After a demanding, but amazing, hike to Mt Si on Saturday, my plan was an easy hike on Memorial Day to explore a new area. With another great forecast, I decided on a forest/river trail and headed to Rockport and the Howard Miller Steelhead Park. This is a very large campground that also has a decent day-use area complete with full bathrooms and a picnic area. I was the first car in the day-use parking lot when I arrived a little after 9:00.
Walked through the campground roads to the clearly marked sign to the Trailhead. There is an interpretive loop of trails that offer some river views along with a lot of wildflowers. This was a good opportunity to test the camera. After a little under a mile, I reached the main trail - a pretty typical PNW forest trail.
Overall the trail was in good shape but at around 2 miles the trail narrows and is very overgrown. There is also erosion of the river bank that is cutting into the trail. I would think that one or two slides here would render the trail impassable. But, for now, it is fine. Just have to watch your footing pushing through the early morning spider webs! Before I knew it, I was at the cut trail to the left to get to the river and lunch spot. This was at barely 2.5 miles so I continued down the main forest trail to the end to add a couple more miles. This section was nothing notable...a wide, multi-use trail that ended at a road. Made my back to the side trail for lunch and enjoyed a peaceful lunch by the river with amazing views of the mountains in the distance. I had the entire river beach area to myself and this seemed like a very quiet area.
On my return, I saw the only 2 other hikers that I saw all day. I did not see any Eagles at this time of year but almost stepped on 3 small snakes! Overall, this was the peaceful and easy trail that I was seeking and any day that you get to hike is a good day. Certainly not a spectacular trail, and a little on the short side - it's really not worth going much beyond the turn to river. Very nice have full toilet facilities and a picnic area to enjoy post-hike before heading home.
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