Hiking Covel Creek

Last Friday was our first day of hiking on a three-day weekend trip to Washington. After we left our hotel in the small town of Chehalis, WA we drove first to the Covel Creek trailhead northeast of Mt. St. Helens in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. We'd cross referenced hiking descriptions for a couple of waterfalls on this trail between various sources— including, yes, Professor Smedley Q. Boredom's Very Dull Book of Waterfalls. But really it was the hiking website AllTrails.com that was the most lucid. ...Which was helpful, because this hike was pretty far out in the boonies.



Despite being "out in the boonies" there was some kind of event people in the area were preparing for. Some kind of leadership event. All we encountered were people who were clueless, unfriendly, or both. People who think that a stupid little placard reading "RIGHT TURN to some waterfalls" is a way to mark a trail. I'm not sure what these people are going to be leading. I'm pretty sure, though, I don't want to be a part of it.



Weird and marginally unhelpful signs were kind of a theme on this trail. In addition to multiple of those "some falls" signs printed out by someone who apparently thinks they're being really funny (they're failing at it) there are also several signs stating the trail is closed because the bridges are removed. "Bridge Out Ahead" would be a reasonable warning... if it were at the start of the trail. Instead these signs are posted a mile in from the trailhead. WTF?

Well, we decided, "Bridges? We don't need no stinkin' bridges!"



This reminded me of another set of signs we saw on a different waterfall trail in Washington years ago— "TRAIL CLOSED to weaksauce city folk".

Fortunately the dry creek that was easy to cross had plenty of water flowing not to far upstream.



We passed a number of small waterfalls on Covel Creek.



Neither these two waterfalls (last two photos above) nor other small ones we passed on the trail as we climbed have names. That meant the two named waterfalls, Covel Falls and Angel Falls, would have to be even better, right? Stay tuned for the next blog to see!

Update: In the next blog we not only get to Covel Falls, we walk behind it!

It's Not Time Off if the Work Just Piles Up

I enjoyed taking this past Friday and Monday off from work, making a four day weekend. Hawk and I used three of those days for a fun trip to the Pacific Northwest, and I used the fourth day as a relaxing-at-home day. But here's the unfortunate thing: there's a cost to having taken this time off. The cost is that a lot of my work responsibilities simply got pushed a few days later, stacking up my schedule with nearly nonstop meetings Tuesday and Wednesday. When you take "time off" but the work still all needs to get done, it's not really time off.

Hiking Behind Covel Falls

What's better than hiking to a waterfall? How about hiking behind a waterfall! That's exactly what the trail at Covel Falls in Gifford Pinchot National Forest does.

Getting there takes a bit of doing, though. The trailhead is in a remote area. There are BRIDGE OUT AHEAD signs on the trail— and the bridges actually are gone. We hiked it anyway. And the trail gets steep in a few places. We climbed at least a few hundred feet to get to the falls. Then we walked around the corner of a cliff face, and this beautiful scene appeared below us:



Covel Falls fall in about an 80' drop from a rocky ledge. Not all of the drop is visible from this angle because of that rock overhang covering the upper part of the falls. But that overhang also means there's plenty of room to walk behind the falls.

Here's a ~30 second video I recorded:

Watch on YouTube

Even better, we had this area to ourselves. There were only a few other cars parked down at the trailhead, and to this point we'd seen none of our fellow hikers on the trail.

I took advantage of the solitude to be unhurried at the falls. I swapped lenses on my camera to use a super-wide angle lens... only to discover it wasn't working! I fiddled with it for several minutes, turning the camera off and back on numerous times, detaching and reattaching the lens, cleaning the electronic contacts, etc. Nothing worked.

I was pretty pissed. That lens was expensive. And it's heavy. I carried it all the way up here only for it to die the moment I was ready to use it! As I gave up and started climbing the trail on the far side of the falls I seriously considering dropping it off the cliff.

Then I gave the lens one more try. The dang thing worked. Fortunately I was only a few hundred feet past the falls. I went back to take several more pictures.



While I was doing this bonus round of photography (I went back under the falls after making the photo above) another pair of hikers arrived at the falls. The first human beings other than ourselves we'd seen since leaving the trailhead! I asked them if they knew about the trail conditions and the BRIDGE OUT AHEAD warnings. They laughed and said those signs have been up for years, and locals know to ignore them. Yup, another case of "TRAIL CLOSED to weaksauce city folk"! 🤣

Oh, I mentioned making photos from behind the falls?



Capturing photos like this is why I lug around that heavy super-wide lens!

Update: there's more climbing and more waterfalls as we hike to Angel Falls.