DESTINATION StormKing Parkway Trail 1 Photoset
2024-07-15 | |
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| Hiking | 13.38 Miles |
2,700 AEG |
| | Hiking | 13.38 Miles | 5 Hrs 42 Mns | | 2.42 mph |
| 2,700 ft AEG | 10 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | Needed some mileage today, but had to be home by early afternoon. Got to the trailhead at 0700. Headed up Westwood Loop, which is still under construction, and has been slightly rerouted every time I’ve been on it in the last seven weeks. Looks like it’s close to being done.
At the top of Westwood, I headed north on Timber Ridge, then Storm King Pkwy, which I followed all the way to where it ends. Half of it had recently been trimmed back, the other half still had knee high vegetation to walk thru. Everything grows fast around here. Noticed the top of Frog Spit trail now reaches Storm King. This was a nice development.
Once out of the park boundary, I took the road to the northeast, across the talus slope, up some switchbacks to the saddle between the summit of Rathdrum Mtn and a seemingly unnamed subpeak marked as 4467 (or something like that, I can’t remember the exact number).
From the saddle, I found a very faint road leading towards the summit of 4467. Lots of vegetation, but minimal thorns. Satellite view had shown a road/trail leading east/west just of the summit, and an old road circling around the north side. Satellite view does not always correspond with reality. Getting up the west side was fine. I wandered over to the summit for a minute, then headed down the east side. No visible route, very steep, tons of vegetation to push thru. Annoying. Finally found the road bed, and followed it around the north side and back west towards the saddle. Full of vegetation, but not terrible. Some nice views.
Once back at the saddle, I could retrace my steps for a while, or follow another old road as a hoped for shortcut. The old “road” quickly narrowed to an overgrown path. Not far from the next road, the path essentially ended in thick vegetation. I opted to head straight down to the road. Annoying, but short.
Once on the road, I headed towards the south slope of Rathdrum Mtn. Clear road, easy walking. Once at the ridge on the south, I started looking for the path down the ridge to my next road. Again, what’s visible on satellite view was overgrown in person. I didn’t want to turn back and follow the road back, mainly because I’m either stupid or stubborn, or both. After some back and forth, I spotted the path and headed steeply downhill. Steep descent, but there was a faint path visible most of the way thru the tall brush.
Got down to the road and followed it back down Storm King. Once back at the new junction with Frog Spit, I decided to see if it went all the way thru. If it did, it would connect to the top of Westwood and save me a couple of boring miles. Nice, pretty brand new trail, clearly designed for mountain bikers. After less than a quarter mile, I ran into a bulldozer clearing the trail, which no longer existed. I chatted with the guy for a moment, he said the route beyond is flagged if I wanted to keep going, but that it was not cleared at all. I had no interest in at least a quarter mile of steep off trail down that drainage (I’ve been there before and knew what lay ahead) so I turned around and got back on Storm King.
Finished on Majestic Passage, which has been re-graded in several places. Saw two guys playing disc golf, and other than the guy on the bulldozer, were the only people I saw all day. Trailhead was still empty when I finished around 1300. Saw one rubber boa, at least forty turkeys, one deer, a few rabbits, and a million grasshoppers. Other than the initial off trail up 4467, I would not repeat any of the other off trail sections I hiked today. |
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Wildflowers Observation Moderate
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| Stop crying and just go do the hike. |
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