I went on a short hike on this trail earlier tonight, with a companion. It was my first time…read morevisiting this place.
I noticed that there hasn't been a yelp review of this area since 2020, unless I missed something!
When we pulled in to the parking lot here, I noticed that many of the cars had bike racks, so I expected to see cyclists on this trail. What I didn't expect was 10 - 15 very fast cyclists within the first 10 minutes of our hike! Almost all of the cyclists were amazingly friendly and considerate. They often would shout out, "5 more behind me!" , "2 more behind me!" etc, as they whizzed past. One of them even shouted to us, "Hikers! I hope you enjoy your walk today!" I was so surprised I responded, "You too!" before realizing that this was the exact wrong thing to say back, since he wasn't walking and since he was almost back to the parking lot so he was finishing up his bike ride!
After a short while on this trail, I was wondering about continuing to hike there. The cyclists were FAST. VERY fast. And most of them were going in the opposite direction to us. There are plenty of twists and turns on this trail, also.
However, thankfully we spotted a "Foot Trail Only" not too far from the trail head, so we started in on that. It is called the "Whispering Firs Trail." What a pretty name for a trail!
This trail was probably the worst maintained hiking trail that I have ever hiked on. There were 3 or 4 logs across the trail, dense vegetation intruding on the trail which frequently brushed our legs as we hiked, several deep holes right in the middle of the trail, and several rocks of all shapes and sizes which also were on the sides or in the middle of the trail. Sometimes the rocks were not very visible due to the vegetation that had grown over many parts of this trail.
However, I'm weird so I loved this trail anyway! I might not have loved it if I would have twisted my ankle, which I almost did twice, but thankfully I escaped unscathed, as did my companion!
We were the only ones on the "Foot Trail Only" tonight. We hiked on this trail for about an hour. I was happy with this trail because out of all of the trails I've explored recently, this was the only trail that actually felt like a hike and was also a bit of a work out. The trail has mild to moderate inclines. It's not a difficult hike (maybe other than avoiding all of the rocks and deep holes in the trail!). However, I really worked up a sweat hiking this trail, so much so that I decided to take off my fleece and tie it around my waist, on a fairly cool evening. I thought this was great!
In order to hike on this trail for about an hour, we did have to traverse a few parts of it 3 or 4 times. However, I liked this too because we could time our hike so that we got back to the parking lot right before dark.
I had a great experience hiking on this trail today. However, I can certainly understand how some of the aspects of hiking here may deter others. I would come back and hike on this trail again any time, but I am planning on trying lots of new-to-me trails this year, so I might not be back to this trail for a while. I'm very glad that we decided to hike on this trail tonight, though!