Horseshoe Bend trail

Today we decided to do the Horseshoe Bend trail. Most of the online links only talk about going in about one and a half miles at the most and then turning around. The trail does continue farther, however. I hiked this trail with the Senior Trailblazer group in July of 2014. You can read that post Here, On that day we went about four and three quarters miles for the days total.

We are still enjoying our beautiful "Sunny" Pacific Northwest weather, which made the scenery just that much prettier. 

The differing light during the day changed the water from Blue to Green as we walked along the trail.

The trail doesn't go under the bridge here, but to the left. I just liked the trail name on the bridge.

The first part of the trail goes along the Nooksack river.

At around a half mile there is a nice little bench near a tall tree to sit and enjoy the river while sitting in the shade.

A log covered with Twin Flowers.

Yikes this is a tall Devils Club.

The trail then begins to go inland a bit away from the river. There are a few short rolling hills along this section of the trail.

The photo below shows an interesting little sign we found on a tree. Apparently only this particular tree is important to the wildlife in this forest. Too bad, the other trees were pretty useful too, I'd say.

After we'd hiked about 2 miles we came to forest carnage, trees were down everywhere. Like the Pickup Sticks game we used to play as kids. We tried to find the trail, but it was hard to find. We did a lot of climbing over trees to find the trail to where I'd eaten with the Trailblazers 3 years ago. We didn't find it on our way in.

We continued on a narrow path we found after we'd worked our way through the forest carnage, to an old road. We placed branches on the road to mark where our trail was, so we could find it when we returned.

We walked for awhile along the road. There were alot of daisies, berries and foxglove along the way. So pretty.

After got back on the trail my husband went to work as the "Volunteer trail crew" trying to clear some of the branches off of the trail. It didn't make much of a dent in the overall scene, but at least the trail may be a bit more visible while people are trying to find their way. 

We stopped and had lunch at this lovely moss spot in the forest.

I looked up at the trees and I thought I saw a Moose. Can you see it??

Sure enough I did see a Moose, he's doing his best to camouflage himself by climbing up into a tree and covering himself with moss, so he won't be seen. Ha Ha!

As we made our way back to the trail after lunch, I spied the area where I'd eaten with the Trailblazers. Unfortunately the trail is lost to the storm damage and apparent years of neglect. 

Back on the trail and along the river for our return.

We roamed around on another old road that we found that connected into the trail, so we got in a decent distance on today's hike.

We earned our Trailblazing stripes today for sure.

Garmin stats:

Total miles hiked - 6.2