Mount Spokane State Park - Trail 121, Mount Spokane State Park - Trail 131, Mount Spokane State Park - Trail 130 to CCC Cabin & Mount Spokane State Park - Entrance Loop — Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025

I met a friend at Mount Spokane for a fall color hike, where our initial goal was to hike to the CCC cabin. We were hoping for some views from Trail 130 overlooking the Spokane Valley, but it was an unusual day in the way it was sunny at mid-mountain but really foggy from the Lower Selkirk parking lot and above. Just a big cloud layer sitting on the mountain summit! It was still really pretty and lots of golden larch along the way, but zero views into the distance.

We were probably within a quarter mile of the CCC cabin and already discussing the possibility of turning back at that point in order to try a lower elevation trail that might be in the sunshine when we suddenly (and very accidentally) found ourselves within about 50' of a bull moose! We'd been chatting the entire time, but humans talking doesn't really scare off a moose the way it might with other wildlife. When we finally spotted it, the moose was staring at us very intently and showing zero sign of wanting to move elsewhere, so we decided we did not need to hike all the way to the CCC cabin after all!

Instead, we retraced our steps back to the parking lot, then decided to go hike the Entrance Loop as our back-up hike. This is a very nice one for fall colors! It doesn't have the sweeping views one can get along trail 130 on a clear day, but it does have a really diverse forest (it's mostly along a creek, so lots of cedar, hemlock, & cottonwoods in addition to grand fir, Doug fir, ponderosa pine, and western larch. I also spotted a couple of large & healthy western white pines I hadn't noticed before. Plus the understory has lots of cool mushrooms. This loop is only 1.6 miles, although there are options for making it longer.