Pine and Cedar Lakes #65

On Monday November 12 L and I went hiking, just the 2 of us. We both had the day off since it was Veterans Day and my kids didn't want to come along and I didn't want to bring the dog. It was really nice to spend time with just her. We had not seen each other in a couple of weeks. I met L at her place and we took her car to Pine and Cedar Lakes Trailhead. It isn't that far south of  Bellingham. We made it to the parking lot around 10 a.m. We had planned on earlier but I was running late. The original plan was for me to bring the kids, then only Miss A wanted to come. However when she found out that she had to wear longjohns under her hiking pants, she wanted nothing to do with it. This in turn caused me to leave later then I had planned on.

Once L and I arrived at the parking lot, which is a decent size, we found it to be fairly empty.  (FYI there is a port a potty.)

I will apologize now for the quality of the first few pictures, for some reason my camera was not wanting to focus.

I took this picture of the trail because you can somewhat see how steep the trail starts off.

I then walked back and took a picture of the map.

Here are all of the trails that are available to do from this trail head.

It is steep contrary to what it looks like in the picture.

A small creek on the left hand side of the trail.

The picture below does it justice on steep it is.

There is a creek down in there.

As we were proceeding up the trail, I saw this.

I found the amount of erosion and how the trees and ferns managed to stay put extremely fascinating, and had to take a picture of it.

Still pretty steep.

A small section of down hill. I was so hot at this point, I had definitely over dressed and had sweat pouring down my back.

A short while later we found another section of down hill, as you can see we had the trail to ourselves, it was such a peaceful time.

We arrived at a junction, and stayed left.

This part was so pretty and peaceful. I thought that it looked like something that would be used in a movie.

We came to another junction and stayed left.

We then came upon this cool little wooden bridge on the trail. I enjoy walking on wooden bridges and find them fun for some reason or another.

We came to another junction and stayed left again. As you can tell we took a lot of lefts.

In the picture below of the sign you can see that there are numerous trail options. We plan on doing all of them.

At this Y we stayed left again because we mad the decision to add some more mileage and go to the view point.

A tree covered in woodpecker drillings.

Just the path getting to the view point was beautiful with the sunlight and trees.

And then the view!!

So so beautiful.

I zoomed my camera to get a better picture of Mount Baker.

After going to the viewpoint we headed to Cedar Lake.

This rock and tree made me think of a cake with a single candle on it.

The rocks were huge and I loved the moss covering them.

We then walked on a boardwalk

to the lake. The trail does go all around the lake but we chose not to do that. We did see a fish jump. I don't know if fishing is allowed in the lake or not.

Another picture of  rocks that I found interesting.

We then headed off to Pine Lake.

The trail does get a little narrow, but it isn't bad.

I thought that this treed area was pretty. You go through this

to arrive to this in the picture below.

A single plank boardwalk around the whole lake. According to the signs there are camping spots along and around it. We didn't feel like walking around on planks for a lake that you couldn't see, so we did some silly pictures instead.

 Decided to be a little silly and do dancer pose.

 Found what we assumed to be an old logging cable.

This stump was a nice surprise heading back down the trail to the car.

I will say that I wish I had had trekking poles with me on our way back down. Ever since B and I came back from the PCT trip I have been fighting shin splints and the grade on this trail was a killer on my knees and shins. I had to keep stopping to give them a break. In all we did 6 miles with 1900 feet elevation gain, had a wonderful and relaxing time.

Until next time!