Fern Creek Loop

Good morning, my friends. We'll be heading down the dusty trail again in a little while. Our next stop will be Winthrop, Washington, just up the road, and on the other side of the national park. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's talk about yesterday's activities. 

We're nearly out of ice cream, but since we still have enough vanilla, I was motivated to bake a Skillet Cherry Cobbler for Two. These are cherries from our own trees, and my adaptation of my mother's recipe to make it a skillet cobbler for two (four, actually).

When that was finished, we headed our for the day’s hike. Below, I tried once more to get a picture of the shed with the quilt block. Still a crappy picture, but maybe better than the one in yesterday’s post.

We were headed to this Washington State Park.

Here’s what I know about the park: The first settlers in the area were the Skagit tribes. They lived in a village of longhouses at the confluence of the Sauk and Skagit river. They prospered from the abundance of salmon and the evergreen forests. Then, in 1885, Leonard Graves homesteaded the land around the town that is now known as “Rockport.” Eventually, he sold the land, and the town grew from there. The property where the state park is located was owned by Sound Tember Company. Eventually, it was sold to the Washington State Department of Natural Resources for $1 (1935). It was acquired by Washington State Parks in 1961. It is comprised of an old growth forest that is estimated to be 400-600 years old.

Up until 2007, there was a campground here. It’s closed to camping now out of concern over the stability of old growth trees and the potential hazard they pose to campers. Indeed, on our hike, we saw many fallen trees. This road once led to a campground. We simply walked up to find the trailhead.

The trees still standing were nothing short of awe-inspiring for their height and their girth. 

We hadn’t reached the trailhead yet when we spotted this big boy. (Again…when I say “big boy” I mean the tree, not Mike.)

Eventually, we came to a posted map telling us that we’d reached the trailhead and showing us its route. We were on the Fern Creek Trail.

It was a day for looking up.

There were many fallen logs fully encased in these ferny-mossy ecosystems.

It’s a little late in the year for wildflowers, but I spotted this little violet.

The trail was dirt and narrow.

At one point, we crossed this bridge.

Fern Creek is barely a trickle at this time of year.

In the shaded areas, we saw plenty of fungus.

This weird stuff was on the cut-off end of a log. If you look closely, you can see droplets of something…water? Is it sticky like sap? We’ll never know because I didn’t touch it.

If I didn’t know better (and I don’t), I might think these are psychedelic mushrooms. Honestly, I have no idea. There’s another mushroom that grows in the Pacific Northwest known as the “death cap mushroom.” More than once in the time we’ve lived here, folks have mistaken one for the other and ended up poisoning themselves. No messing around. I don’t even want to touch them. The one below was about the size of a quarter.

To its left were these little ones, about the size of dimes.

The woodpeckers were after the tree below, although we didn’t see any woodpeckers on this hike.

Here’s a closer shot of that. 

Also this Douglas squirrel was willing to stand still for a photograph. We’ve seen a lot of these little guys, but this one was the first that would allow me to take his picture.

Below, a huge tree had fallen across the path. We had to bend at the waist to get under it.

Below is another example of trees growing in a straight line, as if they were planted that way. And, as we now know, it’s because they all grew from a single rotting nurse log.

The Douglas firs in this forest were among the biggest trees I’ve ever seen anywhere. And the big leaf maple trees were no slouches either. Most have dropped their leaves by now, but you can see why they’re called “big leaf” maples.

The Douglas firs were named for David Douglas. He was a Scotsman and naturalist who, between 1825 and 1833, collected and catalogued the trees and plants in this area for the Royal Horticultural Society of London. He journeyed through the region by canoe, horse, and foot, often alone. He ventured up the Columbia and Willamette rivers and briefly visited Puget Sound.  He was pictured on one of the informational signs.

The Douglas fir is the predominent coniferous evergreen of Western Washington. Old growth trees can approach 300 feet in height and are wrapped in bark that is 8-10 inches thick. They can live hundreds of years. 

Below his picture was this polished cut off stump. I’m hoping you can read the little placards there.

The tree got its start in 1571 and fell in 2021, when it was 450 years old. Amazing. 

