Lord Hill Regional Park — Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018

We finally ventured over to Lord Hill for the first time on Tuesday and really I can't believe we didn't go sooner. It was a lovely walk in the woods with some surprisingly old trees, gigantic tree stumps, and one section glowing green with moss on every branch.

We arrived around 10:30am with only four other cars in the lot. We had the trails to ourselves most of the hike. We set off from the trailhead, turning left when it came to a T intersection, beginning a loop hike by Beaver Lake. Just before the Beaver Lake Trail meets up with the Pipeline trail, there is a Y intersection with a broken down sign. We went to the right and had to back track on the pipeline to see the actual lake. Another hiking party took the left branch at the Y and arrived at the lake head on. Going left seems to be the better choice. The "Lake" is only visible as a small pond from this point. the rest of it looks like a marsh as you head south on the Pipeline trail.

The trail leading to the Pipeline had some puddles but was generally in good condition. Pipeline was very muddy and slick in some spots on the hill by Beaver Lake. Pipeline is an open trail but the kiddos explored some side paths into the trees where we found evidence of Bigfoot in the form of piles of snot. He must have caught a cold. (Probably very old, water-logged jelly fungus.)

We turned right at a four-way junction to take the Main Trail Crossover. This section was insanely green with moss covered trees. Reaching the Main Trail we turned right to loop back toward the cars. The Main Trail arrives back at the first T junction as the third spoke we had not taken. Making a left we headed back up hill to the parking lot.

I can see how people get lost here. We encountered many unsigned trails on our 2.5 mile loop. Both my hiking partner and I had downloaded maps from the county website... and they were very different maps. The park itself shows different maps depending on what sign you are looking at. The trailhead has the same one I downloaded with tons of trails shown. Signs at some junctions looked more like my friend's map with only the few main trails shown. I'm including the link to the map I downloaded with lots of trails shown.

We had a terrific hike and the kiddos were able to run free the whole time, although I did have to plead with my kid not to go in the lake. We will be back soon to try some other trails in the network!

More Information on this Trip Report

• https://snohomishcountywa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/9711