March 22, 2009
The weather forecast was better for the coast, so we went there instead of the Gorge. This trail winds through a neat spruce forest. The land and the vegetation change several times, leading to different type of woods around every corner.
We started at the highway 101 parking lot for the old state park campground. It's day use only now so I guess the campground no longer allows overnight camping. Crossing Necarney creek was easy, as somebody put in a suspension bridge.
There are some impressive trees here. The trail even goes through the middle of one of the smaller trees.
They look like brontosaurus roaming the hillside.
There were several downed trees, some of them are huge, imagine seeing this one fall: it was about 200 feet tall.
Finding the little trail to the summit was tricky, the book said look for two fallen trees and take a left. It seems like every few hundred feet there were two fallen trees; it became a running joke. We finally made it to the top for a sit down lunch, and enjoyment of the views. We stumbled on a reference marker for the Neahkahnie 2 bench mark placed here in 1926 by the US Coast and Geodetic Survey. I keep forgetting to research this stuff before we hike. It turns out there is a cache here somewhere as well.
We thought we were going to be ok with the weather; we left the summit before a big cell came through the area. The hail hit us pretty hard; we stopped under the cover of a tree. The hail starts to hurt on a cold face.
Going back down we stopped and looked at Devils Cauldron.
Nice views and calmness there.
Except for the mud, a very nice day.
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