Okay, and we’d finished the hike by that time. Our next stop was the town of Concrete, Washington. It was such an unusual name for a town, and so I wanted to learn more about it. 

Wikipedia tells us that:

The town of Concrete began as a settlement at the northwestern junction of the Baker and Skagit Rivers, known as "Minnehaha." Amasa "Peg-Leg" Everett was one of the earliest settlers. In 1890, the townsite was platted by another settler, Magnus Miller. Shortly thereafter, a post office was established and the town name changed to "Baker." In 1905, a settlement across the Baker River came into being due to the building of the Washington Portland Cement Company and was named "Cement City." After the Superior Portland Cement Company plant was built in Baker in 1908, it was decided to merge the two towns. Inhabitants of the new community settled on the name "Concrete" and the town was so christened and officially incorporated on May 8, 1909.

And this is one of those places where it seems untouched by time. Driving through the main street, it looked like this.

We drove to the end of that street, and then made a U-turn. It appeared to be a thrift store, but I really wanted you to see the expansive mural of the surrounding rivers and mountains.

Heading back the other direction, it looked like this:

We drove beyond the business district into a more residential area. We happened upon this bakery. We were hungry, so why not?

Just look at all these goodies.

We were looking for something relatively healthy to have as a breakfast snack.

We also chose that Foccacia BBQ Chicken Pizza in the middle row on the right below, and we shared it for lunch.

For breakfast we selected these pumpkin cranberry muffins. If you pretend they don’t have any sugar, they’re downright healthy!

They heated up our pizza, and so we sat at a table. Right away, I noticed the coloring tools on the table. Do you think they knew we were coming?

It took about 10 minutes, and it was really good.

And then we were curious about some other parts of the town we’d seen.

The concrete activity seems to be a thing of the past, although I can’t find anything about that. This structure was a part of it, and it is clearly abandoned. In fact, on the left side of the stairs is a little green sign offering the building up for “adoption.”

To its right was this small monument. They had a perfect safety record for the first time in 1933. The last one was in 1961, and there were many years in between.

Behind were these large silo looking things. I know nothing about the manufacture of concrete, and so I can only point my camera at them and tell you what I saw.

With so much land seemingly abandoned of any particular purpose, they’ve built a skate park and bike paths. There was also a frisbee golf course. 

Driving in and out of the town, we crossed this bridge twice.

To the north was this. It’s a bridge and a man-made waterfall.

Well, this we had to see. And so we drove up the hill to have a look.

This seems to be a plant dedicated to the protection of fish.

The informational signs tell us that juvenile fish are captured in traps in Baker Lake and Lake Shannon. From there, they are transported in trucks and released into the Baker River (on the other side of the bridge above) where it drains into the Skagit River. Each spring more than 200,000 juvenile salmon are transported around the dams in this way. Wow. I had no idea. After they are released, they continue their journey down the Skagit River to the Pacific Ocean. From there, they will return to the Baker River as adults. Amazing.

And that was the end of our day. We were back at the RV around 2:00 and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon. This morning will be a little weird timing-wise. We have to check out of this park by 11:00 a.m. Then we have just an 88 mile drive to the next place, but we can’t check in there until 2:30. We’re going to have an hour in there that will probably need to be filled somehow. There’s a grocery store in Winthrop, and so we might end up getting some groceries and then just unloading them when we can get checked into the park. Also, I’m still on the hunt for a refrigerator magnet and shot glass from the national park. Maybe I’ll find something along the way.

All-righty then. Time’s a-wasting, and I need to start buttoning things up. Also, I’m gonna have one of those muffins. Have a good day, everyone. Our next hike won’t be until tomorrow, so rest up and get a good night’s sleep tonight.

Skagit-Sauk Reach Trail

Good morning, my friends. What a beautiful day of weather we had yesterday! It was the first really warm day of our trip. I packed both long and short-sleeved shirts, and plenty of sweatshirts. Yesterday was the first time I wore a short-sleeved shirt. We're expecting similar weather today.

So we settled on the Skagit-Sauk Reach Trail. It was listed as being five miles, but with almost no elevation gain. We ended up turning around when we reached a point where it was more overgrown than we liked. Some reviewers said there was poison ivy. We didn't see any, but it was still warning enough to discourage us from going any farther when we couldn't avoid having the plants brushing up against us.

