Sunday, January 12, 2014

Staircase Rapids Hike

Well, the weather people were spot on when they said it was going to be a wet & windy Saturday.  But we didn't let that stop us from heading to Staircase Rapids  for our Yoh! hike.  There was a lot of debris on the road, and we had to get out once to remove a small tree that had fallen across the road.   We made it to the trail head by 10 am and there was not another car to be seen in the parking lot.  We walked down to the new bridge and then a little further to the rocky beach before turning around.  We didn't cross the bridge to hike on the other side as we weren't sure if the little log bridge would be passable on the loop back. The streams & rivers were running extremely high.  Even with waterproof hiking shoes my feet got pretty wet.  Half of the trail was like wading through a stream, and the other half were giant puddles.  The rapids were a spectacular sight and I'm glad that we went, but even gladder that we all made it back safely.  By the time we returned to the parking lot there were a couple more cars there, so we weren't the only crazy ones today.   I tried to take pictures, but the rain was relentless and I had more pictures of raindrops than anything else.  Here are the best of the lot:


The North Fork Skokomish River. 

Pam the tree hugger



Kassia, Pam, James & Michele

The new bridge






The tiny "beach".  Kassia, Michele, James & Susan

One of a couple of logs we had to climb over.

Kassia was also a tree hugger.

Pam was Queen of the Rock