[aywolfpac]

The kids and I headed up to conquer the Stetattle Creek Trail today. We arrived at the trailhead at about 11:15 AM to bright, sunny skies.

Sammie At The Trailhead

The first 1/2 mile or so of the trail is a park-like walk along the banks of the gorgeous Stetattle Creek.

Gorgeous green waters of Stetattle Creek near Lake Diablo, WA.

Wild flowers abound and actually look like they were planted along the trail in many spots.

Skirt and stretch pants . . . perfect hiking gear

After the first half mile there is a stretch where you have to navigate around a rock slide. Nothing too difficult but the trail is sort of tough to find for about 500'. Shortly after that the trail begins its only real climb, switching back for about 200 vertical feet to the top of the canyon above Stetattle Creek. Once at the top the scenery changed, the deciduous trees disappeared, and we were walking through an evergreen forest full of fairly young, small trees. All along the trail, fleeting glimpses can be had of the massive cliffs of Davis Peak but there are always trees blocking the way. This is the clearest view I could find:

Davis Peak-A-Boo

Around 2.5 miles in, we reached Bucket Creek and its nice little waterfall (about 40' tall). There's no bridge over the creek so a somewhat wet ford of the creek was necessary.

Bucket Creek

Bucket Creek Falls

We continued along the trail hoping to reach Camp Dayo and it's falls before we turned around. As the trail progressed, so did the size of the trees along the way. We didn't encounter any huge trees but they got to be a pretty respectable size:

Shoe Shot + Big Tree Shot + Kids Shot = Big Time Bonus Points

About a half mile after Bucket Creek, we reached another creek with a little waterfall. This falls was probably about 60' tall in total but only the bottom 10' section could be seen very well. It was really purty though:

Bottom Of Unnamed Falls

About a half mile after that little falls, the trail suddenly stopped at this sign:

The trail ended here, just shy of Camp Dayo Falls. Had I been alone I would've ventured on but the kids had already gone 3 1/2 miles so I couldn't ask much more.

According to the GPS we were less than 1/4 mile from Camp Dayo. A big tree fell right over where the trail went and covered everything with branches making it difficult to find where to go. If I was alone I would've kept going but the kids had hiked a long ways and we still had to go back. We stopped for some snacks:

Micah gets some energy for the long hike back to the car.

Say Cheese

The sun had been slowly fading as we moved along the trail and as we started heading back we began to hear thunder moving up behind us. It ended up being a race to the car between us and a big old, mid-west style thunderstorm. I carried Samantha most of the way and she would walk a little. We made it back to the car, got buckled in, and rain started dumping on us before we even got back to the highway. We beat the storm by about 5 minutes. This was a nice little hike with very little elevation change. 3 year old Samantha hiked the whole way in (except the rockslide area and the creek crossings) and probably 1/3 of the way back. Roundtrip mileage was 7 1/3 miles. Time - 5 hours on the dot Elevation change - about 600' from the trail head to the highest point A couple more pix:

Not sure what kind of critter this guy is but he's the only living thing I know that actually likes devils club.

The 10' tall bottom section of a nice little falls along Stetattle Creek Trail.

Micah took this picture. It turned out really well.

Gorgeous green waters of Stetattle Creek near Lake Diablo, WA.

It was pretty hot at the start of the hike.

[Hulksmash]

I imagine you probably had to help the little ones over the rock slide.. That's a nice place for a hike

[aywolfpac]

The boy was fine with the rockslide (kind of liked it actually). I had to carry little Sammie though. They were both quite the troopers and yes, it is a great place for a hike.

[Dayhike Mike]

Too cool that you brought the kids up there. Guessing they enjoyed the trip.