A stroll along Eagle Creek
We headed a bit further out this week, the weather at the coast was still not cooperating with us climbing Saddle Mountain so we went a bit further into the gorge to Eagle Creek for what turned out to be our longest hike, thankfully with easiest elevation considering with the half mile to the trail head it was 7.6 miles.
From the start of the trail I had the odd impression I should have brought rain gear instead of dry weave, can't imagine why. Eagle Creek runs through a gorge in the mountains so much of the trail followed the rock face, some of the trail was blasted out of the rock.
A section of the trail that appeared to be blasted with water falling directly on the trail. A lot of loose rock and narrow enough to warrant a safety cable to be placed in the wall to help with balance. The climb, such as it was, was a nice easy grade so no switchbacks this week.
Metlako Falls from an overlook along the trail and the water flowing down stream through the gorge. Its too bad the view point was so far up the trail, it was a pretty waterfall and I've been spoiled with some of the other trails where I could walk right up to the falls but the open views overall made up for this.
We stopped her for lunch, just through the opening is Punchbowl falls but neither of us were brave enough to wade out into the current to look. I'm standing on loose rocks that formed something similar to a sandbar on the shore, one more step and I would have been taking an icy swim so this was quite far enough for my taste. This was also the lowest point on the trail since the start, most of the hike we were higher up looking down to the creek.
This is a better representation of most of the hike, overall beautiful scenery and as I said before, a nice easy grade. The distance, however, my body is still whispering obscenities at me. The hike in we kept a pretty good pace but there was a lot of stopping to take pictures and checking out a few side trails that had overlooking views. The way out we made the 3.3 in just over an hour, the trail was starting to get busy so Jay set a pace that had us cruising along and out in no time.
Thanks for visiting!
From the start of the trail I had the odd impression I should have brought rain gear instead of dry weave, can't imagine why. Eagle Creek runs through a gorge in the mountains so much of the trail followed the rock face, some of the trail was blasted out of the rock.
A section of the trail that appeared to be blasted with water falling directly on the trail. A lot of loose rock and narrow enough to warrant a safety cable to be placed in the wall to help with balance. The climb, such as it was, was a nice easy grade so no switchbacks this week.
We stopped her for lunch, just through the opening is Punchbowl falls but neither of us were brave enough to wade out into the current to look. I'm standing on loose rocks that formed something similar to a sandbar on the shore, one more step and I would have been taking an icy swim so this was quite far enough for my taste. This was also the lowest point on the trail since the start, most of the hike we were higher up looking down to the creek.
This is a better representation of most of the hike, overall beautiful scenery and as I said before, a nice easy grade. The distance, however, my body is still whispering obscenities at me. The hike in we kept a pretty good pace but there was a lot of stopping to take pictures and checking out a few side trails that had overlooking views. The way out we made the 3.3 in just over an hour, the trail was starting to get busy so Jay set a pace that had us cruising along and out in no time.
Thanks for visiting!
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