Another great idea from Jackie! Was it? We will see. I wanted to go find the CCC Cabin on Mt. Spokane before there was snow. I knew it was a snowshoe route and wanted to take the hike before snow so I could see what it was like. Peggy and Bonnie kindly agreed to go with me. I had two separate sets of directions to get to that cabin. We decided to go on Wednesday because the weather looked better. It changed, it wasn't better. There was a little drizzle when Peggy and Bonnie arrived at my house. We packed up and headed out. Our first stop was at the snowmobile parking lot. I got my set of directions for that parking lot out and we went to the trail numbered 130. It was the right trail number but it said nothing about the campground we were supposed to head to on the trail. As we climbed a little distance up the trail it was mentioned that it seemed a bit like our first never again hike. I didn't know if it was the right spot. Then the rain came. We headed back to the car. The rain wasn't too bad, sort of off and on drizzle. We decided that we would walk the relatively flat cross country trails. We were sheltered from the rain a bit and the fall colors were beautiful. We took a short loop around the cross country ski trails.
The rain let up and we went to the parking lot down the mountain where I was convinced the second set of directions I had would lead us to the CCC Cabin. I didn't really read the directions (bad idea) I just knew there was a trail 130 there too. There wasn't. We started out on the trail and couldn't find the trail 130 we were looking for because it wasn't there. I thought we were on 130. We weren't. We decided to just take a hike, CCC cabin or not. It drizzled off and on, no big deal. I apologized more than once for not knowing where to go. Peggy and Bonnie were so kind and said they were glad they took the drive to see the beautiful fall colors.
Turned out that both sets of directions were made to start at the same parking lot. The starting parking lot was just labeled a little different on the two sheets. I thought the directions were talking about the upper lot and the lower lot. Nope! Same lot.
As we got to this cabin (not the CCC cabin) I got the second set of directions out. It mentioned a maintenance building that we would pass on trail 130. Oh my goodness, if I had only looked at that set of directions at our first stop we would have found the cabin. We walked right by a huge maintenance building on the first trail we tried. We were in the right place! So sorry!!!
We decided to keep going, the rain was off and on until it wasn't.
I think we were a little over two miles from the car when the rain became consistent. We turned around and headed back to the car. It was a long, wet 2+ miles. Once I looked down in a ravine and thought I heard a creek running through it. Bonnie and Peggy said it was the rain hitting the leaves. It was the rain hitting the leaves, no creek.
I had to tuck my camera in my backpack because the coat I was wearing was soaked and the camera was in the pocket of the coat. The funny thing is as I am typing this I remembered I had a rain jacket in my backpack. Really, I just remembered that now!
We were soaked, I mean really soaked and cold!
No CCC cabin but we did complete 4.7 miles on the trail and we made it back to the car soaked. We put our wet jackets and backpacks in the trunk of the car. The heat was turned up (it was in the 40's on the mountain) and we headed for hot drinks. Peggy and Bonnie were very gracious about the whole thing but it was definitely the Never Again Hike Number 2.
Now that I know where I should go to reach the CCC cabin what do you think the chances are I can get someone to go with me?
