WTA Work party today at Larrabee state park, rock trail. My son and I spent the day with a great crew : clearing brush, cutting and moving logs, clearing drains. It was wet but a great day.

Hiked Rock Trail down to Lost Lake and Lost Lake Falls. Trailhead was clear and well maintained. Road up was a little rough but easy to pass. Rock Trail was steep but in good condition, followed it down to Lost Lake Trail East and looped around the lake to the falls. A little muddy around the lake but easy enough to cross. Five miles round trip there and back, about 1000 feet of elevation gain, all of it on the way back up from the lake. 

I was looking for the shortest way to lost lake and this seems to be it. There are some conflicting numbers on the distance, I believe the sign that says it's 1.2 miles to the bottom is more accurate than on the map where it say .4 miles. Also, I don't think they're counting the section from the parking lot to the trail sign which is about a quarter mile I'd say. Then I walked all the way down the lake to the official trail that takes you to the lake's edge, sort of, and a really brushy trail back up the opposite shore to get to a spot to launch my raft, but it's still the shortest route I could find. Coming back up wasn't fun with a full pack but the really steep part isn't that long.

Wildlife included birds, fish and one squirrel.

We hiked an 11 mile loop beginning at the Fragrance Lake trailhead then up Double Black Diamond to the Rock Trail, continuing on to Lost Lake. We took the South Lost Lake trail back down to the Fragrance Lake trailhead. A beautiful day. A beautiful trail. Beautiful views, big trees, singing birds and spring flowers-Bleeding heart, Calypso orchid, and yellow violets and lots of fiddleheads waiting to uncurl.

We took the grand tour loop of Larrabee SP.  The cloudy weather was perfect for enjoying the beautiful forest.

We started up the Fragrance Lake trail. There are several big old fire scarred Doug Fir on the way up. It is a rare example of low elevation old growth near Puget Sound.  There's evidence of "high grading" by long ago loggers.  This was back in the days when they would go in and just take the choice trees and leave most of the rest.  

The loop around Fragrance Lake is a real pleasure. There's some large sandstone cliffs on the west side of the lake that are interesting to see.

The Double Black Diamond up to the rock trail is more of a mountain bike route than a hiking trail but it is good exercise.

The Rock Trail in my opinion is the highlight of the hike. It was beautifully built by WTA adjacent to some very interesting sandstone cliffs.  The trail is a real engineering feat and required many steps.

The return walk on the South Lost Lake Trail had an unexpectedly nice old forest much of the way.

Our intentions were to take the Double Down trail back but it is only open to bikes. Instead we took the Fragrance Lake Road trail (gated gravel road).  There's a nice waterfall along the way.

10.2 mile loop, 2300 ft

We had an excellent pizza lunch at the Terramar Brewstillery in the very quaint town of Edision.  I highly recommend it.  We also did a little bird watching in the area. We did not have the good fortune of Bob and Barb from a few days ago but we did see several Bald Eagles, a  Short Earred Owl and hundreds of Trumpeter Swans (Rawlings Rd).