We had a short drive to the little town of Rockport, Washington. We're seeing more fall color every day.

I regret not getting a better picture of this little structure as we sped by, but I wanted you to see the quilt block there. Maybe I'll get another chance at it.

Okay, and here we are. It's barely a wide spot in the road.

The trailhead was within the boundary of Henry Miller Steelhead County Park. After parking, I took a better look at this cabin.

Here's another angle.

This cabin was built (at a different location) by settler Tom Porter, who felled two large cedar trees and built this house with his friend, Bob Kerr. It was built with no nails or pegs. Instead a special notch called a double-dove tail secured the corners. It was insulated with moss, clay, and newspaper, and it was heated with a wood-fired cook-stove. He later married Mima Kerr and had six children with her. One of the children died here, as did Mima, who died giving birth to her seventh child. A flood in 1897 forced the family to take refuge in the loft when the river flowed through the lower level. The cabin was moved to this location in 1967.

To it's right was this "shovel-nosed canoe." With honor and thanksgiving, Salish craftsmen would fell and build these canoes. They used stone axes to shape the outer hull and narrow adz blades to shape the inside. Fire was also used to char away the wood.

It took us a while, but we walked pretty much the full length of the campground in search of the trailhead.

The first thing we noticed was this sign. I'd dearly love to see the mama bear and her cub, but it's probably just as well that we didn't.

We expected to walk alongside the Skagit River, which hosts the largest population of wintering bald eagles in the United States. They feed on the chum and coco salmon returning to the river to spawn. We didn't see any eagles, and a sign informed us they generally return at the end of October. It's also one of the most important rivers for spawning salmon, and it is the only large river system in Washing State that contains all five native salmon species: coho, chinook, sockeye, chum, and pink salmon.

We were often walking on a trail littered with the fallen leaves of big leaf maple trees.

Our shadow selves had to get down and roll around in the leaves.

There weren't a lot of blooming things along the trail, but we saw blackberries.

And snowberries.

At other times, we were walking on a wide trail of mown grass. 

And although we'd thought we would be walking beside the river, we'd walked more than a mile before we could even see it. This was the first clearing we came to.

We found a large patch of this stuff. My phone tells me it is equisetum hyemale, more commonly known as horsetail or scouring rush.

It extended far into the brush on both sides of the trail.

Here the trail was boardwalk, and we crossed over Regan Creek, which was dry at this time of year.

In other places, the trail was dirt.

I'm loving all the fall color, and having the sun shining through the leaves makes it especially pretty.

Here, we crossed another narrow bridge over a running stream.

When we came to another clearing in the trees, we could get another good look at the river.

As we stood there, a jet boat went by. Mike noted that the water would be too shallow for any kind of outboard motor.

Looking in the other direction, we saw more fishermen. We also saw about a half dozen on the trail.

In the picture below, you can see the confluence of the Sauk River and the Skagit River. The Skagit is the larger river running through the middle of the image. You can just see a sliver of the Sauk just above center.

We saw lots of this moss along the way.

Close-up it's delicate and pretty.

Here's a bat house. We have a bat house at home, and I'm always happy to see these hard-working bug catchers welcomed with a home provided just for them.

There were fields of this bloomed out tansy. This was the only grouping that was still in bloom.

Also, some buttercups.

And a woolly caterpillar. Good thing I wasn't riding my bike, huh?

This peak was to the side. I tried unsuccessfully to determine its name. Maybe it doesn't have a name.

On our way back, we pulled off at a roadside park where we could see the Sauk Mountain range with its glaciered peaks.

And that was our day. When we opened the door to the camper, we found Sadie soaking up the sun in her catio. Try to ignore the cat snot on the kitty door.

We're expecting another beautiful day of weather today. We're planning a couple of short hikes today, and possibly a visit to the small town of Concrete, Washington. It's a historical town that provided concrete in the building of the dams in the area, including the Grand Coulee Dam. We'll be seeing that down the road in a few days.

And since I didn't have time for slow-stitching yesterday, I want to get some in this morning. This seems like as good a place to stop as any. The sheep are awaiting the arrival of my needle.