Elevation Gain: Approximately 3000 ft.
Time: 9:00 am - 4:30 pm
Weather: Sunny, partly cloudy.
So this was the last weekend of the school year, and It made sense to me to take the club out on a hike. We had a great turn out for our last hike with 5 kids and 5 adults (including me). Looking for a hike this week, I wanted some distance and some elevation gain, but also short driving time and something I had not done before. I checked wta.org (as always) and found a hike to a place called Rainy Lake. As I read the description of the hike, I became more and more intrigued. First off, the trail is abandoned. For whatever reason, the trail is no longer maintained. Now, once a trail exists on a map, no one can tell you you cannot hike it. Remember these are our public lands and we have every right to enjoy them the way they are meant to be enjoyed. Rangers can advice against hiking abandoned trails, but without closing them down, the trail is open. So I thought, what a great way to end the year, hiking an unmaintained trail.
We took off from the trailhead hiking on a brand new section of trail. It went from the middle fork of the Snoqualamie river down to Pratt River. Within about 5~10 minutes we were at Rainy Creek. The crossing was a little sketchy. There was a down log, but it was steep and narrow. We all crossed with no problem, and began a bit of a bushwhack up the creek. Within minutes, the trail presented itself was easy to follow. It was steep in parts, but a lot of fun too. We walked for about 2 hours, taking breaks every 30~45 minutes, again pretty steep hiking in parts. The breaks were short due to the swarms of bugs that were attacking our flesh the minute we stopped.
At around noon, we hit the snow. At first we were just following what seemed to be the trail, but soon we found ourselves in the middle of snow fields trying to find a lake. we hiked up and up to the top of a ridge, but there was no lake to be found. We stopped and had a good snack. We actually had cell reception on the ridge, but we could not get the gps working on our phones to give us our location. We started our hike out after a 30 minute break.
The hike down the snow was fun. We ran/shoe skied/fell down the snow covered hill. The kids were having fun, as we stopped and they were trying to do front flips and slide in the snow. We got out of the snow, and then the group separated a bit. Some boys went trail running, and some were going a tad slower. I came up on the boys, and one was in significant pain, from tweaking his calf muscle. After getting one of the adults to look closer, we ended up wrapping it up, and carefully walked out. We were back at the cars by 4:15 pm.
Orchid: Snow flips and slides.
Onion: Getting back home, and realizing I lost my knife.
Picture:
Google Map
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