Otter Falls

April 18, 2010

Otter Falls is a beautiful granite waterfall arrived at via a wide, meandering trail through towering forest. The Snoqualmie Lake Trail, also called the Taylor River Trail, is actually and old road gone wild. I've deemed this the perfect companion hike trail, because the old road means it's pretty easy to walk side by side for the entire hike, and the small 650 foot elevation gain means you're never too out of breath to stop talking. Of course, those same characteristics, set against tall cedars and rushing waterfalls, also make this a very zen hike to do by yourself.

At 4.5 miles, look for a trail to the left that leads through the woods to the falls. Apparently some people have had a hard time finding this in the past, but there is a pretty big sign nailed to a tree, and a huge cairn, with a "cairn" attached to it, which cracked me up. If you know what a cairn is, you don't need a sign, and if you didn't know what a cairn was, the signage probably isn't so instructive.

The trail blends into the dirt and pine needle forest floor, but the falls are very close and hard to miss. In less than five minutes you get your first glimpse of the falls, and a short trail down the embankment brings you down to the lake at the bottom of the falls. We sat down on a log to have lunch, taking in the full effect of the falls. Watching torrents of water slide down the huge granite face so quietly was meditative. We couldn't help ourselves from looking up and then following the water down. After a long while we got up, much more calm and content than we arrived.

Directions: From Exit 34 on Interstate 90, drive under the freeway and pass Seattle East Restaurant (also known as Ken's Truck Stop), turn right on Southeast Middle Fork Snoqualmie River Road (No. 56). Drive 12 miles and cross the Taylor River. At a junction just beyond the bridge, turn left on the Taylor River Road and in less than a half-mile reach the gated bridge and trailhead parking.

Tiger Mountain - March 2010

March 31, 2010

Sometimes, you just need to get outside. We have an ongoing goal of getting out for a hike at least once a month. We generally don't have any trouble meeting this, but March got kind of busy, we spent a lot of our free time biking, and the last day of the month found us yet to take a hike. So, after work we headed to Tiger Mountain, which is less than an hour from Seattle. We had to fight through some traffic to get across town, so the drive took longer than we had planned and by the time we stepped out on to the trail it was already 5:00.

I was starting to think this was a weak last ditch effort at a hike, but as soon as we headed down all the frazzledness and grumpiness of the month and the traffic and the rush to get out there fell away. We both commented on how much better we felt, and how glad we were that we had come. I guess it's part of our our primordial part past, but people just seem to feel better when they get a regular does of nature.

Tiger mountain isn't the craziest or most challenging or most impressive mountain in the area, but it still feels wild. Getting to the summit at 2,000 feet of elevation gain is nothing to scoff at, and the huge ferns and old trees that make up the forest make you feel like you are far away from everything. There are dozens of interconnecting trails, which is handy for curtailing your hike to your time constraints -- or just trying to make it back to the car before the sun goes down.

Since it was so late in the evening, we only passed a few other people. We didn't have any particular destination in mind and din't have enough daylight left to go too far anyway, so we just enjoyed being outside. We breathed in the forest, stopped to examined the giant moss-covered boulders, and watched the sky darken. We did a loop out of several segments of trails, and as we hiked along the powerline past Tradition Lake on our way back to the car the sun was setting behind us.