Olallie State Park

I wanted to find someplace peaceful for Coal and I. Trying to find a place without fireworks or lots of people on the 4th of July is not easy. I ended up at Olallie State Park. I hiked up the trail that runs beside Change Creek. Coal charged ahead, which was a relief as the fireworks and been making him literally sick with stress. The trail is short, pretty and lushly green. There are enormous boulders along the trail and I was enchanted by one that had a large flat side completely covered in moss. The trail takes you under a trestle for the John Wayne trail. I like looking up, it feels older, as if you could wait and see an old electric train pass by. Then the trail joins the John Wayne trail. There are lots of climbers and it was the only area of the day that was crowded.



We headed east and quickly left the people behind. We walked over the second trestle at Hall creek and found another side trail. I've been on it a few times and then started avoiding it because it was always so trashed. There was one area that had a lot of broken bottles. It almost looked like people were throwing them off the trestle? Other then that it was clean and full of solitude.



We ended up in the main recreation area near Weeks Falls. I don't go there much, but the cool old growth forest appealed to me. There is something about the light in old growth that I have never been able to capture in words or photos. It returns me to childhood when I really thought that ents, elves and hobbits were a possibility and I could feel the magic of the forest.