Happy Creek Nature Trail — Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020

Trail is is just as stated in the helpful main description.

Today we saw end of summer berries in blue and red, and carpets of moss blanketing the sides of the trail. The boardwalk nature trail is really a great place for children and people on wheels. On the trail to the falls, we went along the gradually rising trail by the highway, up the somewhat steep and rocky switchbacks to the dark and shaded falls.

Only one other car in the lot when we got there, just one other when we left. After coming down, we rested on the well-made and happy to have there cedar benches, thinking about how our elderly relatives would love to visit this place. Then a couple of little kids came running by, ahead of the parents who could see them along the parallel loop trail. Those kids could be let loose to find their way around the loop, maybe not the safest idea in the world, but the worst that could happen would be a skinned knee on slippery boards.

Included in the pictures: salal with its trademark blue berries, kinnikinck with round red berries, and a grayish lichen found in the moss. This lichen (a fungi-algae compound organism) is showing off its red tips, which are spore-bearing fruiting bodies. Not at all sure what type it is.

We did see some evidence of the sawmill in the form of flattened hand-made pipes, some with nozzel-shaped ends, and the two-wheels on an axel as pictured. Wondering how old these old metal pieces were, I found a bit of history on the Waterfalls Northwest site:
--------------------------
History and Naming: Happy Creek Falls is the Historical name of this waterfall.

Shortly before the turn of the 20th century, several mines were actively worked near the mouth of Ruby Creek (now submerged beneath Ross Lake). The Ruby Hydraulic Gold Mining Company constructed several miles of ditches and wooden flumes to supply water to the mines for hydraulic excavation. A sawmill was built on the north side of Ruby Mountain to provide lumber for these flumes, which received power by water diverted from Happy Creek in the vicinity of this waterfall, and this activity probably was responsible for the waterfall being dubbed Happy Creek Falls in the first place. Relics of the diversion structure can be seen near the bottom of the falls along the trail.
-----------------------------
Above copied from Waterfalls Northwest
https://www.waterfallsnorthwest.com/waterfall/Happy-Creek-Falls-9559