East Fork Foss - Necklace Valley — Friday, Jun. 7, 2013

Central Cascades > Stevens Pass - West

Today we hiked Necklace Valley. This is a beautiful green route through old second growth timber. It’s an easy hike with some ups and downs, but no serious altitude gain until after the second river crossing at about 5 miles. After that the trail is steep and rocky. There are 3 pretty large camp sites and one small one in the area we covered with the first I’d guess near the first mile. And all are on the river and pretty. There were few people on the trail (on a Friday), too early for many bugs, but the spring flora and Fauna is outstanding. This is a green garden that inspires fantasy. There were a few blowdowns, and deadfalls, but nothing too hard to climb over or under. It’s interesting that everything we read indicates we should have gone just over 10 miles round trip today, but my GPS shows we covered over 16. I can’t understand the discrepancy but regardless it leaves lots of places to ooh and aah over the surroundings. No snow, little mud, few bugs, no litter.