Picture of the week ~ Table Mtn. Snow

I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.” ~ Lewis Carroll

West Chuckanut Mtn. figure eight hike

For today's hike we parked at the Cleator road trail access lot. 

We hiked south on the Interurban trail until we came to an unsigned trail heading to the left. We'd heard that this trail would take us to Fragrance lake. The trail went up pretty aggressively for about two miles. There was some scrambling involved as well.

We came up the "not a trail" trail, it is unsigned at the bottom. We turned towards the Fragrance lake trail.

After reaching the Fragrance lake trail, we headed towards the Lost Lake trail via an old road.

Our turn off of the road.

Time to climb again. We headed "up" the Double Black Diamond trail. This section of the trail is known as Chinscraper.

Even though it has a share the trail sign on it we kept our ears open for mountain bikes that might be screaming down the hill towards us. We didn't see any on this section today.

Then we came to a section where the bikers and hikers have their own trail for a ways.

As you can see it was a bit foggy at the top.

We continued on to the Cyrus Gates overlook for lunch. As you can see in the photo below there was a wonderful view!

About halfway through our lunch break the fog lifted and we could really see the view better.

Bellingham bay looking towards the Canadian Coast range.

This sign board shows what is in the view on a clear day. Click to enlarge the photo below to read the captions easier.

We got a bit chilled at lunch so before we began our hike again we both put on jackets, and I put on gloves and a hat also. We then made our way down the rock trail.

We turned right and hiked along the Lost lake trail, we decided to take a short detour and stop a bit at Burnout to enjoy the view.

The photo below shows a tiny waterfall beside the Lost lake trail.

We had warmed up considerably by the time we got to Burn out, but there was a slight breeze there so we waited until we began hiking again to shed our layers.

Another view of Bellingham bay, this time from Burnout.

We then hiked down the Lost lake trail towards Fragrance lake. The reflections at this lake are always wonderful, even on a low light day like today.

We hiked along the lake for a bit until we came to the Two Dollar trail, which comes out at the Cleator road. I got a bit chilled again as we were hiking along the Two Dollar trail but this time just the gloves and hat were added. At the Two Dollar trail head is this large State Park marker with a bench to sit on. There is enough parking for just a few cars.

We walked down the Cleator road to where our car was parked.

Relive video of our route:

https://youtu.be/BfdgqBEWz0E

You'll notice in the video that we did hike a figure eight and that we covered a pretty large area of the west side of Chuckanut mountain.

Garmin stats:

total miles hiked - 10.15 miles

total ascent - 2884 feet

total descent - 2657 feet

It was a great day on the trail hiking the "figure eight" route my husband planned for us today.