2 mile hike at Tolt MacDonald Park

Since today was a spectacular October day with 70+ degree weather and clear blue skies, Jake and I hit a new hiking trail.  While we've been to Tolt-MacDonald Park lots of times to throw rocks in the river, we had never walked down the North Shelter Loop.  So, today, we checked out this trail (we took the red route)  http://www.kingcounty.gov/recreation/parks/inventory/toltmacdonald.aspx.

We started out by crossing the suspension bridge over the Snoqualmie River (Snoqualmie Falls is about 12 miles to the right.)

 



The path between the bridge & the picnic shelter was wide and rocky.  It was a little uncomfortable for walking, but I'm sure the well-groomed path is easily accessible year-round for any service vehicles that need to attend to the picnic shelter.  I was glad that Jake happened to be wearing some boots that provided ankle support & I had on good athletic shoes.  This walk wouldn't be comfortable in flats.  At one point, a gust of wind hit the tops of the trees and Jake loved standing among all of dry, falling leaves.

When we arrived at the picnic shelter, I was surprised at how large it was.  There were 6 tables that could easily seat 10 people each along with 2 BBQs.  Jake & I sat down to have a picnic of bananas, crackers, and water.

Originally, I planned on turning around at the picnic shelter, but I wanted to check out the camping sites just to the north. 

We first discovered camping site #36.  It was a quiet, tree-lined spot with a view of the Snoqualmie River.  It's not possible to walk down to the river because it's on a 10' cliff.  While the cliff isn't right next to the fire pit, it's close enough that I wouldn't want a preschooler to camp at this site. 

 

Just north of #36 was #37, which has has a steep but accessible path down to the river.  Here we encountered a father-daughter duo.  The dad was packing up some gear and the daughter could be heard splashing down on the beach.  I felt bad that we had intruded on their site & tried to move Jake on his way, but Jake had about 100 questions for the dad.  Was that their tent? Could they sleep in it?  Could Jake sleep in it?  Did he have lunch? Did he have crackers? Did he know that Jake likes bananas?  Where was his daughter? At the river?  Where?  At one point, Jake asked how to get down.  The dad thought that Jake had asked how to take the tent down, so he called to his daughter to ask if she'd show Jake how to take the tent down.  The dad looked a little proud that he'd found a way to use Jake as an excuse to have the girl break it down on her own.  :)  As she got to work, we continued on our way north.

Beyond the camping area, the trail narrowed to compact dirt.  It was really comfortable for walking and the autumn foliage was great.  Jake loved picking up the humongous maple leaves that were larger than his head.  His snack had kicked in & we were both happily exploring along.

 

 

In this picture, Jake noticed a small branch going across the trail.  He actually lifted it up so that I could get by without getting scratched.  Random acts of kindness are appreciated by this mamma!  :)

Although we had only walked a mile or so, the first part had been rocky & it was almost hot out.  We were both looking forward to getting to the river at the north end of this stretch.  However, when we got there, we saw two bikes.

We continued down to the beach & discovered a man wearing only some red underwear & a lady in a bra.  The rocks didn't look super comfortable to me, but they looked pretty happy.  I tried shuffling Jake quickly back up the trail to give them some privacy, but I couldn't do it before he yelled out, "Why do you have red underwear?"  So in one hour or so we had managed to interrupt a camping family and a couple looking for some alone time.  Oops.

From the river, Jake wanted to keep going north, but I knew that we needed to turn around.  I let him climb over a couple of logs and then we headed back.  We stopped for another little snack at the picnic shelter and took a detour so that he could spend some time down at the river.  It was a great afternoon!