Elevation Gain: Approximately 800 ft.
Time: 10:00 am - 2:00 pm
Weather: Cool, mostly cloudy skies.
A busy time of year has made it hard for me to find the time to blog. And now I am left to try and remember a hike from a week ago. The original plan for the weekend was to go snowshoeing with a friend I met this summer, a young woman who is from Tacoma and attends Savannah College of Art and Design. She wanted to go hiking with me this summer when we met, but it just never worked out, Now she is home for the holidays with a classmate who is originally from Florida, and she wanted to show her some of Washington's beauty. I suggested that to see any peaks that we would need to get up to higher elevation which means we would be snowshoeing.
As we started planning the hike, it became clear that to pull off all the gear for two people in a few days was not going to work out. We went with a backup plan of hiking in the lower elevations. I wanted to go to a place that I knew would be snow free, would be close, and would hopefully give us a view or two. I suggested the Capitol Forest outside Olympia. We were on the road Sunday morning by 9 am. We got to the forest by 9:50 and then we were cruising the dirt and gravel roads of a working forest. I have no idea where the trailheads in this frost are. This was my second visit here, and I did the same thing this time as I did last time, I drove around until I saw a trail, parked the car, and began walking the trail.
We started in an open area of a recent clear-cut. The weather was great, cool and clear. We began climbing and soon we were in a forest as lush as any second or third growth forest I have ever walked through. We ended up getting to a nice opening at the top of a hill and had a pretty decent view to what I think was the west. After a short break, we continued on and soon came to a dead end. We turned around and walked back the way we had came. Once we got back to the clear-cut where we began, we continued on the other direction past the car, and after about an hour came to the other end of the trail. Here we had lunch and hot drinks and enjoyed the quiet solitude of the forest. We packed up and were back at the car by 2 pm.
Orchid: View from the top of the hill.
Onion: Not know where I am whenever I visit the Capitol Forest. I need a map…
Picture:
Google Map
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