Madrona Crest with Raptor ridge add on: 10.4 miles

The scheduled hike to Madrona Crest for Thursday (had to wait for Google to finish maintenance to post this) was given a difficulty rating of a moderate 7 mile hike. The weather co-operated this time. It was perfect hiking weather. The hike up to Madrona Crest was such a nice hike we decided to take the connector trail from lost lake trail to Raptor ridge. This presumably would add a couple more miles to our day. The connector trail is in the process of being completed, there was a lot of fresh tree cutting debris around, we got to crawl over a few downed trees and scramble around some rocks. After we got up to Raptor ridge I decided the hike had taken a turn from moderate in difficulty to moderately difficult.

At Madrona Crest conferring with Alan about if we wanted to add Raptor ridge to our hike.

View from Madrona Crest this overlooks the Stewart mtn./Olson creek area that we hiked last week.
It looks pretty cloudy, but there were some very nice sunny breaks throughout the day.

Me - on Raptor ridge, we stopped and had lunch on the outcropping. I'm glad we decided to add this section on to our hike. It was worth the effort!

Another conference on the way down, and it was decided to add a little more to our mileage and go back on a softer trail rather than the hard logging road surface. When we got back to our cars at Arroyo park we again had a conference about the distance we had hiked. Several people carry GPS units with them, and surprisingly they didn't agree on our distance. The shortest was (Al's) 9.5 and the farthest was (Fred's) 10.4, since my body told me I had hiked long and hard, I'm settling on the 10.4 miles. Another fine day with the Trailblazers. Good day and good company.

I had already taken off my gaiters, yes there was a little mud on them.
 (I didn't feel like putting them back on just for my sign off photo.)



We be rafting! Everson to Hovander - the Ski to Sea canoe leg course

Loaded up and ready to go! Incredible it all fits.

Of course to start the day right,

we had to stop at our favorite coffee stand on route to our shuttle - me driving my car and my husband driving our van.

We had to take our van to Hovander for the take out. When we got there the gate to the take out area was locked, so we left our van at the boat launch about 1 mile before the Hovander ramp. So now back to home in my car to pick up the Citation loaded with the raft & our gear.

ready to launch

Everson bridge

I did take my turn rowing, but that's a story for another day.

whitewater?!?

our lunch spot

                                 

Eagle on the bank

                                                                 The bridges:

Meridian

I-5 Ferndale

Ferndale

Take out ramp

taking it all apart and loading......

such a fun day!