After hiking to Franklin Falls, we hiked the one mile loop around Gold Creek Pond to enjoy the fall colors. Although many of the leaves have fallen, there is still some beautiful fall color. There were several varieties of 'shrooms along the trail and a few mergansers were enjoying the pond.

What a great day for a hike! This quick and easy hike was certainly a joy once we found it. Apple Maps was horrible as it took us many miles out of our way - be warned! The water was clear as was the sky.

After a previous short one-night trip elsewhere, I wasn't quite ready to go home. So on a whim while driving home on I-90, I pulled off at the Gold Creek trailhead and decided to spend another night stargazing and possibly do a short hike in the morning. I woke up at 7:30, made myself a quick breakfast and packed up the car with my things, and decided that I was a little too sore from my previous excursion to do anything too difficult. So I decided to take a slow meander along the Gold Creek Pond loop. It's a short, 1 mile loop along a pond that was once a gravel pit used when constructing I-90 in the late '70's and early '80's. The trail is mostly all paved, wide enough to be wheelchair accessible. There was a small wooden bridge and a boardwalk section as well. Benches abound along the loop at small scenic vistas. It was a beautiful morning, and I loved watching the fog lift and the Alpine Lakes Wilderness surround me once more. It was calm and peaceful, and I had the place to myself. Ducks swam in the pond, birds chirped all around me, and the small stream trickling nearby providing a nice cover for the I-90 traffic noise (not completely escapable). A short trail leads to the beginning of the loop. If you go clockwise, you will start right at the large picnic area (at least 5 or so tables scattered along a grassy area with some shade), and the trail loops around the pond with several small signs describing the geese or beavers found in the nature area. At one point just before the bridge, a side trail leads down to the water. I took my time reading all the signs and taking lots of pictures of the morning in the mountains. The trailhead for the Gold Creek trail departs from the other side of the pond loop. One day I will have to come back and go explore this area some more!

This is a nice easy hike through forest to a view of impressive avalanche damage. The trailhead is east of Snoqualmie Pass (exit 54). The well marked parking area is about 200 yards from Gold Pond. This pretty pond was previously the site of a gravel pit used to construct I-90 in the 70's. They did an impressive job at rehabbing this into a nice lake. The lake is circled by a paved wheelchair accessible path. A short connector path takes off from the northeast corner of the lake to access a dirt road that unfortunately much be walked for 20 min before reaching the actual trail. In the past you could drive this section but now the road is gated. The true trail is a very pleasant forest walk with occasional avalanche chutes that afford views across the valley. A little less than 1 hour from the beginning of the true trail a relatively recent avalanche area is traversed with an impressive up hill blowdown of trees on the opposite side of the creek. It looks like a miniature version of Mt St Helens. This is a good turn around point for a short easy day hike.

Hike a thon #8 Picked an easy one today with my family. I had never been here, and will be back for snowshoe for sure! We did half of the upper gold creek trail which is quite nice, a bit of road walk but after that it's really quite beautiful rocky pika areas as well as nice forest walk and river bed, loved it all. The doggies were tired by the pond loop back we stopped several times and took in the views. Trail was very quite early in the morning. Hard to believe this used to be a gravel pit. Great hike for dogs, and families.