, weather, and time. I was amazed at the whorls and design that had been hidden from view until it was scoured clean.

On our way back

And then it was time to turn around and return to the cars the same way we had come. By the time we finished, we had hiked somewhere around eight miles and struggled up and down almost 2,500 feet of elevation gain and loss. Only a few spots are really steep, but they were as challenging going back down as they were coming up, just in a different way. All in all, a very good day, much better than I expected when we began!
:-)