Beautiful day hike, about two hours for main lower loop. Hiked the day after rain storm so the trial along the creek was muddy but passable. Great views and scenery. Not much in bloom but everything is ready, should be incredible late April through May.

We set out with a 4 1/2, 2 1/2 and a 5 week old. We did the normal route backwards starting with the trek up the creek drainage to the ridge line. There was mud and running water over 5% to 10% of the route up, but nothing that caused us any problems. The wildflowers were beautiful and in full bloom. The views at the top were worth the hike. Who knew we had such a beautiful area so near town. If you have small kids make sure they are pretty hardy. We had to carry our two year old over several areas, but by and large they did great.

Submitted by Laurie Fleming

Karen Jurasin, of the Spokane Mountaineers, led a 5-mile hike of 9 participants including myself. Karen’s purpose of the hike was to show the hikers the difference between a poor trail versus a well-laid out trail. Also, this was to show what WTA and all the volunteers accomplished in the last 2 years of trail work parties in this area.

We started at the unimproved side of the Iller Creek loop. This part of the trail is along Iller Creek with dense vegetation. The trail starts out flat with a shallow crossing of the Creek, and then starts the steep hike towards Tower Mountain. This part of the trail had water flowing down the center of the trail, with areas of deep entrenchment in the center. A lot of work will be going into rerouting this trail. Instead of hiking all the way to the top of the mountain, we veered left on the trail towards the area called Rocks of Sharon/Big Rock. Here we met a group of mountain bikers and were heading down towards the way we came up. We warned them how bad it was!

Along this path was an area that WTA volunteers helped build in the Fall of 2009. This section of trail is in excellent shape and showed very little use. With more people being introduced to this section, I expect that to change very soon. We reached the area of the rocks with a spectacular view of the Palouse on one side and around the corner another great view of Spokane Valley. This area is rich in geology due to the Ice Age floods.

After a short lunch, we hiked to other side of the loop and where WTA volunteers worked for 2 years to create a brand new trail. The old trail will be decommissioned, hopefully soon. It appears that people are still using that trail because someone is destroying the 2 Spokane County signs saying the trail is closed. This side of the loop is considered the dry side and has a lot less vegetation. Before we reached the section that the volunteers constructed, we still had to walk the unimproved part of the trail. This will be the area where volunteers will work next on the new section of trail. The trail was muddy due to the rain we’ve had, but has held up well, even with the Mountain Bikers using it. The wildflowers along the way were beginning to show their colors. Our group made it back in 3 hours with a personal tour of what good trails are like, which are lacking in our area.

Thank you WTA for making your presence in Eastern Washington, and I look forward to more trail work parties this year in our area. See you at the trail!

Had a great day up hiking the full loop of Iller creek today. The trail is ready for use and the buds are finally starting to bloom.
*******trail rehab day in April, I'll check on the day and post.*******