Larrabee State Park - Rock Trail — Saturday, Feb. 8, 2014

Puget Sound and Islands > Bellingham Area

The Rock Trail connector to Lost Lake has unofficially opened. Sunday's Bellingham Herald carried a story and pictures of trail work on the front page (http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2014/02/09/3463378/new-and-rugged-12-mile-trail-connects.html#), which brought out the Bellinghamsters to spin their (bicycle) wheels and hike the new trail. The Cyrus Gates Overlook parking area was packed with cars on a snowy and cold February Sunday by the time we left. The snowy and cold weather brought out a dedicated corps of 10 trail volunteers. It was snowing when we arrived, and it snowed after we broke work, but our work day was thankfully spared from precipitation. We started as always with our safety lecture, and then we set off to reroute two segments of trail, one at the very start of the Rock Trail and one a few hundred yards downtrail. Our goal was to clear organic soil and duff and reach the mineral soil layer to build the final remaining segment of hiker-only trail. Clearing the organic layer was more challenging, because our grubbing tools wanted to bounce off the frozen ground! Nevertheless, we de-rooted and double-dug the mineral soil, and we "mined" additional mineral soil for packing. We also mined rocks from the hillside to build a boulder retaining wall for the side of the trail segement, and then we filled in with smaller rocks. The final step was dumping several buckets of mineral soil to form a walking surface. As we worked, hikers and bikers passed by, drawn to explore by the Bellingham Herald story. Everyone noticed the stunning trailwork architecture and views from the new trail, and many of the users expressed their appreciation. We ended the day as is tradition with apple cider and, in a new twist, crackers and homemade goat cheese from Arlen's farm.