Grove of the Patriarchs and Box Canyon

I hate to be redundant but we had another great day yesterday.  The sky was cloudy when we left around 8:30 to drive the 35 miles to the west side of the park to get to "Grove of the Patriarchs".

Whoever discovered this area must have been in awe when they walked among these trees some of which are now 40 feet in circumference and tower nearly 300 feet tall.  From the road you walk along on a pine needle path and the silence is profound.  You enter the grove via a swinging bridge crossing the Ohanapecosh River.

 

 

 

 

Trees that have fallen and then have new trees growing from the trunk are called nursery trees

Phil left the trail to bring home a piece of this 1000 year old Douglas Fir tree. 

From there we proceeded to Box Canyon where the Muddy Fork Cowlitz River has shaped the 180-foot deep canyon. There was quite a bit of water flowing as the snow continues to melt. We started off on the Wonderland Trail and once again we were climbing through the forest. Two hours into the hike we met a couple that were completing the entire 93 miles of this trail. He was celebrating his 60^th birthday with this backpacking trip and they had been in the woods for 12 days.  Another 2-3 days to go and their mission would be accomplished.

Muddy Fork Cowlitz River





 The couple we had met informed us that this trail only got steeper over the next 6 miles and no views along the way. So we took their suggestion turned around, ate lunch by a rockslide area, hiked down, and picked up the trailhead on the other side of the road at the canyon.  This trail was straight down 1.2 miles to the Cowlitz River bed where the water was flowing fast and cascading down over the rocks.

Of course we had to climb back the 1.2 miles.  We were quite tired by the time we finished.  We decided our day that included driving 70 miles on curvy park roads and hiking 7 ½ miles was more than enough. 

 

Usually we pack up and hitch up the night before we leave.  We will do all of that this morning as we were both too tired last evening.  I guess our age is showing. 

So our drive was quite easy today and we are in Silver Lake, WA which is about 47 miles from Mount St. Helens.  This campground is up on a hill and we were assigned site #1.  That means we are in front of everyone else and have a beautiful view of the lake while they have a view of our trailer!

We took a walk around the campers and noticed black raspberry bushes loaded with berries.  So of course we had to pick and freeze them.  Chris and Mark you will get to eat them in two weeks.  Would you like your berries with pancakes or over ice cream or both?

The sky was very pretty with the setting sun. Good night!