We got to the Lennox Creek fork around 7:30 and had a decision to make. The road splits here into three different directions and smaller groups explored the start of each of them. We decided to follow along Lennox Creek (which had as much volume as the Snoqualmie River at this point). Lennox Creek had the best scenery and comes tumbling down from the Snoqualmie Pass area in a very tight valley. I had a soft goal of maybe getting up to the road closure near the Bare Mountain trailhead.

The road is technically closed at the start of Lennox Creek, but trucks have moved the barriers out of the way and the road is being used as a 4×4 track. We still only saw two vehicles up there. The road surface is loose enough that it can be tough going ona 35mm slick bicycle tire, and I think Lee even walked his Pugsley with it’s 90mm wide tires up a couple of sections. Rory’s excellenthandling skills let him climb everything on the bike even with narrow tires and no granny gear.In exchange for the rough road and a little hike a bike we got some wonderful views and a surprising amount of solitude for being about 30 miles from downtown Seattle (as the crow flies).

At about 9:15 we were still about two miles from where we thought the road might end and needed to find a camp site. On the maps it looked like the valley was going to get narrower, which makes the likelyhood of finding camp harder. We pressed on anyway, exploring every side trail to see if it lead to anything good. We found the best option and started to scope out hammock and tent sites when Andre decided to look back on the road a couple hundred feet. He found a nice section of open forest and we setup campthere. The forest was pretty well established and had a thick canopy which left the forest floor much more open and accessible.

Hammocks and tents were erected just as night fell. Rory, Andrew and I filtered water while Scott, Andre,and Lee built a fire. Dinner was in darkness around the fire with a couple of beers. I slept surprisingly well through the night and woke up around 7am. The bugs were bad in the morning,so we skipped breakfast and started rolling early. By 10:30am we were back in North Bend getting breakfast at the cafe from the TV show Twin Peaks.

This might be it for my exploration of this area this summer, but I still have sections that I’m curious about. Sunday Creek and the hills over the river seem to have some promise. I still haven’t been up to Hancock Lake or Lake Callighan either.

All of myphotos
Scott’s photos