Federation Forest State Park — Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2011

Mount Rainier Area > Chinook Pass - Hwy 410

As part of our plan to avoid areas where there might be hunters, we visited the fantastic and underused Federation Forest State Park off Highway 410, between Enumclaw and Greenwater. The park was officially closed for the season, no rangers around, and the interpretive center and restrooms were all locked up, but the forest is beautiful and the trails were in good shape for the most part, with some mud and some blowdowns. The trails were not well marked, the map on the web site did not name the trails or give distances, but we kept the river on one side and the highway on the other so we knew which way we were going. The forest, with (from the state park web site) “…600 acres of old growth Douglas firs, mature western hemlock, Sitka spruce and western red cedar trees…” had turned golden, autumn leaves all over the ground, gorgeous light coming in through the trees and the White River like molten silver. From the parking lot inside the park, we walked from one end of the park to the other, going south to north (or east to west), then crossed the highway and started back on the other side. The trail on that side had more obstructions, so we crossed again and finished on the first side. We found the troll! This park could use some TLC, some good trail signs and a good map!