#Cedar Creek Trail

[boltedgarlic]

10/17/2009

[uniqueartisanconnoisseur]

Chilling in Fairfield Iowa

Fairfield, Iowa is located off of highway 34 in southeast Iowa. On a hosted trip to Fairfield with a group of Midwest Travel Network bloggers. I had a chance to feel the chill atmosphere that resides in this middle-sized Iowa town with a population of around 10,000. As with many college towns, Fairfield is a mecca of art, culture, amazing food choices and some interesting history! The area also…

[my-lifes-reward]

2023 Outdoor Plans

Check out this video that is a brief overview of the outdoor trips planned for 2023. April/May is about the time of year that kicks off the various trips 2023.

Check out this video that is a brief overview of the outdoor trips planned for 2023. April/May is about the time of year that kicks off the various trips 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7YXOFcomJE%5B/embedyt%5D

[gnarl3ne-blog]

Camissonia bistorta by Arlene Schag Via Flickr: Southern California - Ramona, Camissonia bistorta growing in full sun near Cedar Creek Falls, May 2010. Small population. Chaparral / Riparian habitat, a beautiful native in an area where most have have been crowded out by foreign plants and introduced weeds.

[mountrainiernps]

Longmire is open 7 days a week. Two miles before reaching Longmire, stop at the Twin Firs Loop Trail for a short introduction to the old growth forest of Mount Rainier. The original “twin firs” that gave the trail its name no longer exist, but look for the “big three” conifer species of the forest: Douglas-fir, western hemlock, and western red cedar.

While short, a section of the 0.4-mile-long trail is steep, climbing up a hillside before crossing a creek on a narrow log footbridge and descending back to the trailhead. In winter the trail can be snow-covered and there may be fallen trees from winter storms blocking portions of the trail. Pair this hike with the Trail of the Shadows in Longmire to further experience Mount Rainier’s low elevation forests.

NPS Photo of the Twin Firs trailhead and forest, 1/8/25.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

I'm back on the coast for a couple of days for the Wings Over Willapa birding and nature festival! Yesterday I renewed my role as a nature guide for the annual barge trip over to Long Island to see the thousand year old western red cedars in one of the last remaining old growth in this region; there was a plethora of fungi, along with at least two species of slime mold! I will never, ever get tired of that place.

Then this morning I led a hike around the Cutthroat Climb trail (named for the cutthroat trout, which spawns in the creek there.) More beautiful forest with some surprisingly late wildflowers like three leaved foamflower, and a rough skinned newt. I was wondering what to do with my afternoon, and then a couple weeks ago someone booked a private guided nature tour with me here, so that answered that question and gave me a chance to take them around Porter Point (also part of Willapa NWR) for even more forest and fungus fun. I'm about to get ready for tonight's event keynote speaker, Marina Richie, author of Halcyon Journey: In Search of the Belted Kingfisher.

[lawrencejeffersonphotography]

Cedar Waxwing along the Shadow Creek Ranch Nature Trail in Pearland, Texas

[chronicparagon]

A Journey with a Reaper

Happy birthday @beloved-death!

How strange life can be. Life is a journey with all its twists and turns. Sometimes, the mundane becomes something extraordinary from meeting unusual people to deep conversations. Such deep conversations that can alter perceptions. At least, that is something Harmony discovers during one chance encounter.

 Harmony hardly ever saw anyone lurking along these trails through the lush wilderness. She’s normally alone during these walks where she finds solace while her dearest is away on business. The evergreen canopy with notes of pine and cedar in the air brings some comfort. The birds continue their daily serenade along with the crystal waters flowing along the creeks. It is here that she finds a stranger, though he seems to mean no harm.

He's a tall young man with his purple locks framing his face. Those bright red eyes are out of the ordinary, but he is certainly no vampire. No, she’s sure he isn’t human but also not a vampire, much less among her lover’s kin.  He certainly has an intense, though dark aura. It’s hard for Harmony to explain but something tells her it’s best not to pry into that.

The encounter among the morning mist is polite, though a bit awkward. Harmony greeted the stranger with a gentle smile and a quiet hello before introducing herself. He returned the greeting but said his name did not matter. A peculiar answer that takes the young woman aback, but she respected his choice with a nod.  She wonders if he prefers to continue his journey alone, but a part of her wants to stick with him. It’s been a long time since she last had company. The staff back at home are polite but they were never the ones to stay for conversation. Not when there is a lot for them to do.

