Another great local, lowland choice that has much more to offer for hiking around than most people think. I arrived to stomp and photograph around Flaming Geyser State Park south of Black Diamond this morning around 11:00am. Having Fall City as home sure is making me realize how great a base for all these types of areas this is….a mer 35 minutes from home I was here.

No rain, and even 30 minutes of sunshine was on the agenda for today. I hiked the gorge rim trail that begins back a good mile from the parking area, by the open fields as you enter the park. This was a beautiful forest trek filled with big trees, and moss formations that made the photographic eye busy behind the tripod. Upon reaching the crossing of Christy Creek just above where the geyser stops are, the bridge across the now full creek is out due to a tree down through it, apparently. Hmmm…not feeling like fording a waterway in a state park, I simply backtracked to enjoy the same trail back, then hiked up the road to the parking area and did that portion of the trails. Flaming Geyser was in it’s full glory of a whooping 8” flame as advertised. The hike up the Christy Creek ravine ¼ mile or so is VERY pretty. From there, I looped down, went on some side trails until I hit park boundaries. Rather than wander into someone’s cow pasture, I headed back down this grade to the river trail that heads east from the parking area along the Green River. Huge old stumps are back in there ½ mile or more which are hidden from the trail. But when you hunt for them and find them, they are incredible reminders of the cedar trees that covered the gorge a hundred years ago. Springboard notches abound, covered with moss, ferns growing around them, and trees even growing out of them. A photographic wonder-show was in the works of our past history.

I then hiked back out to the parking area and back to the Yukon. It amazes me how a location that is filled with hundreds if not thousands of visitors on a nice summer weekend can be all mine like today. I did see two fishermen in the river back by the park entrance, but nothing except me and a huge number of White-crowned Sparrows, Bushtits, and Golden-crowned Kinglets to keep me company! There are even more trails across the river in the other entrance that add 4 more miles of potential walking that I didn’t even do this time. Good muddy stompin’!