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| Green Monster covered in Pacific Northwest Dust |
While out exploring as we often do we stumbled on a road following North Fork Snoqualmie River. At the time all we had was our car, so we were limited to how far down this dirt road we were willing to go. Fast forward in time, now that we had a rig that was at home on this type of road, we decided to follow it as far as we could.
It wasn't a difficult road to drive, but BMW's are not meant to ever leave the pavement and we wanted to see what was out there. Since it was spring, it was wet and muddy, the river was raging, waterfalls and snowpack still very present. While it wasn't the most beautiful day weather wise, it was a pretty good taste into exploring the outdoors in a way that neither of us had done in a very long time.
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| Debbie and Emma |
First stop along the way was at the first bridge crossing over North Fork Snoqualmie River. This river is one of three tributaries that all join up at North Bend, WA to create the Snoqualmie River. Being that it is spring, and this water comes from the Cascade Mountains, the river was swollen and rushing very hard. The bridge actually had a vibration about it from the water rushing underneath.
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| South Side of bridge |
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| North Side of Bridge |
Now that we've had our first picture stop, onward to see where the road goes.
Follow the jump for more pictures and story!
Our first stop was a washed out area that was recently repaired. Looking up you can see a water fall. This "chute" not only has running water, but also fills with snow during the winter time putting a lot of pressure on the ground near the river. As the weight of the snow built with more water near the end of winter, the land below it gave way.
Looking back towards the new road from where the old road used to be you can see debris scattered around the area leading all the way back down to the river.
One more look back at the waterfall and slide chute.
Along the way we found a blocked off logging road. The GPS said there was a lake near by. It didn't have a gate, but had a ditch dug out in front of it making impassable for our Jeep. Around here we call them "tank traps" and by law are considered gates. We decided it was worth it to try to walk to the lake.
As luck would have it, we could not easily reach the lake via this route. Further up the road was an area where logging had been done, but the land left pretty messed up by it.
As we headed further up the road, the river grew smaller. Waterfalls and Snow became more prevalent.
Very LOOOONG waterfall leading from a snow pack, into a snow pack before joining the river.
Another waterfall along the way. There were a lot of these. Some of them will be gone by the time summer rolls around. Most of this is runoff from the spring thaw.
Even though the weather wasn't that great, it was nice to see all of these along the way.
Eventually we ran into snow that was too deep for us to take on by ourselves. According to a map, we were only about a mile from the end of the road anyway. So we headed back.
Hey, where's this trail go?
While on the way back, we spotted this little trail that was near the lake we originally wanted to explore. We decided to park the Jeep and take a walk up.
We weren't disappointed. This was the lake we were trying to visit. We wrapped up our day here with a bit more wandering around on foot and exploring.
Looks like local residents hard at work on their new house.
I'd say it's going to be a noisy place with the number of frogs that are going to come out of this. We found a half dozen of these tadpole jellies in a 10 foot area.
Debbie going out on a limb. Trying to stay out of the mud.
One muddy, but very happy puppy.
One very tired puppy.
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