“Excuse me, sir…If it’s not too much trouble…Is it okay that we walk together? Perhaps talk too?” Hands play with the lock of her hair resting over her shoulder. Silver eyes sheepishly look away as she spoke to him. “It’s okay if it’s a no! I mean, I just-Well…It’s been a long time since I see a visitor here. My fiancé has been away on business for the past week. It gets too quiet at home without him. I don’t want much. Just-well, you know…Someone to hang out with.” Then, dark brows rise, and lips spread to a grin as she remembers something.

“Oh! If you walk with me, I’ll show you a great place to see the mountains! Colorado has beautiful mountains, you know! I go there lots of times!” Harmony knows just the spot to show such a breathtaking view. It’s where she goes to relax and share stories about her people with the little ones. Though the twins are not yet born, she still talks and sings to them. They can hear her voice. That much she knows. “It’s not a hard walk to get there, either and not many people know about it!” The intensity of hiking is always something she must consider. Though her clothing and jacket do wonders hiding the small bump in her stomach, it won’t be long until her condition begins to show, and she won’t be able to hike as long until after birth.

The man considered her invitation for a moment before agreeing to follow. “Great! We start by going further up this trail. Then, we take a right…” Excitement sparked in her eyes as she leads him down the trail.

The trek is slow, taking in the sights and sounds nature has to offer. Harmony speaks every now and again, fighting the urge to ramble in fear of scaring her possible acquaintance.  They speak about general topics, such as the weather, what this park has to offer, things Harmony is more than happy to share.  The sun drifts further up towards the brightening sky as the two reach an overlook. There, they find the vast landscape with the mountains reaching toward the heavens with snow capped peaks.

“This is it! Isn’t it beautiful? I love being here!” Harmony exclaims, “It’s just one of the many things that make being alive great!” She adds while taking in the ethereal beauty of the wilderness. However, the newcomer asks her a couple of questions. These questions are a bit startling but they piqued her interest.

“What do you think of life and death?”

“What do I think of life and death?” Harmony repeats the question before she lowers her gaze. Silence falls between them as she reflects on her views of it. Slender fingers of her right hand gently play with the engagement ring embracing her one of her left fingers. “Death is a natural part of life…It’s part of the journey of life.” She starts,

“But death is not the end of that journey, you know?” With that, Harmony tilts her head back, her gaze returns to the mountains. “Like, you know, death varies between how a person sees it. It depends on culture and things like that. In my culture, your journey doesn’t end at death…Really, it’s a transition to start on the final journey back home. In Chickasaw beliefs, the soul leaves the Earth and goes to the stars. That is what we thought the underworld looked like since the underworld and upper world flips at night. The soul starts the journey on Ofi’ Tohbi Ihina. The White Dog’s Path…That’s the Milky Way.” She continues the story of that journey where the soul joins the guardian known as Ofi’ Tohbi through the trials laid out before them throughout the journey.

“The White Dog protects us during the trip back…In the end, we go back to the afterlife where Abi Binnili is. That’s our supreme god. But really, I think when that happens, we find out that the journey doesn’t even end there. The afterlife is a vast universe full of forests, valleys, oceans and cities. Far more beautiful from the mortal realm and free from illness and sorrow. The possibilities are endless there.” Harmony smiles gently before gesturing to the mountains. “You see beautiful things like this, but far more grand! However…that doesn’t mean we have to rush to get to the afterlife.” Harmony turns to face the man, still smiling.

“The beautiful thing about death is also finding value in life. The little things mean far more and makes life wonderful, like tasting coffee in the morning, seeing the stars, and be with the ones we love.” Her hand rests on the center of her stomach as she takes in a deep breath.  “Life and death are beautiful in their own way. Though death can be scary because of the unknown…it doesn’t mean the end. At least, I don’t think so. Because after everything…We can have many adventures with loved ones in the afterlife. But for now, we should treasure every minute in life and make many adventures with those around us.”

A gentle breeze flows around the pair as they stand on the overlook.

“I hear about different views of death like death being a person. A reaper as many people call them. I’m used to seeing them like how they are portrayed in media. It’s kind of weird…Like, death may seem cold and callous give the circumstance of how some deaths happen. However, I don’t think that’s the case. I never see reapers as someone evil or heartless. How I see it, they have sympathy for the living, especially when the spirit wants to stay in the mortal realm. I guess it goes in hand with the fear of death, which I think reapers can understand…But reapers have to do their jobs. As much as they may not want to guide spirits away from this plane, it’s part of their obligation.” She sighs as she thinks about it. A hand rises and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear.

