This was a 17 mile loop around Wynoochee Lake on the Wynoochee Lakeshore Trail. It was a brushy mess and one that I will not likely be hiking again any time soon. Still, it had some charming features, such as Maidenhair Falls and a sense of solitude. It definitely could use some TLC.
WTA has a 7 day work party scheduled for this trail starting July 31. There are several openings.
Lake Wynoochee trail has some nice parts but as you noticed much of it is pretty ugly. This section of the forest was beat to death by Simpson Timber under a 100 yr lease from the Forest Service, which they cut in 50 years. The regenerating forest is in pretty bad shape. Where they didn’t cut so much there’s some nice big trees and decent forest. There’s the section around Maidenhair Falls in particular, and the views of the surrounding mountains are really nice. It’s good in winter, the road is plowed up to the picnic area on the rare occasion that there’s snow. Locals take their kids sledding there.
This whole area so beautifully showed in the photos is a very sacred place for those of us who were born and raised up there in the logging camp, there are places that are even more beautiful then just the lake that as we pray that no one will ever find, but be keep secret to us whom were raised in the forests of the Olympics our souls will forever be in that land, as for us who belong to that land will always be our heaven on earth, and that is where we all will be laid to rest in our final days on the earth, there are already those gone before us, that already laid to rest within the land that in which we were raised and of those who raised us. Thank you for sharing your journey your were in God’s hands