Picture of the week ~ Rainkissed Hollyhocks

Hoypus Ala Spit hike

Today we went to an area I've hiked at twice before, but my husband had never explored himself - the Hoypus trails with a side trip to Ala spit. You can read about one of my hikes with the Senior Trailblazers here:

http://hearsdifferentdrummer.blogspot.com/2015/03/hoypusala-spit-trailblazer-hike.html

It was a beautiful day today's hike. We began at Cornet Bay on Whidbey Island.

We took a map with us, but unfortunately it listed the trails by number, the signs on the trails listed them by name only.

It's a beautiful forest with great old trees, both evergreen and deciduous.

Another of my great finds - hearts in nature, a heart shaped tree root.

We made our way by trail till we got to the Anglers Haven dr. and Troxell roads. I like the sunbeam shining down on me and my road signs. ❤.

Then we walked along the road until we got to the spit.

We hiked to the end of the spit and ate a casual lunch and enjoyed the sun and the views for a good long time.

Mt. Erie in the distance

Mt. Baker in the distance

From Ala spit after we got back on the East Hoypus trail we turned onto the Hemlock hideaway trail.

There were lots of ripe Huckleberries along the trail today. 

Our intention was to hike the perimeter trail on the map. We did our best with our "map with no names" and tried to follow a route by taking note of left and right turns. We did great until we "didn't" take the Old Hoypus logging road. Which we realized later we should have done. 

Oh well, we enjoyed hiking up Julie trail.

The Julie trail brought us up to an old logging road which we followed until it came to the Shady way trail. We found out later that the old logging road trail is what we should have been hiking on if we truly wanted a perimeter trail hike.

We headed back down the hill on the Shady way trail.

We then took a left turn onto the North fork trail (we found out later, we should have taken a right turn). Guess where the left turn on the North fork trail takes you?

It takes you a little farther down the same logging road that we came to from the Julie trail. Fun huh!?

The mistaken left was actually a good thing because now we know where the Ducken road trailhead is.

Map on the trailhead sign, as you can see just numbers. No help at all.

So we headed back up the North fork trail till we passed the Shady way trail and continued (which would have been a right when we were here before, you still with me??!!) going straight on the North fork trail.

We marched on until we came to a triangle in the trail, we chose the Little Alder trail. Many mosquito friends joined us on this trail.

We then turned onto the West Hoypus trail,

to the South Hoypus point trail

and out via the PNT trail.

Our map had none of these names on it at all. I think we did a great job of keeping to our map at all considering we were just following lines on paper!

Thankful that we are trail and map savvy, it was a fun day of adventuring, and as it turned out a new "to both of us" area!!

My husband found the list of trail names and put the list on our # trail list. So next time we'll be more prepared.

Enjoy watching the Relive video of our route:

https://youtu.be/6rqrA1n1LOA

Garmin stats:

total miles hiked - 11.56 miles

total ascent - 1024 feet