All journeys must begin somewhere. My return journey to Mt St Helen's rim began with a hike on the Grey Wolf River Trail outside of Sequim, Wa. with my new hiking buddy, Jeanne.
The trail guides state this is an 8.4 mile trail with 800' elevation gain. What they fail to mention is that it's 800 feet down, then 800 feet up, then 400 down, 400 up, 800 down ... you get the picture. It was my first hike of the year, and a good one on which to judge my current level of conditioning.
There were many trees down across the trail from the winter's storms, which slowed our travel a bit. None posed so much a problem, however, that we were unable to proceed. So over, under and around them we went. It was fun, actually.
The river was spectacular and well worth the effort it took to get there. We stopped mid-way for lunch at the river's edge. At the point near the trail's end, there had been a washout and the detour took us almost straight up. It was here we decided to turn around - we were only about 1/2 mile from where we would have to turn back any way.
The weather the entire day had been gray with low lying clouds giving a misty look to the river and forest. It didn't start to rain on us until the last mile. By the time we reached the car our boots were quite muddy, and we were thankful that we'd mostly stayed dry. My legs were tired, as we'd had to crawl over and under a dozen or so fallen trees, but it was a 'good' tired.
Points to work on: Endurance. Quad, knee & hip flexor strength. Speed.
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