We did a backpacking trip up on the Siouxon Creek Trail this weekend and camped just past the bridge that is full of pink tape. Here's a track of our weekend, which shows the loop I will tell you about here. Apologies for some of the craziness of this track, as Backcountry Navigator is fairly good, but it can still be all over the place at times.
http://gpsfly.org/g/3421
Here is a screen shot of the loop we did.
Disclaimer: many of the people on this forum could easily do this as a 14.5 mile day hike starting from the trailhead. But with 25 lb packs, we preferred to break it up a bit. This section of trail is 5.9 miles in length but requires a 4+ mile hike on both ends to reach it.
From our camping spot, we did some exploring and found an unnamed, unmarked trail that is located right near Chinook Falls and offers an awesome loop option with the rarely-traveled sections of Siouxon Creek. Here's a pic of the falls:
- Chinook Creek Falls
The waterfall is near the point where most people walk across the log to reach the Wildcat and Chinook Trail on the west side of Chinook Creek. But this trail we found starts on the east side of the Chinook Creek Trail. Unable to resist the temptation of a trail that appeared on none of our maps (NatGeo or Green Trails), we decided to take it. But first, we saw some hikers wandering around trying to find the waterfall and pointed them in the right direction. More on that later. Here's a pic of the trail somewhat near where it begins:
- The trail
The trail we took traveled east and southeast. It was a fairly gentle grade, only gaining about 1,000 feet total but it was extremely scenic if you like big old trees and nurse log-type undergrowth. The trail took us through amazing areas of sun-dappled trees and undergrowth. It rambled along through areas that have recovered beautifully since the burn in 1902, and it was obvious that ours were the only boots that had touched the trail in quite awhile. We saw no other people on this trail, which delighted us to no end. We saw some Indian Pipe specimens, Wood Rose, Thimbleberry, Bleeding Hearts, Arnica, Salal, Candy Flowers, and other specimens I couldn't identify, along with many slugs and Yellow-Spotted Millipedes.
We crossed a very lush gorge, getting a bit wet in the process. Here are pics of that area and then the sections of trail after it:
- The gorge
- Beautiful
- Tracy on the trail
- Our friend David, doing some trail maintenance ;).
We did start to worry a bit when we had gone about 3 miles and hadn't come to a place to cross Siouxon Creek to find the trail on the other side. But a bit of perseverance paid off, as we found a place to cross finally.
- Crossing the Siouxon
In order to go further, one would have to crawl over a bit of a downed-tree logjam in a narrow section of the trail but it did look like you could take it further if you wanted to. We didn't, as the topo appeared quite steep and wouldn't have allowed us to cross back to the Siouxon Trail. So this was our crossing.
- Our friend David is way more nimble than we are, so he walked across the log and we got wet just above the knees.
Shortly after crossing, we ran into the same hikers we saw earlier! We were glad to see them and know that we were headed back in the right direction on the Siouxon Creek Trail. One more wet-footed crossing of Calamity Creek was still on order for the day, though. The water was only ankle deep but moving fast:
- Crossing the Calamity
Then, we had about 2 more miles of trail, and many waterfalls to see.
- More waterfalls
- Waterfall
- Nurse log and fungi
Then, we were back in camp. (FYI: as reported by JustPeachy, the bridge seems totally safe to cross, as we went back and forth over it all weekend to get water for our camp. The side supports look like they have been used as a diving board of sorts into the big pool below and are quite broken but structurally, the bridge seems fine).
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