Ranger Falls/Green Lake

I drove up to the Carbon River Entrance at Mt Rainier National Park to hike up to Ranger Falls and Green Lake, 9.8 miles round trip with an elevation gain of 1,500 ft. I only saw one other hiker on this trail today.  After the storm damage of the road last year, it was nice to see the road was fixed and we could drive all the way to the parking area. The first 3.1 miles are through a lush forest, lots of trees, moss and nurse logs. Although it is spring on the calendar, it is still winter in the mountains.

The first 1.75 miles had a few snow patches on the closed road to the Ranger Falls trailhead. The elevation gain along this road walk is very mild.

The snow on the road walk became more consistent after 2 miles.

Shortly before the turn off to the Ranger Falls trail, the forest open for a view of Tirzah Peak and the Carbon River,

Ranger Falls is one mile up the trail.

After the short side trail to Ranger Falls, the trail continues uphill to Green Lake, which is maybe 0.25 miles after crossing the log bridge on Ranger Creek.

view of Ranger Creek from the log bridge

It was cloudy at Green Lake, very quiet and serene.

The ice is obviously melting on the lake, so I was surprised to see fresh boot prints on the probably thin ice.

 

Artist Point/Huntoon Point Snowshoe

We drove up to the current end of Hwy 542 at the Mt Baker Ski Resort to snowshoe up to Artist Point and Huntoon Point, about 4 miles round trip with 1,000 ft gain. A beautiful day to be in the mountains. We had a good packed down trail to follow, the avalanche risk was moderate, the skies were mostly clear, great day! There are views the entire way. For a popular area, we did not see many people.

Looking back towards the parking area to the north, and beautiful snow capped peaks.

Table Mountain in the center

Another look back facing north

View of Mt Shuksan as we near Artist Point.

Pano from Artist Point looking towards Mt Baker

Mt Shuksan to the left and Huntoon Point to the right

Ski tracks coming down Huntoon Point

Fabulous lunch spot on Huntoon Point looking towards Mt Baker

Pano from Huntoon Point: Mt Baker, Table Mountain, Artist Point

Pano from Huntoon Point: Peaks to the north and Mt Shuksan

Mt Baker and snow covered trees as we come down Huntoon Point

We followed a set of snow track prints south along Huntoon Point, to keep enjoying these views, making a little loop before returning to Artist Point.

Views to the south, we could see Glacier Peak, but it was very hazy to the south.

More Mt Shuksan

Those lovely snow capped peaks to the north

snow cornices and Mt Shuksan

We did a little loop at Artist Point before heading back down the trail, Mt Baker

Table Mountain from the southeast side

So lovely as head down from Artist Point, Mt Shuskan

Table Mountain from the northeast side

 

Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge

We drove out to the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge and hiked some of the trails and the boardwalk. We walked about 4 miles. We could see the snow capped Olympics across Puget Sound.

There were quite a few waterfowl out in the water.

We had to be careful of the Canada geese on the edge of the trail.

We saw about a dozen seals in the water.

Not a great zoom photo, but I found this waterfowl interesting.

Deer in the meadow

The long boardwalk

The tide was low this morning. Far to the north, we could see the Narrows Bridge.

It was hazy to the north/northwest, but our eyes could see an outline of a very hazy Mt Rainier.

Lots of Canada Geese today

The blue water and the green meadows were very pretty.

 

Franklin Falls

We decided to hike down to Franklin Falls from the Snoqualmie West and then continue down to the little red cabin and then the bridge over the South Fork of the Snoqualmie River. Overall we hiked 6 miles with about 900' loss/gain. Guys Peak from the walk across the freeway on/off ramps to the closed forest road 58.

There was a nice packed trail going down the closed forest road, so we did not need to bring our snowshoes today.

We had some nice views of nearby peaks as we continued down the road portion.

From the road, we took the short Wagon Road Trail to join the Franklin Falls Trail down to the fall area. It was nice to find the snow past the rocky cliff to be well packed down at flat.

We were pleasantly surprised to have this area to ourselves at 10AM on such a nice day.

Various photos of Franklin Falls this morning.

Icicles covering the rocky cliff to the right of the falls.

Icicles covering the rocky cliff to the left of the falls.

Pano of the South Fork of the Snoqualmie River downstream of the falls.

a log bridge covered in snow on our way down the Franklin Falls Trail

The little red cabin is about a mile below Franklin Falls.

View of the South Fork of the Snoqualmie River looking upstream as seen from across the river from the little red cabin.

We continued the short distance down theFranklin Falls trail to the summer trailhead and walked over the bridge across the South Fork of the Snoqualmie River before returning up to West Snoqualmie Summit, view downstream from the bridge.

view upstream