siddhartha saha dot net

One hour since I started. Elevation gain so far is 1350ft. It is fun posting something while I am resting.

Today I am hiking at Mt. Si. The total elevation gain is around 3400 feet in four miles. And I am so tired after half a mile. I should really work on my stamina.

Yesterday we (Prabirendra, a friend of mine, and me) went for a little weekend hike. It was pretty late for a going for a long day trip, as I woke up at around 10am following a multi hour chat + the 70s show the night before. I was looking for suggestions as to what would be a worthwhile place to go for a few hours and I asked my roommate Jennifer, who, I think, knows these areas better than the palm of her hands. She suggested that I go for a short hike in the Twin Falls. We started at around 1:15pm or so.

On our way to Twin Falls, we also did a little stopover at Snoqalmie Falls – which is also pretty gorgeous. Hiking-to-Twin-Falls/IMG_4210.jpg

From Seattle the place is about 30 minutes drive, 45 minutes tops. You follow I-90 East. There are two exits that you can take depending on where you want to start the hike from. Exit 34 brings you closer to the lower level of falls whereas exit 38 goes to somewhere upstream from the upper level falls. The recommended one is the exit 34. After taking that exit, you take 468th Avenue, going southeast. You need to turn left at 159th street, which is less than a mile away. Go straight, and you reach the parking spot. It’s paid parking and you have to pay 5$ to park all day. You have to put your payment in an envelope and drop it in a collection box, and keep the top portion of the envelop to use a parking permit.

Assuming you start from the lower parking lot (the one you reach if you take exit 34), you start walking keeping the river to your right. There are a couple of spots where you can reach the river – keep an eye for them. It would be crowded on a weekend with people with kids and dogs. In paper it says the total elevation gain is 600 feet. But you go only like 200-250 ft (according to my watch) above the point from where you start hiking. But there are lots of ups and downs which make the total elevation gain as 600ft. Its damp and sometimes slippery, so be careful. The trail can be quite steep sometimes.

Hiking-to-Twin-Falls/IMG_4218.jpgHiking-to-Twin-Falls/IMG_4228.jpgHiking-to-Twin-Falls/IMG_4232.jpgHiking-to-Twin-Falls/IMG_4250.jpgBut do not miss the best part of the hike. I did not see it mentioned in any of the documents/sites that I glanced trough before going there. As you are going up, you will come across a big tree – within a mile (well, it is a dense forest, so there are lots of trees. )But this is special – with a wooden fence and some signboards around it. So, if you try looking for it, you won’t miss it. Look for a faint trail going to the right of that tree. Go there, and you will reach the river. And you can actually make your way towards the bottom of the waterfall – and you can get pretty close to it. Be careful, the rocks are pretty slippery sometimes, and one mis-step can break a bone. If you want, you can actually swim the last 30 meters or so. It was gorgeous. There was a rainbow at the bottom of the waterfall and the water was so clean you could actually see the rocks at the bottom. I chickened out and did not swim – the water was so cold.

After that come back again to the trail and follow it the usual way. There is one lookout point (keep looking at your right for a wooden staircase going down). Do down the staircase for a nice view. Further continuing the trail upwards through a number of ups and downs, you will reach a wooden bridge which overlooks the upper level cascading falls, which is pretty nice to look at.

Overall, this is a wonderful hike if you have a few hours to spare.

Hiking-to-Twin-Falls/IMG_4258.jpgLAfter that, we made a short visit to Rattlesnake Lake. There is also a nice trail which takes you above the hill and you have a nice view of the lake and the surroundings from there. But we did not have the time to do it. I might do it later sometime – seemed nice.

Also, this was the first time I tried posting to this blog directly from my cell phone, from the road, which turned out to be pretty good.

WOW! What a wonderful place. It is a very insignificant place in the map. But it is so gorgeous. More so because we didn’t follow the usual trail. This is the lower twin falls and we hiked around some dangerous boulders to the closest point at the bottom of the waterfall. Beautiful. More later.