02/11/15 - Marymere Falls

One tree split vertically, with half remaining upright while the other half had fallen across the trail. The park service had cleared the trail, cutting out a section of the fallen tree. We stopped to take a closer look, because the inner wood of the fallen tree looked particularly smooth and fine grained. It was heartwood. It has a different look, a different feel and even a different sound when struck, as opposed to the younger wood in the outer layers of the tree. We could even see the color gradient as the outer layers were paler, almost yellow, but the inner layers were increasingly dark before turning into heartwood.

There was also lots of flowing water. Marymere Falls was in full spate. Click on the picture to check out the movie. Barnes Creek was roaring. This is a great time to check out Marymere Falls.

01/17/15 - Marymere Falls

We took the usual Marymere Falls circuit, no climb up to Storm King for us today, but we did wander a bit up Barnes Creek proper and enjoyed the views of the creek and the walk through the forest. We went as far as a little waterfall right along the trail.

05/12/14 - A Short Way Up Barnes Creek

We also got to see the new bridge over the creek. It's a bit more rustic than the bridge it replaces. It's just a big log with a single railing attached on one side of it, but it looks passable. We might even try it if our general clumsiness and associated fear of heights doesn't stop us. Oh, and did we mention trilliums?

11/27/13 - More Signs of WInter

10/01/13 - Marymere Falls

We have never seen Marymere Falls so full and flowing, even at the peak of spring melt. The recent rains have filled the watershed, and the falls put on a real show in consequence. You can even check the video (Play), as seeing is believing.

We saw a bit of snow on the higher peaks over the Barnes Creek valley, but the real snow is in the high country. Hurricane Ridge reports ten inches of snow, most of it fallen in the last day or two. Winter has come early this year, so barring a pineapple express, we may not be up on the ridge until the snowshoe and ski season starts.

02/27/13 - Marymere Falls

We weren't disappointed. The Barnes Creek Valley is pretty dark in the winter, so some years the snow falls and stays. This year, the snows melted quickly, so the hike was easy going. The river was running briskly, and the falls were going full force. We panted and wheezed and coughed our way up to the lower and upper overlooks and spent some time enjoying the falling water. Then we made our way back.

As we said earlier, it wasn't much of a hike, but it was more than sitting around the house coughing and wheezing.

08/29/12 - Storm King - A Little Bit Goes A Long Way

It's easy to drive along the south shore of Lake Crescent and do nothing but admire the scenery, but it is well worth pulling into the Barnes Creek parking lot and exploring the area. The lodge is there, if you are planning to spend the night, and there's a boat ramp if you happen to have a boat on hand, but there is also the Barnes Creek trail. Most people take it to see Marymere Falls. We do often, but there are two other trails there. One heads south along Barnes Creek while the other heads up Mount Storm King. The latter is a brutal climb, but well worth it if you have the stamina to climb 1350 feet to the overlook which offers views of Pyramid Peak, the Strait of San Juan de Fuca and Canada beyond.

Well, we didn't have quite the necessary stamina, but we had a great workout, and the scenery was terrific.

01/24/11 - Marymere Falls

10/20/10 - New Bridge at Barnes Creek

Well, that old bridge is gone, and a new metal truss bridge now spans Barnes Creek. It is quite a change from the old one. The walk from the parking area to Marymere Falls always reminds of Adventure Land. There's the tunnel under the road, the forest full of great trees, the little beach by the river side, a bridge over the creek and another with a view of the falls, then the crazy twisting pathway up among the tree roots to the falls themselves. It's not a particularly long walk, but there's a lot of outdoorsy stuff packed into it.

02/06/10 - Storm King

We didn't fare quite so well on our latest atttempt, but we did manage to get to about 1,200 feet up. The day was misty and overcast, and the trail was its usual, arduous self. Despite our failure to get to our favorite overlook, we were able to console ourself. After all, with all those clouds, the view was probably obscured anyway.

12/05/09 - Marymere Falls

03/13/09 - Barnes Creek Update - It's Still Winter

01/28/09 - Marymere Falls On Ice

09/07/08 - Timmy Maddox Memorial Service

He died rather suddenly, of leukemia. We found out from a friend of ours who also knew Timmy through Good To Go, and it turns out that she's been bicycling to raise money to fight leukemia. If you'd like to contribute you can follow this link to her web page.

The memorial service was held at the Olympic Park Institute which is on Lake Crescent in the Barnes Creek area along with Lake Crescent Lodge. It was a beautiful day with blue water, blue sky and the full glory of a North Olympic summer. Timmy obviously touched a lot of people in his life. Every chair was taken, and it seemed as many people were seated as were settled on the grass. There were children all over the place which is actually a good thing at a memorial service.

We didn't take a lot of pictures. You can see the stage and the banners in the picture to the right. You can also see a bit of the lake. It was a lovely service borrowing from Irish tradition, Jewish tradition, and Buddhist tradition. There was also a lot of Timmy. We may not have been close friends, but we will miss him.

11/19/07 - A Visit to the Spruce Railroad Trail

Even now, the park is still digging out. Hurricane Ridge Road is still closed, largely due to downed trees. We decided to take one of the more accessible trails at Lake Crescent, so we set out for the Spruce Railroad Trail along the north side of the lake. We didn't get far before our first obstacle. There was a big tree with lots of branches down across the trail (see the photo below). This did not bode well. We figured that we'd be clambering under and over tree trunks the entire walk, but we figured wrong. We actually made it three miles down the trail, to the "point", as we call it, and there were four, maybe five, trees down across the trail in all.

For our efforts, we were rewarded with the silvery lake, and some fantastic views of the mountains to the south. You can see the river clouds hanging over the Barnes Creek Valley in the photo to the right. There was a touch of snow on Storm King, but no solid snow line. There were lots of downed branches, and that gave us a wonderful opportunity. Rain forest trees, especially the big old maples, are covered with lichens, moss, Spanish moss, little ferns and the like, but these can be hard to see except rather low on the tree. There's just an overall impression of life and green-ness. With all the branches down, we got a better view. Below and to the right, there's a photo of a rather common lichen. It looks like a bunch of leaves, but the back is white. The algae get the sunny side and the funghi get the shady side, and they do very nicely together.

10/01/06 - Tree Falls In Forest

We braved the climb at Storm King the other day. This is a hard hike, up 1350 feet from the Marymere Falls trail at Barnes Creek, and much like climbing a staircase, but the view from the overlook was stupendous. You can see Vancouver Island to the north, and the Strait of San Juan de Fuca full of sea fog.

There were a number of downed trees, though the Park Service has cleared the trail nicely. One of the most spectacular of the downed trees had fallen across the trail, and someone had counted the rings of its four or five foot cross section. You can see the cross section below and the fallen tree as seen from the trail above to the lower right.

01/08/06 - The View From Storm King

Every so often we steel ourselves and drive out to the Barnes Creek area of Lake Crescent and climb Storm King. Storm King is one of the taller mountains on the south side of the lake, and it often creates its own rainshadow. Actually, we don't climb all the way to the top of Storm King. You need technical equipment, and a lot more oomph than we have, to do that. We climb about 1500 feet to the lookout to get a view of Lake Crescent and the Strait of San Juan de Fuca. That's Pyramid Peak across the lake in the picture to the left.

On a damp day like this, the trail has good traction. Usually, it is rather dusty, so it is easy to go skidding down in a wave of dust and gravel. Barnes Creek was full of water, and if we had had the strength we would have gone over and checked out Marymere Falls. We did take a short video of Barnes Creek, which might be fun to watch if you like to watch running water.