Did some rainy day hikes on Sunday: Ape Cave - road snow free and open to parking lot (however parking lot itself is gated off) Toilets were in rough shape and lots of garbage everywhere - especially in the cave - how sad - return trail mostly snow covered but easy to follow Curly Creek, Big Creek & Lower Lewis Falls - as impressive as anything I saw in the Gorge the previous day. Hwy 90 completely snow free. Rush Creek Falls - This waterfall was listed in ""A Waterfall Lover's Guide to the Pacific Northwest"" by Gregory A. Plumb. It is reached by a rugged bushwack of 0.3 miles from County Stockpile 2-7 on Road#51 (The stockpile - literally two giant mounds of gray stone - is on the right hand side of the road just past mile marker 3 - 4.2 miles from the junction with Road#90) If you go there you will see a large pile of tree stumps, get past them and you will see the remnants of an old road. If you look closely you will see the first of about a half dozen sparsey placed pink flags. These lead you across the old clearcut and to the lip of the ravine. You can't see the river but if you keep heading downhill you can't miss it. We managed to get to the falls and back in less than an hour (including time for pictures). The falls were equally impressive as any of the others listed above and there really should be a more established route to find them. Hopefully this post will help generate some interest in this area. Happy Hiking David&Karen

We walked the Lewis River Trail upstream about 3.5 miles from where road 9039 crosses the Lewis River Bridge. Trail is in great shape with nice campsites along the way. The Bolt camp shelter is in excellent condition. The Lewis River is really beautiful, as is the forest along this trail.

The Lewis river trail from the Lower falls campground to Curly creek is a beautifull area wandering up and down mountains with old and new growth forest. The trail is moderately maintained with only a very few blow-downs on the trail. In addition at approx 3 miles in from curly creek is a very substantial mud/rock slide covering the trail and a few miles furthur up is a huge mud slide that appears to be old and is now completely clear. The creeks that you encounter are all easily crossed with just slightly wet feet. My trip was a MT Bike down from Lower falls, during the trip the trail was in great shape with only a couple of areas marred by the less environmentally conscious in the back country.

A quick late afternoon jaunt along this trail shows that it's in great shape, with repairs done early this spring holding up and working well. There is one small area that still is a bit damp from mystery seepage but otherwise the trail was very nice with only one other car in the parking lot and one other person seen on the trail. Although this trail is sort of in the Mt St. Helens area, no monument pass is needed, but a trail park pass is.