Boulder River Wilderness

September 16 , 2006
It's been a while since Tim and I and Rosie have bounced along Forest Service roads. The weather today looked iffy, so that's what we decided to do. We headed towards the Mountain Loop Highway, and followed Forest Service Road 2060 into the Boulder River Wilderness.

The Boulder River area was left alone decades ago by loggers, who deemed it too small to be profitable. Today it is one of the last lowland valleys of intact virgin forest left in Western Washington. The Boulder River Wilderness includes such alpine gems as Whitehorse and Three Fingers mountains and was created by Congress in 1984.

It's a deep, often dank, sword-fern forest, crowned by big, split-topped red cedars sometimes 6 feet in diameter, huge deep-green hemlock and broad-branched bigleaf maples. The river itself offers not only its rushing voice, but also 100-foot falls plunging over rock faces in braided patterns of white.
Seattle P.I.
     
   
     
You can see what sort of a day it was here - misty, damp and dull. Usually we can see White Chuck and Pugh mountains across this valley, but not so today.
     
   
     
Asbestos Creek Falls trickled down the side of Jumbo Mountain in several stages. There are six drops for a total of 975 feet, making it one of the tallest waterfalls in Washington. This is the very last drop. The rest were shrouded in mist.
     
   
     
Leaves of Big Leaf Maples were scattered over the rocks near the falls. Although they were obviously diseased, I thought they were striking.
     
   
     
A little further down the road was a trailhead. Here's the beginning of the 2.5 mile hiking trail which "begins with a gentle climb, following an old abandoned road. The trail is popular with rock climbers as it goes by Three-O’clock Rock on the south side of Jumbo Mountain. From this point on, the trail climbs steeply up the mountain over a long series of switchbacks." A notice board warned that it should only be attempted by experienced hikers and climbers, so that let us out. (Whew)
     
   
     
Here's a picture taken through the window, showing just what sort of a road we are on. It's often a challenge if we meet someone coming the other way. We met one today, and luckily it was near a wide spot in the road.
     
   
     
It's always fun to get to an open spot in the trees. You never know what you'll find. The clouds lifted and revealed a mountain. We decided this was a great spot for lunch.
     
   
     

And at that very spot, was my lucky picture of the day. This is my elusive American Pika. I heard a funny little bleat, looked down and there he was. We played hide and seek for a few minutes before he vanished into the rocks. When I looked at my pictures, I was dismayed to see a wound in his side. :(
     
   
     
I can quite understand why this area is called Boulder River. There are boulders everywhere you look. Many of them are huge.
     
   
     
And there's moss everywhere too - not surprising under the weather conditions. The moss looks so pretty when the sun shines through the trees.
     
   
     
On the way back, we stopped at an elementary school in Darrington to look at White Horse Mountain. I still do a double-take when I see signs like this posted at the school. I'm glad I grew up in the olden days.
     
   
     
As we turned back to the car, we noticed a hitchhiker. It looked like a relative of a Woolly Bear caterpillar, perhaps the Yellow Bear. We dropped him off in Darrington.
     
   
     

Gaily-wrapped bales of hay made us smile as we drove past en route to Arlington. They were for sale, and the vendor certainly knew how to attract attention.

As we headed back to Seattle, the clouds dispersed, the sun came out and the sky turned blue. Heh, go figure!

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