Myrtle Lake

Myrtle Lake

Saturday (that is, yesterday) was a pretty darn good day. I hadn't set my alarm clock in the morning, so I didn't wake up until about 10:45am. I guess I needed my sleep. After some slow puttering around the apartment, I got myself together enough to have breakfast while looking through one of my hiking guide books, in this case, Beyond Mount Si, as it targets hikes with shorter drives and I knew I'd be starting out later in the day. I settled on Myrtle Lake, which is out I-90 in the area of North Bend, Washington.

This particular hike is a little longer than what I would call my "comfort zone," which seems to be about eight miles with up to 2000 feet of elevation gain. Instead, the round trip to Myrtle Lake is about 11 miles with about 2800 feet of elevation gain. The first mile or so is the steepest, but thereafter it's still a challenge, as the trail is muddy or wet in a lot of places. I saw very few people on this trip, although one group of four really gave me a scare. I was crossing a streambed, watching my step pretty closely when I heard a low growling from right in front of me. It was four people and two dogs, and the dog leading the way was apparently none-too-pleased to be coming face-to-face with me.


Myrtle Lake Lunchroom View

The remainder of the hike up to the lake was otherwise uneventful and largely without spectacular views, as the trail is nestled deep in the forest and generally seems to follow a creek bed. Once at the lake, I picked my first possible spot to eat lunch and quickly found I was going to be lunch instead. Mosquitos and some kind of small flies absolutely swarmed all over me and within five minutes I'd pretty much decided to simply head back down without a break. Fortunately, there was a young couple camped up at the lake and when I asked if I could bum some bug spray from them, they were happy to help me out. After a brief chat with them, I found a good place to eat lunch, not at the lake itself but over the creek just below it. Two fallen trees made a natural bench with a downstream view I captured with my camera. I spent something like a half-hour there, munching on some peanuts and reading Backpacker magazine.


Creek Crossing near Myrtle Lake

About 6:30pm, it seemed I'd have just about time to be back to my car by the time it got dark. Sunset was officially at 8:59pm, but it tends to get dark earlier in forested valleys like this one. I had a completely different kind of scare on the way back down when I went to check my GPS receiver, which I keep clipped up near my left shoulder to maximize reception, and it was gone. That's nothing like sudden growling, but suddenly missing a several hundred dollar device deep in the woods is still pretty upsetting. Since I check it pretty frequently, I figured it couldn't be more than two-tenths of a mile back, so I turned around and headed uphill again, slowly and looking carefully. Happily, I found it, nestled in the rocks at the creek crossing pictured here. On further reflection, I remembered hearing an odd click as I was tottering across the rough terrain. I've already added an extra lanyard to my gear that provides a failsafe to the GPS' regular clip.

The last mile or so, the really steep part close to the trailhead, was really tough as I was pretty well wiped out and steep downhill can be as stressful, although in a different way, as steep uphill. I was really at the limits of my endurance by the time I made it back to the car and very happy for leather bucket seats and an air-conditioner set to a very low temperature.

The drive home had one other little event. As I was coming down the forest road, there was a pair of headlights (it got dark right about when I got to the car) canted over at forty-five degrees on the opposite side of the road. This guy had gone too close to the edge of the road and planted the right side of his truck into the ditch and was unable to get out. With a little manouvering on the road and chaining him up to the tow hitch on my Jeep, though, we got him out of the ditch and on his way. I was home about 10:30pm, took another shower, had a little to eat, and soon thereafter headed to bed. As I said when I started this narrative, a pretty darn good day.