Sumas Mountain - Gold Mine Trail — Monday, Jan. 18, 2021

This trail has confusing instructions on finding the trail.  I chose the instructions to park across the street from St Innocent's church.  We walked a well worn trail around the gate with an official looking sign "No Trespassing".  It's a road.  We followed the dirt road to what looked like a gravel pit with a bridge over the creek.  On the other side of the bridge there are 2 trails (and if you count the gravel pit before crossing the bridge 3 trails)!  We just picked one and headed up.  It is a gravel road that switch backs up with varying degrees of steepness and becomes more narrow and more trail like.  As we got higher the road looked to be de-commissioned as there were drainage gullies cut through the road.  Great panorama views from the trail over the valley, glimpses of Puget Sound and San Juan islands.  We never saw any evidence of the Gold Mines, so finally went back.  As we reached our cars (BTW, only 3-4 cars can park) we met a woman who looked like she knew where she was going.  What is missing from the instructions is to NOT cross the bridge, before the bridge go left and the actual gravel pit is to the right.  Apparently once you get there the trail is obvious.  The Gold Mine may have been a complete hoax - people were living up there pretending to be gold miners!  She encouraged us to check into the history of the gold mine. Despite all this, we had a great day and beautiful views