“Sorry! I’m probably spewing nonsense at this point! I guess that can happen when you’re on your own for a while.”

[cedarboughs]

Hiking Journal: The West Coast Trail

Day VII: Last Steps

Darling River to Nanaimo

One last giant banana slug, the biggest and most beautiful and inspiring yet, greeted us in the breakfast table to bid us farewell to the West Coast Trail I suppose.

I had to rest in one of the hammocks made from washed-up fishing line. The craft these must have taken in the midst of a trek like this! And they are comfy and give the pirate vibes again.

We waded the Darling after walking briefly up its beach-to-forest canyon a couple hundred metres to see the falls.

Then two kilometres of Tideshelf Tango to Michigan Creek, the last campsite, named for an American wood steamer sank in the last years of the nineteenth century — to no loss of life, thanks to the rescue road built in the mourning for the Valencia.

It was misting out of a low sky and the tide was all the way out* so I walked far out the tideshelf into what the map coloured blue, where clams spread like clover.

Two kilometres past Michigan we visited the Pachena Point Lighthouse. This is the westernmost post on the whole Trail. Looking out to sea, it’s open water all the way to Japan.

A short and easy kilometre past there, I was beginning to tire a bit. We broke for lunch at a point overlooking two busy sea lion haulout rocks. The smell of the sea lions wafted by on occasion, but the symphony of barking and yapping from the territory-seeking older bulls and milk-seeking cubs kept up all through our time there. We ate wraps with envelope tuna and cheese that wasn’t quite so hard as when I packed it up.

Then, walking. Nine more long kilometres of inland trail, well maintained and easy to walk, but feeling endless. Final stretches either sap last bits of energy as you feel the cumulative weight of every step it took to get there; or else, there comes an infusion of energy from knowing the end is within reach. I felt both of these ways through those last nine kilometres, mostly depending on whether I was walking up or downhill. Along the way were carved stumps and, somehow, an abandoned motorcycle rusting right on the trail just out of the ferns.

This isn’t in my journal but I remember at one rest I made a point of pondering the tree across the trail. I got me thinking about cedars, which is a thing I do often. I traced with my eyes the striations of fluted bark falling vertically down the trunk like water over falls, then indeed tumbling over rock and soil and older wood just as water would. It’s no great revelation that the Great Bear Rainforest feels so remarkably alive from its abundance of life-giving water and how life piles upon and gives life to other life in all its layers. Coming from the dry prairie, that was the great novelty and reason I so loved the rainswept Pacific drainages. But looking at that plicata I thought, here is a tree that more than any other of its kin, whom I’d see as living extensions of the earth, here is elemental water given towering form. In Waterton I’d seen trees born of fire growing back in the valley, and trees of air wracked by high alpine winds. Every element grows life in time. That’s why a lawn of cut grass feels like such an abomination. How many flower blooms, clover spreads, or rippling waves of seedpods lay aborted in that featureless spread of dying yellow-green? How many tasty free-growing sources of dandelion greens and flowers and milk and coffee and wine? I don’t know how people can choose to live in suburbs among that. Even in a proper city there’s an organic life to the growth of towers like trees and an exploratory sense to the karsts of skyscrapers and an ecology to the succession of streets and neighbourhoods. It’s amazing what can grow when left to its own nature, beyond the human desire for control. It you let it alone, it will surely grow.

A few final tall ladders for good measure in the last kilometre looking over Pachena Bay. This was the harder of the two ways through the section we’d taken on day 0.9, but the tide was back up. Sorry Wallace, but the low tide is only a constant endpoint in a novel that ends there.**

Then we were done, and there was the car at the trailhead.

It was a long drive across the Island to Nanaimo, although really, to call the first mileage-marked seventy-five kilometres to Port Alberni “a long drive” of a couple of hours after taking the last full week to do that distance seems unfair. Past Alberni we finally did stop at Cathedral Grove to keep our legs from totally seizing up as we sat eating chips in the indulgent languor of off-Trail life. “The Big Tree” at Cathedral Grove, a six-metre-diameter Douglas fir, was indeed a bit bigger than all those cedars and spruce we walked among along the Trail, but it was strange walking along interpretive paths so flat and maintained.

On the way into Nanaimo we stopped for takeout pizza. I can talk about blackened fresh caught cod and rare freshwater crab but let’s be real here— that tandoori chicken pie eaten on a TravelLodge bed while waiting for the shower was the most satisfying meal I ate in B.C.

