Today our hike started at Samish Lake. I checked the Whatcom County parks website before we left to find out if they are still allowing parking and hiking on their trailheads and trails. I was happy to see that as of a notice dated March 24th they are allowing us to use their areas. The Washington State parks closed access March 25th after our Governor gave his mandate on Monday March 23rd. I was glad he said that going outdoors was an "essential" activity. As long as we keep our 6 foot distancing we may go for walks, bike rides etc. (we edited his mandate to be more specific: "with people we live with only"). In order to keep as safe as possible in this current state of our new normal, we have decided that our hikes will be on logging roads where we will have more than the 6 foot space allowed. These also have typically less people walking on them. We decided that single track hiking isn't for us as sometimes a trail doesn't allow for being able to step aside as far as is needed.
When we arrived at the Samish Park parking lot we discovered the bathrooms were locked, so we drove to the Squires Lake trailhead parking lot. There is a port-a-potty available there. Back we drove to Samish Park to begin our hike. It was raining while we did our back and forth driving, but it stopped by the time we got our things together and set off.
Lake Samish
I named this hike the "Clearcut view hike" because we would be walking by old logging areas, known as "Clearcuts".
Logging road walking
We took a side road off of our intended route for a break to eat a bit & found a nice spot to sit.
Some pretty sightings at our lunch spot.
A nice fern garden nestled in an old mossy log.
A baby Fir tree.
The new growth of a Foxglove emerging for another years’ season.
Currant or Salmon berry bush in bloom, I’m always confused as to which is which.
Views from our lunch stop.
As we made our way back to our intended route, we passed some Pussy Willows near an old gravel quarry.
It started softly raining shortly after we passed the gravel quarry, so we put on our rain ponchos and kept them on for the rest of the hike.
Back on our original logging road route we had some nice views past the clear cuts.
We could see Bellingham Bay far in the distance.
On our last section of the hike we got to enjoy a nice splash of Spring color,
a peek at a small pond
and the ever green moss alongside the road💚
Seeing all of the new growth along the road today reminded me that we too can have "new growth" and a time to begin again.❤
I hope you are staying well in this strange time our world is going through and that you can have some time to venture out and be thankful for this beautiful earth that we are fortunate to be living on.
*We saw "ZERO" people on our route today, so we followed the physical distancing mandate pretty well.
Relive video of our route:
Relive video stats:
total miles hiked - 8.4 miles
total ascent - 885 feet
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