Pack Peak View

Day 190: I've been hiking in Pack Forest for enough years to remember when you actually had a view from either of the two high-point destinations, Hugo Peak and the unofficially-named "Pack Peak." Pack Peak is the highest of the two by about 300', and your "window on the world" looks roughly northwest over rural lands outside of Eatonville. Hugo affords a glimpse of the city itself, although if the trees get much taller or their branches get much longer, you won't even have that much. Oddly, Hugo is the more popular destination, perhaps because it's closer. Being Crow, I prefer to hike a few extra miles to the solitude of Pack Peak if I'm going to be out for the whole day, making an eight-mile loop of the 1000 and 2000 Rds. without necessarily having to retrace my track. There's plenty of latitude for variation. Among others, the possibilities include Windy Ridge, a side trip to Hugo, the Reservoir Trail, Butterfly Alley, or if I'm really feeling inspired, trying to find the route through a section of the New Forestry Loop which hasn't been maintained in years. For a relatively small place (at least when compared to Mount Rainier National Park), Pack Forest gives you a lot of places to go, although not particularly diverse in terms of mini-ecologies.

The Stoopidest Trail

Day 189: Yesterday, I did an 11-mile invasive plant patrol in Pack Forest and took the opportunity to explore a brand-new trail which was apparently laid in over the winter. I'd noticed it on my last trip up, but didn't have time to explore. I theorized that it might be a new route to Windy Ridge, since it started about 500' from Kirkland Pass on the west side of the 2000 Rd. The old Windy Ridge trail has had issues with small blowdown over the last few years, so it seemed logical that they might have established the new trail where the forest was more stable. Indeed, the trail climbed up from the west 2000 Rd., gaining 150-200' before levelling out about a quarter mile in. Then, to my surprise, it started back down again. Expecting only a small elevation loss, I continued on, but it kept going down and sure enough, it debouched onto the EAST 2000 Rd. about 200' shy of Kirkland Pass. I'd made a half-mile detour and got nothing for my pains...no new lichens, not even an invasive! Shaking my head in bewilderment, when I walked past the trailhead on the west 2000 to continue on my adventure, I addressed it, "Fool me twice, shame on me! Not gonna happen again." Why did they go to the work of putting this trail in? Practice? Stoopid idea, if you ask me.

You don't go very fast when you have to stop every 50 feet or so to take a GPS reading and jot something down in your field notebook. I quickly tired of marking every instance of Digitalis purpurea (Foxglove, to most of you) and shortcut my entries by saying, "Sporadic occurrences of species from waypoint 200' south." Even so, I had almost 30 instances to put in my report (map, right), and it took me over an hour to write up. The issues were not all Digitalis, although the species accounted for roughly 80% of the total report; other invasives noted were Tansy Ragwort, English Ivy and English Holly.

My original plan had been to complete a particular loop off the 2300 Rd. (it branches off the 2000 Rd.), but when I reached the spur I'd intended to take, I found it signed as closed for logging operations. That's one of the problems with Pack Forest: it's "multiple use," and of course it's the University of Washington's Center for Sustainable Forestry. Much of the forest consists of plots where different management practices are put into effect. With the loop closed, I chose instead to continue on to "Pack Peak," the true high point of Pack Forest (not Hugo Peak, as many people believe). I took lunch there, and then swung back to take the Windy Ridge trail...the real Windy Ridge trail, which doesn't connect to the Stoopidest Trail at all.

Highest Point In Pack Forest

Day 99: With my eye set on the summit of the peak known only as "Pack" on the map, I was less than five minutes out of the parking lot when I found myself faced with a big orange sign stating that the south loop of the 1000 Road was closed for logging operations. I didn't want to chance sneaking past it to try to get to the Hugo Peak trail, leaving only one other option: take the north loop and add an extra mile each direction, i.e., a ten-mile round trip instead of eight if I also completed the 2000 Road loop like I'd intended. Pack Forest is a maze of roads, the 1000 and 2000 being the two main lines, meeting at Kirkland Pass to form a figure-8. Motorized travel is prohibited to the public on all of Pack Forest's roads, but when a road closure is posted, it also applies to foot, bicycle and horse traffic.

Fortunately, the north 1000 Road was open to Kirkland Pass where another sign warned walkers not to proceed. At this point, I realized that I might have been able to take the Hugo Peak Trail after all, but since I'd already come one extra mile, I decided to complete the 2000 loop and go back down the way I'd come. Hugo Peak is a popular destination, but the view of Eatonville, once unobstructed, is now limited to a narrow window in maturing evergreens. The peak of Pack affords a much better vista which on clear days may include the Olympic Mountains to the west. Today, they were visible but hazy, with clouds mounting behind them along the coast.