Wallace Falls

After thinking about going to Wallace Falls for several weeks now, and debating all weekend whether the weather was too bad to bother hiking, I decided this morning that I wouldn't go, so I just went to work to feed my cells for a while. I got back at 3pm, called Rachel, and then we realized we could still go - it's only an hour away from Seattle, and it's a 5.6 mile round trip hike. So despite the rain, we quickly threw together our day-hiking gear and headed up to Gold Bar. It wasn't raining until we got to about Sultan - where we tried to stop in the Red Apple to pick up a NW forest pass (and were told that only the Gold Bar Red Apple sells them... grr - but luckily we realized that since the trail was in a state park we didn't need the pass) and then it got a bit heavier by the time we got to the trailhead.

We headed out at 5 pm and passed a few hikers going in the opposite direction, but the weather (and time) seemed to have kept most people away. The views of the lower, middle (pictured above), and upper falls were very nice, and appropriately accompanied by signs warning hikers not to go into the water as they would almost certainly die. I only took three pictures due to the constant drizzle, and didn't even try to capture the verdant greens of the vine maple, moss, and evergreen being backlit by foggy diffuse sunlight. But take my word for it, it was beautiful.

In the end, it took us about 2.5 hours round-trip - and we were done a full hour before sunset. Thankfully we hadn't been hit with the rather torrential rain that we drove through on the way back to Seattle (via Dairy Queen for Blizzards, after the Gold Bar McDonalds told us that their ice cream machine was out of order and then took forever to get through the two cars in front of us in the drive-through line).