Coal Creek

June 8, 2007

Wow! Has it really been two weeks since my last post?! Well, I plead Campmeeting. I will try to get everything caught up this week.

OK, my second hike of the year was down Coal Creek. I had first heard that this hike exsisted from Joel. The trailhead is on my old commute into Kirkland, but I had never noticed it until Joel said something. When I found some information about it, I was excited to give it a try.

This trail is about 3 miles in and then 3 miles back and what they call "primative trail." (I love primative trails!) That basically means that they didn't do a whole lot to the trail to make it exsit. It gets really narrow at points and is a lot of up and down and over tree roots and under tree branches. In short, the perfect adventure! The trail follows Coal Creek from Coal Creek Parkway to old Coal Mines (which we will get to later).

A little ways in you can take a branch off trail that goes to a waterfall (through an even more primative trail. Fun!) OK, the waterfall wasn't that impressive, but the bridge after it was pretty cool (That's the picture at the top of this post.)

The really cool part of this hike was the end of the trail. There used to be a coal mine complete with buildings, railroad, and even a hotel; none of which exsists any more. All you will find there now is a few cement foundation blocks, and a lot of bricks and old debris in the creek bed.

this is what it used to look like

This is what it looks like now

There is also another waterfall at this site. Look how red the creekbed is here!

And to finish, here is the abandoned mine: