My dog and I took off from the Granite Creek Connector (adding 1.4 miles round trip to Granite Creek mileage) at 6:10 a.m. with one other non-hiking car at the small pull-out by the kiosk. I'd never done this trail before so I was blown away by the 36+ "stream crossings" and serious flow in Granite Creek. I used "cool" and "beautiful" under my breath several times, and heard 18 bird species in the early morning before we got too close to the river to drown out birdsong. The Connector gets a tad monotonous in the 2-mile approach but the trail is lovely, and I was glad for a more mellow "warm-up" as I was dealing with tender adductors from some therapy the day before.
The water is high after recent rains, and the trail is quite muddy at times. The stream after 4.2 miles (from Connector) was so high that although my dog and I were able to keep our paws and feet mostly dry up until then, just after the junction sign with Thompson Lake on the descent, he struggled to cross safely. I called him back, as I worried that the stream might be too high for him. Safety first, always.
Instead, we backtracked to the junction sign for Thompson/Granite and scouted out the trail for Thompson Lake. More birdsong as we got away from Granite Creek, and the trail was amazingly dry compared to Granite Creek.
We topped out at the ridge between Granite Lakes and Thompson Lake and decided we were too close to our turn-around time to descend to the lake. I estimated that with the Granite Creek detour and Connector we may have hiked somewhere in the vicinity of 13.5 miles. I don't carry any sort of device with me and cell service was out/unreliable past Mailbox.
I want to return when the stream is not so high, maybe in another month. The only people we saw were a dozen-15 maybe, and 2 other dogs, between the Granite Creek/Connector junction and the junction between Thompson/Granite Lakes. 5 backpackers with fishing poles, a pair of trail runners, and a few solo-small group hikers. Trillium, maidenhair ferns, and bleeding hearts are lovely.
Comments