John Wayne Trail - Another Segment

Sunday, September 27 2009
Cumulative Elevation gain 600 ft
Trail length: 5 miles one way

Time taken: 2hours one way
Level of difficulty: Medium

I am picking up where we left the last time around - near the Twin Falls and Olallie State Park. It is the same trail that starts near Rattlesnake Mountain and we hiked four miles of this trail to the Olallie State Park. This time around we started off at the Olallie State Park trail head. An access trail from the parking lot climbs quickly through about 100 to reach the John Wayne Trail. From there we continued eastbound.

This section of the trail passes over a few engineering marvels from the 19th century that bridges deep ravines with tall trestles to accommodate rail traffic on top. A few bikers merrily paddled by - but much less in numbers compared to last time around. The new aspect is the rock climbers on on rock precipice honing their climbing skills.

From this trail we got a nice view of the Bandera Mountain that I hiked a couple of weeks back with a multi-colored meadow looking like a nice carpet on its southern slope. At one point the wind blowing from East to West really picked up in strength - funneled into a narrower passage by the mountains on both sides. Funnily for the rest of trail we experienced alternated blasts of perceptibly warm and cold air from time to time.


We stopped just a little bit short of the trail head for McClellan Butte and returned after resting a little bit while having some snacks. All the way through we noticed the signs of Fall from the trees turning colors. Felt like the colors would peak in a couple of week or so. Apart from the turning colors, an interesting arboreal feature we noticed is a tree stump that seems like a sitting posture. Check it out on this picture.


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Bandera Mountain and Mason Lake

Saturday, September 12 2009
Cumulative Elevation gain 3000 ft
Trail length: 3.8 miles one way

Time taken: 2hours 20 minutes on way up
Level of difficulty: Difficult

Nice sunny day. A forest road off of exit 42 of I-90 over 3 .3 miles leads to the Ira Spring trail head. The trail starts off on an old time logging road for the first mile with gentle slope and travels eastward parallel to the highway below. Two sections of the trail were damaged by past winter storms but are passable now. Several peaks starting with McClellan Butte can be seen from this section of the trail.

Soon after, the logging road ends and the trail turns north and a steeper climb begins. By now with enough gain in elevation, Mount Rainier starts to come into view in the distance. A little while later, the forest clears up gradually. The most difficult part of the trail starts at the fork where the left trail leads to Mason Lake and the right to the Bandera Mountain. At this point, I had excellent views of the meadows up towards the Bandera mountains, the mildly serpentine interstate 90 below, and Mount Rainier far away looming above the nearer mountain ranges to the south. But alas! My camera battery had to die right there:(. It was one of those moments where the camera functionality of my cellphone proved so handy! So I used my phone to capture whatever images I could for the rest of this trip.

I continued on the Bandera trail. Oh boy - is that a trail or a staircase? It is a 45 degree assent from this point for next half mile before getting to a comparatively milder yet rocky segment. The elderly gentleman whom I met on my way commented that I had the whole mountain to myself beyond there. He was right - but where did all those people from 10 or15 odd cars parked at the trail head go? You guessed it right - on to the Mason Lake trail:). Well, I did meet two young couples during my descent from Bandera. One of the couples was actually carrying a month or so old baby!

The top of the Bandera Mountain provides all round views of mountain peaks and ranges. All these views are well worth the efforts to climb the very steep trail to get there. It was very windy up there. I stopped at the top, ate my lunch, and soaked in the views, some of them into my cellphone as well.

While returning, even though it was not originally a part of the plan, yet I decided to go sideways to the Mason Lake as well. It was another half mile from the fork in the trail and after rising over a small distance, it generally goes downwards from there on. Most of the hiker traffic was headed this way, including a few father-son teams getting out there for overnight camping. There are some nice spots by the lake suitable for camping activity even though lighting a fire is prohibited due to dangers of starting forest fires. The trail actually continues beyond the lake to several other hiking destinations in this Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. One that I have marked for a future trip is the Mount Defiance of which I had a pretty view of as can bee seen in this photograph. I rested for a few minutes watching several people getting a dip in the crystal clear but cold lake water before starting my return journey.


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Iron Horse State Park - John Wayne Trail

Sunday, August 16th, 2009
Cumulative Elevation gain about 300 ft
Trail length covered : 4.5 miles one way

Time taken: 1hr 30 minutes s on way up and 1 hr 40 on way down.
Level of difficulty: Easy

This is a trail on an old railroad grade that used to stretch from Seattle to Chicago. The railway tracks are not there any more and the grade was converted into a gravel pathway in the 1980s. The section between Cedar Falls Close to North Bend on the West side of the Snoqualmie Pass and Vantage near Columbia River to the East of the Pass has since been maintained by the Washington State Parks and named it as John Wayne Trail. The surroundings of the trail is named the Iron Horse Park. It is nice family hiking trail with gentle slope and minimal physical efforts involved.

I and my friend accessed the trail at its starting point located about 3 miles south of exit 32 of the I-90 interstate highway. Its a gently sloping trail with the mountain wall on the south and excellent views on the other. The Rattlesnake Mountain and the Rattlesnake Ledge are visible from near the start of the trail. There is also a nice view of the Little Si and the Big Si together. This view provides a very good idea about the efforts and difficulty associated with the hiking the Big Si compared to that with the Little Si. There were quite a number of bicyclists on the trail. There was even one man riding a battery powered two-wheeler vehicle. Is a motorized vehicle allowed on this trail? I am not sure. However, we soon saw him coming back, but not riding his motorbike but pushing it!

As we walked, the trail moved closer to the Highway. At some point we passed the Twin Falls State Park on our left. At about 4.5 miles, pretty close to the Olallie State Park, we turned around. If we went on for another 16 miles, we would be walking into the 2-miles long Snoqualmie Tunnel. Well, I plan to return to this trail some other day to hike through that tunnel!

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