The Creaky Knees Guide Washington, 3rd Edition: The 100 Best Easy Hikes
320
The Creaky Knees Guide Washington, 3rd Edition: The 100 Best Easy Hikes
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Overview
From the Olympic Peninsula to Mount Rainier and Snoqualmie Pass, The Creaky Knees Guide Washington is a day-hiking guidebook filled with kinder, gentler trails, featuring 100 of the best easy-to-walk hikes throughout the state. Written in an informative style that will appeal to anyone, regardless of age, this helpful guide includes trail ratings from 1 (worthwhile) to 5 (spectacular) based on water features and other enjoyable factors; topographical maps with elevation profiles; and information at a glance, such as recommended seasons, estimated hiking times, permit and parking
fees, and distance and elevation gain.
HIKES INCLUDE:
▪ Bridal Veil Falls
▪ Rialto Beach
▪ Beacon Rock
▪ Ginkgo Petrified Forest Trails
▪ Painted Rocks
▪ Chain Lakes Loop
▪ Middle Fork Snoqualmie
▪ Hyak Tunnel
▪ Turnbull National
▪ Wildlife Refuge
▪ and many more!
Other titles in Creaky Knees easy hike series include Creaky Knees Oregon, Creaky Knees Northern California, and Creaky Knees Arizona.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781632173553 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Blue Star Press |
| Publication date: | 02/01/2022 |
| Series: | Creaky Knees |
| Sold by: | Penguin Random House Publisher Services |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 320 |
| File size: | 157 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Introduction
As you read these lines, I’ll be celebrating my eighth decade on this planet by taking many of the hikes outlined in this book. I’ve been incredibly lucky to have avoided most of the maladies and ailments that cause those of us who love nature to curse our joints and bones for keep-ing us from the wild places, the places our hearts yearn to see once more. Yet I’m not immune to the greatest handicap of all—advancing age—and that has altered my approach to wilderness pathways, both mentally and physically.And it has changed the way I reviewed the hikes in this, the third edition of The Creaky Knees Guide: Washington. With few exceptions, the hikes and trails have not changed, but I’ve tried to look at them from the standpoint of a wilderness pedestrian who can no longer hike 3 miles an hour for 17 hours straight across the Olympic Mountains, which I did three decades ago; or climb 8 miles and 3,700 vertical feet up Scotchman Peak, which I did four years ago. Both are but minor accomplishments compared to the many folks, older than me, who gallop from one side of the Grand Canyon to the other in a single day, or zip up Denali with minimal support. Still, we all tend to accept the reality that we can’t enjoy our wild world the way we used to, while clinging to the wish that we could.So that was my focus in revising this guide. Wherever I thought it necessary, I mentioned the fact that you needn’t walk the trail as far as I suggest. In most cases, it’s an arbitrary destination and has little to do with the scenery, flora, or fauna you’ll see along the way. Far more important, it seems to me, is getting on the trail, no matter the distance you travel. The forest you enter at the trailhead is the same as that five miles away; the river you walk beside is no wilder a half-mile from the parking area as it is three miles up- or downstream. All of our wild places are just as beautiful, just as magnificent, just as wild a few hun-dred steps up the trail as they are a few miles along.It doesn’t matter how far you walk or how fast you walk, or even if you walk—I’ve paid special attention to pointing out accessible trails— I think what really matters is that you walk. Or hobble, limp, wheel, or—my favorite mode of trail travel these days—waddle.Since I started hiking Washington’s wilderness pathways, shortly after the last ice age, I’ve been both encouraged and saddened by the fact that more people are using the trails these days. In 1968, it was a surprise on a summer weekend to find more than a dozen people hiking to Snow Lake from Snoqualmie Pass, although the trail at that time was a couple of miles longer. Today, you are fortunate to find a parking space in the huge lot near Alpental. Some trailheads are so crowded that hikers are forced to park parallel along the approach road, forcing forest managers to enforce limits or require permits.What good can come of overcrowding? Every person experiencing a wilderness outing for the first time could become an advocate for trails in the future. I hope they will join a growing constituency of users, folks dedicated to improving trails and managing our wild pathways in a manner that alleviates the impact of increased use. Such organi-zations at the Washington Trails Association, The Mountaineers, Sierra Club chapters, Back Country Horsemen of Washington, and Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance all join with national and state wilderness managers to improve and protect our trails.Washington trails provide rare diversity in the places we can hobble, limp, wheel, or waddle. As diverse as they are, they all share at least one element: exceptional beauty. The mossy, fern-festooned rain forests of the Hoh. The receding glaciers of Mount Adams. The alpine meadows of Hurricane Ridge. The sage and sand of the Columbia Plateau. The ocean-like expanse of the Palouse. All of these places look about the same from mile marker one to mile three and perhaps beyond.The pedestrians who ply our pathways from west to east and north to south are pretty much the same. They all know and love the country at their back door—be it forest or flatland, mountain or meadow, desert or river. I’ve waddled beside a 95-year-old hiker on a Mount Baker trail, encountered a 52-year-old woman jogging through pines along the Spokane River, and passed Real Mountain Climbers toting a football to the summit of Mount Adams for a pickup game. All told me about their favorite trail or hike and spoke about the beauty of the country around them.All the people I met who hike the wild pathways of Washington—from the college kids climbing out of the Salmo-Priest Wilderness to the 89-year-old hiker on the Chain Lakes Trail—will tell you the same thing: walking is the best thing you can do for your soul and your body—especially if you are surrounded by the beauty you can find around our neck of the woods. Age and physical condition are sim-ply not as important to them as getting outside to see what surprises Mother Nature has for them. It is in that spirit that I offer this guide to all of you. Sooner or later, we all realize that “easy hike” is a relative term. What might be an easy hike when you are 22 years old is not likely to merit that same adjective when you are 52 and the vigor has morphed into varicose veins. So while the 100 hikes outlined in this guide are all labeled “easy,” you are likely to find yourself wondering at least once if I am already senile. If you feel—as I often do when trying to keep up with my wife, B. B. Hardbody—like a leaking hydration pack, I’ll be happy. In fact, if you don’t curse your humble correspondent at least once while sweating up a hill or limping back to the trailhead, I have failed in my mission. Don’t be fooled by the title. Unless you are a retired Olympic athlete or can still jog a dozen miles in under an hour, you’ll find plenty of hikes in this guide to keep your heart rate up and your lungs sucking harder than a Dyson. I’ve been lucky in my eight decades on this planet to stay healthy enough to keep walking, and in those years, I have met hundreds of people on the trail who aren’t as fortunate as me. My recent hiking partners include a woman who speeds through the forest on an artifi-cial hip and a group of Washington Trail Association volunteers who appear to take great pleasure in lifting heavy rocks and digging path-ways along basalt cliffs. The important thing, it seems to me, is that regardless of age or physical condition, you try one of the trails out-lined here, walking, wheeling, limping, hobbling, or even waddling through rare beauty and solitude.
