The Unknown Trail

As I was driving around Coupeville this morning I spotted a trail I've never seen before. It was off Engle Road near Fort Casey and when I stopped to explore it I discovered part of it, at least,  is owned by the Whidbey Camano Land Trust.  There is a nice grassy wide pathway that cuts through head high wild rosebushes. It goes above the beach bluff popping out for an occasional ocean view and I was surprised to see how many old World War II lookouts, most carefully fenced off, there were. They must have lined most of the west side of Whidbey at one time, although several have suffered erosion to the point that they've fallen off the cliffs and you can see the slabs of concrete and rebar laying on beach.

Athough it looks like someone recently built some wooden information kiosks along the trail no information is yet posted. I enjoyed the mystery of exploring the trail which eventually led me to Camp Casey and I discovered that Camp Casey has its own campground complete with tables, firepits, electric hookups and restrooms that were locked for the winter. I so often discover things I never knew when I go exploring by foot.

The Whidbey Camano Land Trust has worked to restore natural prairie vegetation and there are laminated cards for plant identification tied to the fences. I will definately have to come back in the summer to learn about this.

I wonder if some of this trail work is what John Knechtl told me about which will eventually be part of the PNT.

And the numbers say...

Maybe I'm a little geeky but I sat down this morning to try to approximate how many miles I hiked during 2013. Most of the time I didn't record mileage, but minutes hiked, so I counted up the minutes and divided those by a 2.5 mile per hour pace. Grand total came out to approximately 443.5 miles for the year. Broken down by months, the totals were:

January     33 miles
February   25 miles
March       35 miles
April          47 miles
May          40 miles
June           25 miles (This seems oddly low. I suspect I neglected to record a few hikes.)
July            91 miles
August       46.5 miles
September 39 miles
October     20 miles
November 15 miles
December  27 miles

A few more random statistics:
Approximate Pacific Northwest Trail miles hiked:  67.5
Approximate Pacific Crest Trail miles hiked: 75.5
Amount my feet have grown since 2012:  1.5 sizes
Amount of weight I lost in 2013: 19.5 lbs.
Amount I've kept off: 15 lbs.
Goal for 2014:  500 miles in honor of my 50th birthday this year

More of the Cascade Rail Trail

January, 2014, was my month to do some miles on the Pacific Northwest Trail. I finished up hiking the Cascade Rail Trail, a popular alternate route of the PNT which may eventually become part of the official route someday. I had hiked most of the Cascade Trail during winter break, except a 3 mile section that I did around mid January. I really liked the trail, although the sections that go through Concrete or close to towns could use a little clean up/trash collection. The final 3 mile section I finally remembered to take a trash bag with me and did my part to beautify the trail, ending up with a full bag of trash. Here are some of the things I saw along the way.

A view of the Skagit River through the trees

The old concrete silos welcome visitors to Concrete

The post office in Concrete is right next to the trail, along with an old rail car

Challenger Ridge Winery

Birdsview Brewery

I stopped for a little lunch on a bench here. This is close to where the trail pops out to a road for a few hundred feet.

Near Hamilton someone has decorated the trail by nailing their beer tops to the railings

A natural tree tunnel near Lyman. It actually felt a little creepy.

Cool old truck

A herd of buffalo close to where the trail crosses Hwy 20

Frost made these bridges extremely slippery. Even the nonskid center was slick! I held the handrail all the way across.

Looking east at the snow covered Cascades