Wallace Falls State Park, Washington - May 10th to 11th, 2022
Our planned crossing into Canada was just a couple of days away. We were getting excited and anxious. We were ready to be in Canada because this seemed like the real start to our trip to Alaska. However, we were a little nervous about how smoothly the border crossing would go. Spending a day to go on a wonderful hike in Wallace Falls State Park helped us use up some of that nervous energy and keep our minds off of our worries.
The drive through the Cascade Mountains to get from Leavenworth to Stanwood in Washington was beautiful. On the way up to Stephen’s Pass, we followed alongside the Wenatchee River. Down the other side, we followed the South Fork Skynomish River, passing by a powerful and beautiful waterfall. At the pass, it was lightly snowing. There was fresh snow on some of the mountain peaks. At the higher elevations, there was still snow lining the banks of the road.
Our original plan was to stop at Wallace Falls State Park and go on a hike. We had even already purchased our Discover Pass for the day to park there. However, after walking over ten miles the day before in Leavenworth, we didn’t fell like hiking. We’ll come back on Wednesday for the hike. The weather forecast looked slightly better that day anyway. Instead, we decided to use our pass to have lunch in the park. Unfortunately, the Discover Pass is only good for the day you specify. When we got there, we saw that there was an automated machine to buy a pass right at the parking lot. We’ll use that on Wednesday. If you are going to spend three or more days in a Washington state park during the same year, then an annual pass is the better deal. It is only $30 while the daily pass is $10.
Our campground for the next two nights was Kayak Point Regional County Park near Stanwood. Instead of driving straight to the campground, we drove into Stanwood to pick up our Amazon packages at the Rite Aid. It is a little tricky to receive packages while traveling, especially as often as we change locations. You want to order far enough in advance to make sure the packages arrive before you do (or at least before you leave that location), but not too much in advance that they return the packages before you arrive. We found that the counter-service pickup locations, like Rite Aid, will hold your packages for seven days, while an Amazon Locker will send your packages back after three days.
Kayak Point Regional County Park is located on Port Susan, part of Pugent Sound. The camp sites are in the lush woods, with a path down to the water front day use area. The water front is a rocky beach with a pier, boat ramp, picnic shelters, and a playground. We walked down when we arrived to check it out. There were not very many people there, being a cool weekday. The main entertainment for us was a group of sea gulls and a great blue heron. Keith struggled to find a good rock to skip. He found one and appreciated the calm water to skip it on.
While we were hanging out in the van later in the day, Keith suddenly told Ann to grab her camera. “There is a mammal climbing down the tree behind you”, he said. It was too far away for him to identify what it was. Ann zoomed in with her camera. It’s a raccoon. After a few photos and videos, the raccoon disappeared into the brush. About fifteen minutes later, Ann spotted it again, right next to our Red Tail Lodge (our van). As we both stood up to get a better look, the raccoon sensed he was being watched and froze mid-step, with its front paw in the air. After a minute, he cautiously continued on. He lingered for a few minutes around our van, then scurried off into the woods. Thanks for being the evening’s entertainment!
Wednesday we drove back up to Wallace Falls State Park for a hike. It took about an hour to get there. We hit the trail around 10:30 am. We chose the Wallace Falls via Woody Trail. The trail starts out as a wide gravel/dirt road under some high voltage power lines that you can hear buzzing. There are views out to some mountain peaks, but the views are through the power lines. Then the Woody Trail branches off from the Railroad Grade trail and becomes a narrow dirt trail through the woods, following the Wallace River. Ah, that is more like it!
You can hear the river rushing by most of the way. The trail goes to the Lower, Middle, and Upper Wallace Falls. However, there are also many small waterfalls along the way. Not too far from the start of the Woody Trial is a little side trail called Small Falls Trial. We went up the trail just far enough to check out the Small Falls because we didn’t know how far the trail went. It is only about a quarter of a mile in total length. From what we understand, it is an interpretative trail. There is a foot bridge along Woody Trail that crosses over the North Fork Wallace River with some nice cascading waterfalls. At first we thought they might be the Lower Falls, but then we realized we hadn’t reached the Lower Falls yet. The Lower Falls were impressive. From the overlook of the Lower Falls, you can also see the Middle Falls in the distance. The Upper Falls are equally impressive.
Between the Middle Falls and Upper Falls is a valley overlook, with expansive views. Since there wasn’t really a place to sit at the Upper Falls, we came back down to the valley overlook to sit and eat our lunch. It turned out to be a beautiful sunny day, although a little on the cool side. Sitting in the sun at the valley overlook was comfortable, but when we headed back into the shade of the trees, we were a little cold in our light layers, moist from sweat.
The environment was typical Pacific Northwest, with things we are not accustomed to being from Colorado. We were entranced by the trees donned in their fuzzy coats of moss and ferns with large, old cedar stumps every now and then beside the trail. Some of the stumps had other trees growing out of them. All of the lush green vegetation, dotted with wildflowers, was a welcomed sight after spending about a month being surrounded by dried, brown vegetation, rocks, and sand of the early spring of the plains.
The Woody Trail is a great trail for a wide range of hiking abilities. There is something interesting to see no matter how far you go on the trail. You can even decide while on the trail. It is an out-and-back, so when you’ve seen enough and your body has had enough, you can turn around at any time. We like trails like that. You don’t feel like you’ve committed to going all the way to the end when you start. However, each of the falls encouraged us to continue on to see the next one. We went all the way up to the Upper Falls.
This was hike number 12 of our 52 Hike Challenge for 2022. It was a total of 6.3 miles with an elevation gain of 1752 feet in four hours and fifteen minutes.
On the drive back to the campground, we made a couple of stops. The first was a small road-side chapel just outside the town of Sultan, called Wayside Chapel. We spotted it on the drive up that morning. From the road, it looked too small to even go inside, so we had to check it out. Once we stopped, we realized, that yes, the door was over six feet tall, but not much more. Peering inside, there were individual pews for four people total, with barely enough space for someone to stand in front of them. Definitely the smallest chapel we have ever seen.
The other stop was for, you guessed it, ice cream. We found a small batch creamery online, called Bliss, in the town of Snohomish. The place itself was simple, in a strip shopping mall, with not a lot of character, but the ice cream was tasty. It definitely refueled us from our hike.
Back at the campground, we made dinner from the few groceries we had left. We were trying to deplete most of the items because we were crossing the border into Canada the next day. Dinner was French toast. Ann had hers with butter, chokecherry jelly, and pecans. Keith stuck with just butter and honey. From reading the ArriveCAN website, we knew that it could be an issue to bring fresh fruits and vegetables along with fresh, frozen or chilled meats into Canada. We felt that the fewer non-perishable food items we had, the easier the border crossing might be. About all we had left in the fridge were condiments. There were a few carrots left, but we planned to throw them out before we reached the border.
OK. We’ve done everything we need to do to prepare for this border crossing. Our fingers were crossed that everything would go well. Canada here we come!
Check out our related video: Wallace Falls State Park, Washington
(Ann)