Table of Contents
Hikes at a Glance vi
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction xii
Using This Guide xv
Be Careful xix
The Cascades 1
Mount Baker Highway (State Route 542)
1 Hannegan Camp 3
2 Chain Lakes Loop 6
3 Ptarmigan Ridge 8
4 Heliotrope Ridge 11
5 Twin Lakes Road 13
6 Winchester Mountain Lookout 15
7 High Pass 18
North Cascades Highway (State Route 20)
8 Baker Lake 22
9 Sauk Mountain 25
10 Thunder Creek Trail 27
11 Lake Ann 29
12 Blue Lake 31
13 Cutthroat Lake 33
14 Tiffany Lake 35
Stevens Pass Highway (US Highway 2)
15 Bridal Veil Falls 38
16 Barclay Lake 41
17 Iron Goat Trail 43
18 Tumwater Canyon Trail 46
19 Little Eightmile Lake 48
Snoqualmie Pass (Interstate 90)
20 Rattlesnake Ledge 52
21 John Wayne Trail, Cascades 54
22 Hyak Tunnel 57
23 Middle Fork Snoqualmie 60
24 Talapus Lake 63
25 Snow Lake 66
26 Squaw Lake 69
Chinook Pass Highway (State Route 410)
27 Naches Peak Loop 72
28 Noble Knob 75
White Pass (Us Highway 12)
29 Deer Lake 79
30 Tieton River Nature Trail 81
31 Hogback Ridge 84
32 Dark Meadow 87
33 Yellowjacket Pond 89
34 Walupt Creek 91
Mount Rainier 95
35 West Side Road 97
36 Eunice Lake 100
37 Berkeley Park 102
38 Paradise Trails 104
39 Pinnacle Saddle 108
40 Spray Park 111
41 Glacier View 113
42 Comet Falls 116
Mount Adams 119
43 Round the Mountain Trail 121
44 Takhlakh Lake Loop 124
45 West Fork Trail 126
46 Killen Creek Trail 128
47 Indian Racetrack 131
Mount St. Helens 135
48 Coldwater Lake Trail 137
49 Windy Ridge 139
50 Norway Pass 141
Olympic and Kitsap Peninsulas 145
Olympic Peninsula
51 Lower Skokomish River 147
52 Spike Camp 149
53 Dosewallips Road 152
54 Mount Townsend 155
55 Marmot Pass 158
56 Camp Handy 161
57 Dungeness Spit 163
58 Maiden Peak 165
59 Hurricane Hill 167
60 Elwha River Road 170
61 Spruce Railroad Trail 173
62 Rialto Beach 176
Kitsap Peninsula
63 Port Gamble Trails 179
64 Green Mountain Trail 181
65 Gold Creek Trail 184
Central Washington 189
66 Umtanum Canyon 191
67 Manastash Ridge 193
68 Ginkgo Petrified Forest Trails 195
69 John Wayne Trail West 197
70 John Wayne Trail East 200
71 Cowiche Canyon Trail 202
72 Ancient Lake(s) 204
73 Umatilla Rock Loop 206
74 Billy Clapp Lake Wildlife Area 208
75 Swakane Canyon Road 211
76 Potholes Dunes 213
Columbia River Gorge 217
77 Hardy and Rodney Falls 219
78 Klickitat Rail Trail 221
79 Beacon Rock 224
80 Dog Mountain 226
Spokane and Northeastern Washington 229
81 Columbia Plateau Trail North 231
82 Columbia Plateau Trail South 234
83 Turabull National Wildlife Refuge 237
84 Shedroof Mountain 240
85 Sullivan Lake Trail 243
86 Columbia Mountain 246
87 Painted Rocks 248
88 Dishman Hills 250
89 Liberty Creek 253
90 Centennial Trail West 256
91 Centennial Trail East 259
Southeastern Washington 263
92 White Bluffs 265
93 Columbia Plateau Trail 268
94 Boyer Park 270
Urban Trails 273
95 Olympic Discovery Trail, Port Angeles and Sequim 275
96 Chehalis Western Trail, Olympia 277
97 Burke-Gilman Trail, Seattle 279
98 Boulevard Park, Bellingham 282
99 Apple Capital Loop, Wenatchee 284
100 Yakima Greenway, Yakima 287
Index 291