* Wallace, D. F. (1996). Infinite Jest. Little, Brown. Well, almost.

**Yes I know that you could have a whole argument about where or even whether Infinite Jest “ends.”

[gravelish]

Snoqualmie Pass

2 July 2023

Today’s ride might have just been a simple 40-mile out and back, but I decided to throw in an additional loop that added 20 miles, including the only really hard climb of the day. I parked at Rattlesnake Lake/Cedar Falls and began pedaling around 8:00. I was back to the car by 2:30 and back to Seattle by 4:00, with a stop for a burger and a shake in North Bend.

It’s 20 miles of easy railroad grade to the summit at Hyak, including the 2-mile tunnel at the top. I considered turning around and heading back, but opted instead to check out a new route (for me) around Lake Kacheelus to the east. I crossed I-90 to Gold Creek and then followed Forest Road 8432, which parallels (sort of) the interstate on the hillside north of the lake. It climbs steeply almost 1000’ toward the trailhead for Margaret and Lillian Lakes before eventually descending back down to the paved Kachess Lake Road. Then it’s back across the Interstate and a mile or so on the Stampede Pass Road before returning to the rail trail (10 miles east of Hyak).

Hyak was busy with families out walking or biking, many to the tunnel. The final 20-mile ride down from the pass was fast — 15-20 mph all the way on a gentle downhill grade on good dirt and gravel. There were plenty of other cyclists and hikers, but they were spread out and most of the time it was very quiet. There were the usual clusters of climbers on the cliffs at the trestles above Exit 38. The parking lot at the bottom had been pretty quiet in the morning, but cars were parked on the road for half a mile when I headed out (mainly for the lake and the hike to Rattlesnake Ledge, not for the rail trail).

This ride is a great reminder of now nice it is that the I-90 corridor has been kept fairly free from large scale development (Mountain to Sounds Greenway). The highway is never out of earshot, but it’s usually out of sight. It’s not wilderness, but it’s not bad, especially for being an hour from downtown.

I talked to a young guy at the bottom with a loaded bike. Turns out he was five days from La Push and eight weeks from his home in New York State. I always find it inspirational to chat with folks doing these long rides! It’s also a reminder that today’s ride was on the Great American Rail Trail, a somewhat aspirational concept since large segments remain incomplete or at least hard to ride, but the basic idea is that if you want to ride from coast to coast, this isn’t a bad route to take.

[cultivating-wildflowers]

mutuals and friends, I am taking you on a road trip to my favorite trail. we're gonna lay in the moss. we're gonna crane our heads back and listen to the wind in the hemlocks. we're gonna stand barefoot in the ice-cold, cedar-sweetened creek. there are no bugs but there are plenty of mushrooms. and then we're getting coney dogs and ice cream.

[anonymusbosch]

i think that life is about walking alongside the creek and smelling the incense-cedar hot in the sun and splashing creekwater on your neck to cool down and finding mushrooms along the trail and finding mint growing in the creek and seeing a bird in its nest and resting your tired feet in the creek and watching the seeds drift above you in the wind and lizards sunning themselves and snakes slithering across the path and columbine not yet blooming (just the promise of columbine spoken by the leaves) and the impossible blueness of the larkspur and the crashing cascading creek alongside it all. actually

[nonooddo]

LUCKY US …!

If Oddo, the wretched Olathe Planning Department and our Fake-HOA get their way, not only will all the nocturnal animals have something to guide their way on a moonless night in Cedar Creek - but we will get to see the renters homes all night long…!

A multi-level ‘Colorado Ski Lodge’ - 6 stories high and clad in beautiful “synthetic stone veneer and “cement fiber board” …. Casting its eerie glow across the open space that we all bought from our developer-HOA (so that, laughably, it would remain pristine open space)… just in time for the apartments to benefit!

And Oddo is not even going to charge us a penny for the light show - or the inevitable tourists using the lake & trails to bask in the emergency and security lighting that are part and parcel of apartment buildings.

Ain’t we lucky!

It is every but as arresting a sight in the daylight…! Tho some insane luddites prefer this unspoiled Kansas hillside location without any progress towering above its trees…!

[my-lifes-reward]

2024 Top 10 ATV Trails in Michigan

This video is a top 5 countdown of my best ATV trails in Michigan that I have ridden so far. In this video, I list the top 5 trails and provide video and additional information about each selection. There are two bonus honorable mentions as well.

