The Hobo Cedar Grove is a nice easy 1-mile hike through a grove of giant old-growth trees. It is the perfect hike for toddlers to explore nature, which is why we brought Clara up there on Sunday. She enjoyed the large trees, but wasn’t into walking the trail much. Eventually Erin had to carry her for most of the hike. In hindsight, she may not have completely gotten over her illness from Friday and Saturday.
Last week, Clara and I had a day to ourselves, so we had a little adventure on a nearby trail. The white pine loop is a 3-mile hike from the White Pine campground off of Idaho Rt. 6. A one-mile (one-way) out and back spur takes us to the site of a WWII bomber crash site with some pieces of the wreckage still littered throughout the woods. But rather than write a lengthy post with a few photos, I’ve decided to try a video series that I’m calling Adventures with Clara to highlight just how adventurous she is. [map style=”width: auto;…
My father-in-law and his wife have been visiting us since last Wednesday. Before coming out, he had asked if we could go on a little male bonding trip into the backcountry for a night. So, I set about looking for a short and easy hike to a spectacular place. I figured he had probably never spent the night under the rocky peaks next to a glacial tarn, and the high lakes are also one of my favorite places to spend a night, but most of the lakes around here are either fairly strenuous hikes, long hikes, or take nearly all…
I think I’ve mentioned before that there are a number of cedar groves, stands of old-growth Western Red Cedar, nearby. I’ve already posted about the Hobo Cedar Grove out near Clarkia and Grandfather Mountains. Several times I’ve been to the Giant Cedar out near Elk River. On our way into Idaho when I moved out here, Erin and I stopped at the DeVoto Cedar Grove along Rt. 12. There is a cedar grove on Moscow Mountain, but I haven’t been up there to explore it yet. The last one that I know of in the immediate area is also…
The end of the semester is a busy time, and that often means foregoing larger adventures for some smaller ones closer to home. In the last week, I’ve been trying to keep active and take advantage of the local trails. One of these trails is the Headwaters trail on the western end of Moscow Mountain. In my five years here, I’ve never hiked this trail despite its close proximity and popularity among hikers, runners, and mountain bikers. Yet when all of my friends say they were on Moscow Mountain, they almost always mean the Headwaters trail. Headwaters is a 5…
Ever since I first visited Elk River during my interview trip in February 2010, I had a desire to get to the top of Elk Butte. After all, who could resist a lookout tower boasting 3000 foot views? The only problem was finding a suitable way to get up there. While the maps show a road to the summit, descriptions also warn that the summit is not accessible by car. Most people reach the summit by four-wheelers in the summer and snowmobiles in the winter. I had read that it was a 7-mile one-way trip, which ruled out a day…
In a world where there are so many playgrounds at arm’s reach, the Blue Mountains of southeastern Washington are so often overlooked. They’re not as tall as the surrounding mountain ranges – the highest point is just shy of 6400 feet. There are no natural lakes, and the valleys are actually canyons carved into an uplifted basalt lava flow. But while they may not have the grandeur of the nearby glaciated Wallowas, the Blue Mountains are quite beautiful and offer some great hiking experiences. A large portion of the Blue Mountains is protected under the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness Area, and a network…