Pass Lake and Tursi Trail

Our group today, minus me and one in the loo

I was a little bit shocked at the size of our Trailblazer group today: eighteen of us showed up for a Fidalgo Island hike from Bowman Bay, just down the road from the Deception Pass bridge. I asked someone why we had such a large group today, and he said, "because it isn't raining." Yep, that's why. Although earlier in the week it was supposed to be a bit rainy today, by the time we got to Thursday, the weather had changed to partly sunny with no chance of rain.

Pass Lake through the trees

We hiked the Pass Lake trail until it diverged onto the Tursi trail. Then we followed that trail all the way to its end. On the way, we passed an old mine, which Al says was a gold mine that didn't go anywhere.

Bob after taking a quick look

The hole is only fifteen feet or so deep, and then stops. Others were more brave than I, who stayed quite a ways back from the opening just in case something might have taken up residence in there. We continued on.

Exploring an old foundation

Someone had a nice house here once upon a time, with a lovely view towards the west and a partial view of Pass Lake down below. We hiked on down the trail to the end.

The beginning of the Tursi trail

The trail comes out onto Donnell Road and some farm houses. We then turned around and retraced our steps until we returned once again to the old foundation, where we had lunch.

Tom, Chris and Bob

By this time it was almost noon, so we had a very nice lunch in both filtered and direct sunshine. It was very mild, but since we had been hiking and were a little sweaty, we had to put on more clothes to keep warm in spite of having some sun. It is the end of November, after all.

Moss on hillside

I am not sure what this white moss is, but I thought it was lovely and reminded me of flowers. Winter landscapes can be quite attractive in a different way than in summer.

Pretty mushrooms

Mushrooms were abundant, since it has been quite wet lately. We saw plenty of them, along with some mud, but not as bad as in previous years. There has been some trail work since then, with a few bridges and a new trail.

Bowman Bay

We returned to Bowman Bay, where we had begun our hike, and we figure we covered somewhere around seven miles (depending on whose device to believe), and around 1,800 feet of elevation gain and loss. There were more clouds than sun by the end of our excursion, but nobody minded the weather. We piled into our cars and headed back home after a fine day outdoors. Did I say there was no rain?
:-)