January 30, 2013

This trip was a bit of a damp one.  It started out as a last minute day trip that Timothy threw together.  The sky was drizzling down, but nothing too bad.  Our first stop was Three Lynx Falls.  Quite beautiful, however I strongly discourage access as there is no trail and it's upstream from a towns water supply.

#43  Three Lynx Falls  (discouraged access)

Considering that the drizzle of the day was turning into a steady stream of rain we decided to do an easy trail up to Pup Creek Falls.  Figuring the rain wasn't going to let up much we brought along some umbrellas.  We started at a different end of the trail as we both thought it would be nice to see some different views.  So we started off hiking up a little off-trail so that we could get up to the official trail.  As you can see this is where we got on the trail to Pup Creek Falls.

Since we were both already wet from going to Three Lynx Falls we had our umbrellas opened up right from the beginning.  Walking up on this next sight we were glad to have a little extra coverage.  These run-off falls normally are quite small in all the pictures we've seen of this side of the trail.  However on this day buckets of water was falling off the sides and ran over parts of the trail.

Getting caught up in the moment I couldn't help but getting all excited about these run-off falls.  To which I was quickly reminded that if I took up all our time here we wouldn't have daylight for the actual waterfall, so I moved on.

It didn't take long for me to get quickly distracted again with this ape on a rock.

This of course lead to me getting more run-off pictures.  By this point the rain was still steadily coming down on us, which was only partially blocked by the tree canopy we walked under.

When we got to Cat Creek we were a little worried.  The trail that normally has a little bit of water running over it from the creek, now has a raging river flowing over it.  Determined to get to Pup Creek Falls we went off-trail to find a fallen tree to walk across.

We found a good enough log upstream and crossed on it.  The funny part here is that it wasn't that long ago that Timothy had a broken foot.  Looking back at the trail we both were a bit awestruck at how creek just poured over the trail.

At this point we agreed it would be a bad idea to cross the log in the dark.  Are pants were pretty soaked by this point, but we pressed on.  The trail now started to become a bit difficult to traverse since the pouring rain seemed to migrate towards the wells of water the trail now held.

Down the trail we came across a side trail that lead to the shortcut; across The Narrows.  Looking down at the log that some people use to cut across, appeared a rather frightening shortcut on that day.

Pressing on we jumped over puddles and what seemed like lakes only to land in more water.

At a certain point we just looked at each other and were like "really?".  Got pretty ridiculous how much the rain was pouring on us and how flooded the trail was.

By the time we reached Pup Creek we were both completely soaked and our boots were filled with water.  So when we walked up on this sight I simply laughed and looked for the nearest fallen tree; I didn't go that far to be stopped by a little creek.

After getting across the log we continued on our quest for the waterfall.

Finally we reached Pup Creek Falls.  Was definitely a sight for soar eyes and to no surprise there was a high flow.  Standing still to take pictures was not a fun task being so waterlogged along with the winter temperature.  To the both of us though, the price was certainly worth it.

#43  Pup Creek Falls  (trail & off-trail ~ difficult access)

Usually the trail to Pup Creek Falls is about a 3 mile hike one way that I would call a moderate trail, but with what we had to go through to get that picture I'm listing this as difficult hike for the day.  A friend from portland hikers forum board has an article of what this hike usually looks like.

Back on the trail, the sight that we didn't enjoy was seeing how dark the sky looked.  Sunset was arriving in a very short order.  We rushed back across the log over Pup Creek.  Since we were both soaked to the bone there wasn't any point in dodging puddles anymore and rather ran through them instead.  The minor lakes we took only slight detours holding our umbrellas over our heads to keep in a little extra warmth.

Thankfully our running paid off and we managed to get to the log at Cat Creek before it was too dark to see.  On the other side of Cat Creek we breathed a sigh of relief and pulled out our cave flashlight being suddenly quite grateful that it was in one of our bags.  Putting our umbrellas back over our heads we fumbled our way back to the car.  I grabbed a couple of pictures on the way out, but very few managed not to be blurry.

Once inside the car and sitting down I was able dump the water out of my boot before we headed for home.  Completely drenched we just smiled at each other; thoroughly thankful of being in the car.

Despite the hardship we both enjoyed our day trip.  At home we found a revitalized appreciation for a hot shower and a warm fire before we curled up in bed to get up for another work or school day.