12/31 Wednesday. Partly sunny. But I had a meeting at 11am. Left Seattle at noon. Hiked Little Mashel Falls in Eatonville on the way to Rainer. It's a little gem, that I never knew about. Saw quite a few families out.
Lower falls: quite pretty, but the track is very muddy and somewhat steep.
Take the first left spur to go down. It's marked.
Back on the main trail, soon it's the 2nd spur (to the left), go down to Middle falls. Also marked.
It's the tallest, more people here.
We put on rain jacket and scrambled behind the falls. Kinda fun. Very wet.
There's an obscured trail only a few minutes coming up the spur. Take it and follow to the top of middle falls and the river bank. Quite nice.
Not advised in spring runoffs, unless you want to get wet.
A few cascade along the way. Eventually hit the main tail which cuts high above the river.
We turned around at a viewpoint of the upper falls, didn't walk to the falls.
The trailhead is on a road with a locked gate. A sign tells you to park at Smallwood Park. So need to walk the road for a bit. The park is small. It has a shallow pond with some thin ice forming on the surface. Large deserted parking area. Saw only one other car. The hikers we met probably live in the neighborhood.
Saw Mt Rainier in the setting sun (very pretty) when we drove towards Ashford. It was already dark when we arrived at the cabin. Nicely decorated. Has a hot tub and a fire ring out doors. You can smell the wood smoke in the air. Next door had 4 people sitting around a fire ring. The cabin itself is very small: I hit my shoulder on the TV when going around the bed. There's a bottle of wine and some colorful sweets. We drank the wine (pretty good), and avoided the chemical-looking cookies. Ate steamed fish for dinner. Always tasty!
1/1, overcast. Very gray sky. The road to Paradise lodge was open. Not much snow on the road. Nasqually drainage looks more clogged than running.
First stop, Narada Falls. We used to start hiking from here.
Today, put on spikes and just went down to see the waterfall and icicles.
The parking lot at Paradise was about 1/3 full.
Carried snowshoes to the edge of the lot, and put on, before continuing onto the snow.
Headed hight towards Glacier Vista, and then cut down to Golden Gate bridge.
Snow is relatively soft.
It's always fun to step down on fluffy snow - the best human can feel what it is like to walk in the clouds.
A few skiers, almost no hikers above us.
Too cloudy to see Rainier, but the view of Tatoosh Range is nice.
A lot more people at the little bridge over Golden Gate creek.
There's a sign warning people not to go below the bridge here.
But there's plenty snow to safely walk down a bit to actually see the little waterful.
It was getting cloudier and cloudier. By the time we were back at the car, it was raining. A lot more cars now. Still seeing cars coming up as we drove down.
Back to Seattle still in day light. Not raining. Quite a good start of the new year.
