Northern State Recreation Area

Thursday we had planned on doing our walk/run on the Cascade Trail, but as we were driving down hwy 9 we decided to take the Fruitdale rd. and see where it would take us. We were interested in seeing if it connected to the road that goes to the Northern State Recreation Area. It didn't but it did connect us to the entrance of the old Northern State Hospital (The recreation area is adjacent to the hospital grounds). We drove past the old check station and followed the Historic Auto tour route through the grounds. As I was writing this blog post I found a 2017 Seattle Times news article on the site, some of the info. in the article obviously didn't come about but it has some fascinating and sad information about the facility and the grounds. You can read the article here: https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/an-old-mental-institution-and-its-cemetery-might-get-a-dignified-makeover/. Since we didn't find the Recreation area we decided to drive over to the Hemlick road and take a look at it before we went to the Cascade trail. I found a link for hiking in the recreation area on the WTA site. They refer to it as a Ghost town hike. We had been told about the area but had never been and now that we were there our curiosity was piqued. We decided to do our walk/run at the Recreation area instead of the Cascade trail. Our plan was to just follow the trails and see where they would lead us. My husband went ahead and chose our route, I followed anxious to see what lay around each corner. We love exploring "new to us" areas.

Looking back at the parking area and pavilion.

Map of the area.

There is a quite extensive frisbee/disc golf course in the area as well. Here's a close up of that section of the map.

I took a few photos of the disc golf settings that I found interesting or scenic. This one was one of my favorites.

We walk/ran along grassy mowed and gravel roads as well as some single track trails.

We went across the bridge in the photo below and ran a bit on the old hospital grounds, then went back across the bridge to continue adventuring in the recreation area.

An old school disc golf basket next to a newer version.

After going up a grassy road we came to a dead end with a trail leading off of it. It looked enchanting so we took it.

It was a great single track trail that follows a creek for about a mile.

At the exit of the single track trail was this bush in all it's fall glory.

Our route and distance.

The photo below from my Garmin connect app shows our speed as we went along. We walk 5 minutes and run 5 minute repeats.

Interesting..can you tell when we walked and when we ran?

We enjoyed Thursday's adventure so much we decided to go there again today and connect it to the Cascade trail. It will be fun in the future to connect these two and go distances as far or short as we desire.

Today the weather wasn't as sunny as Thursday but the rain did hold off until we were done. We had more of a vision for what we wanted to do today, so my husband led us up to the single track trail and through the disc golf course areas.

One of the grass/gravel roads that leads around this field and some of the barns from the old farm.

I enjoyed the single track and the grass covered roads the best.

We crossed Hansen creek on this bridge.

Hansen creek

We made our way around a wetland.

As we made our way along the trail a lone Snow Goose was walking in front of us. By the time I could get my phone out to take a photo it flew away. It looked lonely and a little lean. I hope it isn't too tired from it's long flight south. The Snow Geese have been arriving in the Skagit flats/Fir Island area recently. We found a narrow path through the bushes that came out to hwy 20. We crossed the road and joined the Cascade trail. As I stated earlier now that we know that these can connect the possibilities are exciting, the main reason of course is that there are restrooms at the recreation area parking lot.😂

Anyway, we followed the Cascade trail just for a short distance today and then rejoined the Recreation area trails after crossing the road at the Hemlick road corner.

The trail the parallels the Hemlick road. In the photo below you can see a mowed area on the left, we took that and made our way around that section of the wetland.

Looking towards the parking lot.

We ran around this side of the wetland area to give us a bit more distance. My husband spotted a Bittern at the wetland, of course it flew away. I think we need to come back just for birding. So much fun to be had in this area.

Below is our route and distance.

Also, our slow/fast map from the Garmin Connect app.

As I said before it's a beautiful area but the one big disappointment is the amount of graffiti everywhere, especially on the old farm buildings. 😢