This video is a top 5 countdown of my best ATV trails in Michigan that I have ridden so far. In this video, I list the top 5 trails and provide video and additional information about each selection. There are two bonus honorable mentions as well. Check out the video below and thank you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFgXV3zESZ4%5B/embedyt%5D

[gnarl3ne-blog]

Cedar Creek Waterfall by Arlene Schag Via Flickr: Cedar Creek Waterfall and Pool in Ramona, California May 2010 Cedar Creek Waterfall is approximately 90 feet tall.

[pcttrailsidereader]

Circle Champagne

Retired Wilderness Ranger Ronin Demele, in his book Pacific Crest Trail: Mountain Encounters of a Wilderness Ranger, has written a series of short stories and poems based upon his experience along the PCT in Northern California's Trinity Alps. This particular story touches on a couple of important themes. The first is that Native Americans have a long history in the lands crossed by the PCT. Wilderness was never unpopulated despite the way that the perception has evolved over the past 150 years. Demele's story recognizes the long relationship that Native Americans have had with this landscape. The second is the grazing rights that have been 'grandfathered in' to areas like the Trinity Alps and the outsized impact that cattle have on the fragile high country. I know that I grew to detest the clang of the cowbells that seemed so disconnected with my PCT experience as I passed through the Alps.

The book is available for purchase through this link:

When I hiked up along this Trinity section of the PCT I always plodded slowly along the rocky, remote trail to feel the spirit of the Wintu Indians that spent thousands of summers up there in the upper meadows. I stopped at each creek crossing looking for Tangle Blue rocks matrixed with blue veins. I paused at the sight of a hawk in flight. This spot is snowy cold in winter, but paradise in summertime. Springs gush cold water, and meadows attract the big hardy bucks that make it up through the granite and red rocks.

Wintu Indian camps lined the small creeks that run through these meadows. Gigantic red-barked cedar still grow along the creeks. I always scanned the ground, looking for arrowheads reflecting in the sun. Obsidian chips littered the ground, and at creek's edge maidenhair ferns grew, and up into the forest I found bear grass. Bear grass and ferns were items collected for basket making. Arrow point making was practiced in the meadow. Obsidian from Glass Mountain was packed in many miles from near Mount Shasta.

As I neared the basin, I saw the orange and black spotted leopard lily that surrounds this place where two rocks part and cold icy water gushed freely, forming a small moist meadow. I dropped my pack against a rough, grey granite rock, bent to my knees, sipped, and silently thanked the deep earth source as generations of Wintu had done. Across the meadows and across the ages, I heard something. A bell clanging and cows mooing. This is now US Forest Service grazing land in the middle of Wilderness. I was there as a Wilderness Ranger checking on the grazing cattle. In front of me, I noticed not 12 of them as usual, but perhaps 25 or 30 black, full bellied, slow plodding, bell necked, plastic ear tagged munchers trampling the ruined meadow.

Over in the fir forest below the red cedars near the obsidian camp that I visited each summer, sat the Permittee in a folding chair. He was wearing a starched white shirt and cowboy hat and boots, sitting under a canvas sun shade. It was Circle Champagne himself. As I approached, he looked a little startled and offered me to join him this mid-day with a cold glass of champagne from this cooler nearby.

"No thank you," I said.

"From Marin County," he said.

"Bring'em all the way up here to fatten 'em up," he boasted.

"How many ya got?"

"A few here and there," he bluffed as he blinked to his assistant wrangler. "My wife is on the Board of Directors of the Marin County Agricultural Board, near San Francisco," he offered.

"Perhaps this means something important," I wondered to myself. This man, with his cows wandering around and with that champagne glass in a circle brand seared into their butts, stayed seated on his butt. His horses a few feet away pawed in the dust hoping to get movin' away from all the pesky flies circling the horses and cows. In the meadow, the slow movin' herd clanged and munched and stomped the rare flowers -- the columbines, the leopard lilies, and the pitcher plants, leaving pizza-sized patties in the sparkling pure creek water. This is the Wilderness Area.

"What kind of public benefit is this?" I wondered about the Permit and the Permittee. Off the trail, back at the Ranger Station, I handed in my trail report to the Resource Officer in charge. In it I outlined the violations I had witnessed; meadow overgrazing, water pollution, and attempted bribery of a Wilderness Ranger . . . me. I heard nothing back. It was business as usual in the enforcement department . . . now that the Wintu were gone from these meadows, what would their spirit say about this mountain mess?