[captain jack]

Another hike I wanted to do after seeing it on the map . I like big giant trees, they just seem happy, and huge. The Olympic peninsula has many very large trees of different species. I have been to the ones most easily reached, roadside, and short walk trees in this area, never disappointed by the tremendous stature of these forest giants. Weather reports were great for the area, so I loaded up Spinderella and maxed out her little Honda's cargo capacity in record time. Arrive at the Falls creek campground at 11pm friday, tent set up, whiskey and cocoa, snuggled in bed by midnight. Started up the Three lakes trail at 12pm saturday, 4 cars at the trailhead, which is inside the Oly park boundary so no passes are required here. The trail starts out as a flat walk along Irely creek , to Irely lake, a small but nice lunch lake for families at 1 mile. Then following the west facing ridge , the trail ascends north into the big creek valley, reaching a nice (but in need of fresh paint) bridge at about 4.5 miles. After the bridge, switchbacks and more climbing along the east facing ridge of the valley brings you to a sign proclaiming the worlds largest yellow cedar tree and showing an arrow to the northeast of the trail. The tree really is not that big, hardly worth the effort of the long climb up, unusual only in that yellow cedars have knarled grey weather beaten trunks that look dead, some with long splits and hollow trunks, supporting stunted green branches only at their uppermost points, very strange looking, but hardly picture worthy . Spinderella was pretty tired and we should have turned around here, but me, doing my solo 25 mile dayhikes, encouraged her to hump the last mile to the lakes. Still short of our goal, and tired of waiting for Spindy, I decided to jog ahead to the lakes, then return packless, to help her the last 500 yards. While I was off jogging, Spinderella had her first ever BEAR sighting . She said first she thought it was a dog with an unusually large head , then she realized it was a bear and froze. The big guy wandered off and she was fine, a little shook up is all. Three lakes are small and not pictureworthy, after some lunch and a nice nap in the sun , we headed back down. Shortly after leaving the lakes Spinderella ran out of water in her 2 liter bladder. Please take note : There is no water on the Three lakes trail between Three lakes and the big creek steel bridge crossing. Bear encounters, jellylegs, and lack of water made Spindy miserable for 2 miles. After refilling her at the bridge with my sweetwater, she felt better, and we walked out to the trailhead in the nice afternoon sun. 6.6 miles one way, 2700' gained to the lakes, 4 hours up, 3 hours down. On my last visit to Falls creek campground, I had talked with the campground host about clearing a new path from the walk in campsites to the beach, since doing this in the dark, with lawn chairs, after consuming considerable quantities of very old whiskey, had resulted in painfull faceplants in the woods. The campground host spotted me in my campsite on saturday, and we agreed on a sunday rendevous to clear the brush. After some breakfast sunday, I found the host, he promptly handed me a nice large pair of lopping shears and I went to work making my new trail. Spinderella came down to investigate after about an hour, and I put her to work lining our new trail with nice river rocks from Falls creek. She did an outstanding job, hauling countless boulders back and forth, even after I had finished hacking brush. If you stay in Falls creek, take the bridge across to the walk in campsites, follow the trail on the right past the last walk in site, then out to the beach at the Falls creek outflow. Take a beach chair, a nice bottle of chardonnay, and watch the stars come out over the lake, we did , too good. Bugs were minimal , neither of us used any deet all weekend, weather was exceptional, 70/75 degrees daytime, 50 at night, super fresh pacific ocean air makes for fitfull sleep, along with the random gurgling of Falls creek next to the campsite. Last note: After reading posts in here, I bought something from Trader Joes I have never bought before, and now both Spindy and myself are hopelessly addicted to crispity crunchy, eye watering WASABI PEAS I did find some of the nuggets seem to have extra extra wasabi on them, making them almost intollerably spicy, but I couldnt stop eating them! Best summer weather so far this year, hope you all had a great weekend, and please DONT FORGET YOUR MAPS. C.J.

[Phil]

Thanks for the report! How long was your drive and from where did you depart?

[captain jack]