Today we chose Goose Rock for our hiking destination. We started at the West Beach parking lot.
What a view❤
(Click to enlarge)
After enjoying the view it was time to get on the trail.
We walked past the amphitheater and got a quick view of the beach and the Deception pass bridge before getting back to the trail.
At the group picnic parking area is a large tree with a climbing set up attached to it. The sign explained what this was about.
The trail the parallels the beach leads to the bridge and the Goose Rock summit trail.
The "under" bridge view.
I had just purchased the PNT guide on the Guthook app. The PNT is a trail that goes from Montana to Washington’s coast. You can read more about it HERE. Several trails in our area have PNT emblems on them. I was excited to see the info. from the guide for this particular section. The collage below shows the sign and my Guthook screen shot. The small arrow on the map is our location, as you can see we were beginning to go up the "blue" or alternate trail. The red line is the PNT trail. The blue line goes up and over the Balds of Goose Rock.
A bench near the top.
The views from the top.
Making our way down the other side of the Balds.
Our first view of Cornet bay.
Madrona along the trail.
After the Madrona, we came into the Rhododendron section. These plants are as tall as me. We've been there when they were in bloom and it is really a sight worth seeing.
Now that we were off the summit trail we decided to turn right and follow the red line of the PNT for awhile.
As you can see in the collage of the screenshots below, the trail doesn't follow or intercect with the PNT on this particular part of the trail we were on. We actually were on the black dotted line. We never saw a trail junction where the red line showed it was supposed to be on our guide. The solid black line is the Discovery trail. When we got to that junction we headed north on that trail.
On the screenshot on the photo below, you can see that we are now at the trail junction for the Lower forest trail as the sign says. We took that trail back to the PNT.
Yay! Our arrow on the guide did indeed take us back to the red line. We followed the perimeter trail back to the bridge.
A nice view of Cornet bay.
After walking under the bridge we were once again heading towards West beach. We were no longer following the PNT at this point.
Instead of going back our same route, we got off the trail and walked the beach back.
The tide was just low enough that we could get around the rock.
After walking up a small hill along the shore, I turned around and captured a photo of the bridge.
Back at our start and the beautiful beach view.
Before heading home we decided to take the Sand Dunes interpretive trail, that began near Cranberry lake. It also starts at the West beach parking lot, so we didn't have to drive to a new location.
It was a nice scenic and informative paved trail.
We stopped to admire the 850 year old Douglas fir tree along the trail.
The sky was beginning to show some color, perfect timing as we were finishing our walk. I hope my fun of inserting some screenshots of our route, while using the Guthook app for some PNT exploring didn't totally confuse you. I enjoyed following or trying to follow it!!
Relive video of our route:
Garmin stats:
total miles hiked - 7.2
total ascent - 1273 feet
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