A Sojourn

White Wednesday with Kathleen

at Faded Charm

Outdoor Wednesday with Susan

at A Southern Daydreamer.

Please join these hosts for more

White Wednesday

and

Outdoor Wednesday!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Our outing began with the decision to hike on the Southfork

of the Skokomish River in the beautiful

Olympic Mountains, a majestic playground

nearly in our 'backyard'!

~*~

A little history from the reader board at the trail head.

We drove on a little further to begin our hike...

on a 'road less traveled'.
~*~

"When thro' the woods and forest glades I wander...

...and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees"

~*~

This trail is also used by horsemen. The bridges have washed out

at several of the streams and are in the process of being rebuilt.

Notice the white tarp bags in the upper left corner. These heavy

bags were full of large stones brought in by helicopter.

The stones are being used as footings for the new bridges.

(The horses have a difficult time traversing safely over the stoney

stream bed. Horsemen and women use these trails for pleasure

and for hunting in the fall/winter.)

~*~

Three kinds of ferns ~

(I'm reminded of the line in 'Robin Hood; Prince of Thieves'

Morgan Freeman's character says, "God loves wondrous variety!")

Below is some of the beauty carpeting the forest floor

tiny wild rose

Cottonwood 'fluff' floating down like snowflakes on the gentle breeze

Unripe Salmon Berry

Linea Twin Flower

Devil's Club in flower...

...and armed and dangerous!

These thorns have many tiny barbs: when pierced by them,

one usually has to push it through as pulling them out causes greater

pain and damage. Best to avoid them altogether!

This is for my sweet friend Sharon! ;~D

(I think this is Wild Ginger)

Ripe Salmon Berry

And it's not even St. Patrick's Day!

~*~

Below are several varieties of moss, lichen & fungus

~*~

Below ~

Our Destination!

Stopping at the river for lunch. :~P

The 'table' set with flowers!

Won't you join us?

~*~

On our return we discovered someone else had used the trail!

~*~
This one loudly proclaimed his displeasure at our presence!
Can you spot him?
~*~
The trail back is just as lovely as the trail in!

Gentleman Farmer trying to give you an idea of how

magnificent some of the trees are in this area.

Evidence of old time logging in this area.

See the 'springboard' marks?

When we came to this 'bridge' we knew we had missed our trail.

We had not crossed this coming up the trail!

We turned around upon discovering our error ~

adding another 1/2 mile to our travel!
Total distance hiked = 8 miles

But the road home is never long!
~*~
"By faith, he sojourned in the land of promise"

Hebrews 11:9