What a lovely time of year to do these vibrant, green, water-everywhere trails! I kidded that the uber-greens around us made up for my forgetting to wear green on St. Patty’s day. Also, I pinched my husband (who WAS wearing green), which he thought was odd until I reminded him Washington is a community property state (somehow this made sense to him). More pics of these trails that start from Storm King Ranger Station at Lake Crescent are at: http://www.flickr.com/[…]/.

The trail tunnels under 101 then remains super-wide and, in summer, crowded until the fork to the Barnes Creek Trail. We saw 6 people to this point (in addition to the 6 we saw on Storm King, this made an even dozen). Marymere was their destination, so we left them behind and continued along beautiful Barnes Creek. It is true Olympics all the way. Maple-lined, moss soaked, green silk with white lace flowing next to us with the sweet accompaniment of a thrush. There are some giants on this trail, too – fir, cedar, and hemlock. The first mile or so after the junction is muddy enough to make any pair of boots happy. My husband had a wonderful time demonstrating trekking pole parkour by launching himself over the mud pits, eschewing the social “workarounds” other hikers have been making (it’s a TRAIL, folks; get your boots a little muddy!!!).

The trail rolls up and down, mesmerizing you with the infinite green hues of moss, tree, and river. This trail is well maintained. You’ll come to a junction (kind of easy to miss) where you can go straight or switchback down to the right towards the creek. When we were there, a few sticks were across the straight way, letting us know to head down. This is where they re-routed the trail due to a washout farther on. Head down to the creek. There is an incredible single-stringer log bridge over Barnes Creek (I was kind of disappointed as Romano’s book made me think a ford was required). But this bridge is really cool. It appears from the intact root boll that this log conveniently fell over the creek here. Whatever crew worked on it did an amazing job adding a supplemental log to get there, railings to both, and flattening and scoring the logs for easy crossing. They’re still slick enough that my husband slipped off on the way back (fortunately before the water!), so use the handrail.

Once over Barnes Creek, the trail climbs again, rolling along always within sight of this truly lovely creek. Another log bridge with railing takes you over a tributary, then you come to a massive washout through which a trail is carved. After dropping back down to Barnes Creek, we sat awhile and enjoyed the solitude until we got cold, then headed back, catching Marymere Falls on the way. The falls trails are, as always, in amazing shape. It started snowing pretty hard just before we arrived at the falls – at about 35 degrees my husband proclaimed it “hypothermia weather”, so pauses to enjoy the falls were brief. We encountered no one from the lone hiker we saw on Barnes Creek until returning to Storm King Ranger Station. This is an absolutely enchanting winter hike.

We decided to take advantage of a gorgeously sunny day in Washington and head over to Olympic National Park to check out Marymere Falls. The trail is a very easy terrain and definitely a great one for small kiddos should you want a trail to take them on. Trail conditions were perfect, as it is a well-groomed trail. No snow or standing water on the trail today. We were amazed at the rich depth of greens covering nearly every inch of every tree along the trail. The falls themselves were very cool and serene, and the view points excellent for photo ops. We ran into a handful of people today, but still enjoyed the quiet stillness of the forest to ourselves most of the time.

Decided to circumnavigate the Olympic Peninsula. Could not have asked for a nicer day.

Trail was snow covered and icy in spots, especially across the foot bridges. It was a great hike for the kids though, who enjoyed sliding down the stairs leading to the falls on their bums.

A few wet spots in the trail, but nothing that couldn't be walked around or jumped over. Work was in progress to build a couple of new foot bridges across the creek before you start the climb to the falls. Good news, as one of the current log bridges is doing a slow roll over and could be sideways after the next storm/high water runoff. Nice little side jaunt on a fairly nice day.