Big Gulch #42

Sabbath after church we decided to hike Big Gulch. It is an easy 2.6 mile out and back hike with 311 feet elevation gain. We chose another close, short trail because we were celebrating Miss A's birthday later that evening. Big Gulch was really easy to find,  has a play area, a wetland, and a really nice bathroom with a sink and toilets! No outhouse! (I hate outhouses.)

                                                        The trailhead starts after the playground where this big arbor is.

You don't go very far before you have to head down these stairs. Which are very nice and don't kill your knees unlike some stairs on trails.

                                         At the bottom of the stairs you round a short curve and come to this bridge.

                                                 Where you can look down into the little creek on the left,

 and on the right you saw this. I found this tree's root to be really cool.

              We also came across this downed tree, and I thought that the branches being bare rather interesting.

         The trail is very flat and some sections of it are very wide. A little further down the trail and a couple of curves, in the picture below,

we came upon this downed tree. My oldest of course had to climb down the little embankment so he could walk across it. Miss A was scared to go down by herself, so brother helped her down then she stood on the side and watched brother go across.

At this point my husband and H showed back up. (H had to turn around and go to the bathroom.) Of course they had to walk across the tree also. Now that I am writing this I wish I had done it. Oh well.

Not much farther down you come to this Y in the trail and you want to stay right. It did become rather muddy in this section and this is were the trail becomes wider.

A short while later you get to cross this "creek".

 In this picture the kids are telling us how bad it smells. There is a creek on the left hand side, that H thought had dead salmon in it  which was causing the smell. But in actuality it was from the Sewer, but the smell was not enough to take away from the enjoyment of the trail.

                                           Just a little muddy. But the trail immediately becomes dry again.

          Waiting for the adults. The tree made for a great spot for A to lean into, and a nice log for H to sit on.

                                  The trail then becomes narrow again through this section. It is pretty cool because you can look down into the gulch on the left.




















Heading down hill again, you come across these benches on the side. We didn't sit on them because the kids wanted to be way a head of us and were in a hurry.

           Not too long after the benches you come to the end of the trail when you come to the road.

 There is no beach access as you can see. However we decided to keep heading down the road and only turned around when we came to a gated off area for the water treatment plant. Behind it you could see some of the sound and trains.

The weather and wind started to change on our way back to the cars, but the rain held off. Which we were rather grateful for. Once we arrived back at the cars the kids wanted to play on the playground equipment for awhile.

In all we had a very fun, enjoyable time and did 4.1 miles. The hike was beautiful, very easy to get to and had hardly a soul on it. I encourage you to go see it for yourself. Until next time!