Gray Wolf River/Cat Creek Loop: The Hike We Didn't Tell You About...

Sure I show you an edited, glossier version of reality here on Pacific Northwest Seasons. Ask most bloggers and writers, and they'd be fibbing if they don't say they do the same.  

Some outings aren't really "blog-worthy," so I just move on to the next hike/trip/meal/ski/kayak trip.  Maybe I didn't get many decent photos, or they're just sort of meh.  It happens.

I was hoping to blog about a road trip east of the Cascades, but we got rained and virused out this past week. (Can you say cold and flu season?). My only everyday Northwest adventure in the last week was going through a whole box of kleenex in two days. 

(I exaggerate; I did get out for a few walks in the woods in Carkeek Park, but I've blogged about it several times already.)

So while I try to show as pretty pictures as possible and wax enthusiastic about Northwest adventures, today you're gonna get a dud. Maybe you'll thank me.

In late December we road-tripped on the northern Olympic Peninsula, with an overnight at Lake Crescent Lodge.  On our way home we were snowed out of a hike at Hurricane Ridge, so instead drove up the Dungeness River drainage for some lower elevation hiking.

After crossing the river and passing a campground, we stopped at the first trailhead, for the Lower Gray Wolf River. Maybe we caught it on a bad day, but the trail started out oddly lumpy and strangely graded as it wound down and then flattened along what apparently is an old logging road. 

Not particularly scenic, so after about a half mile, we took the Cat Creek Loop into what was a lush, lovely grove of moss-encrusted old trees. (See the photo at top of this post.)

But pretty soon we started noticing an excess of downed trees, a tangle of branches and trunks all around us.  

Not long thereafter the trail ended in a collision of splintered, broken trees, looking like a tornado or something more sinister and nefarious happened here. We can't figure out what caused such destruction in this little gully.

"This is creepy, let's get out of here!" I say with a tinge of anxiety.

It didn't help that as we backtracked, we noticed a 10-foot-long strip of bark, looking for all the world like a huge dagger, hanging directly over the trail.  

"Widowmaker," says John.

We hightailed out of there back to the car after only hiking a couple miles at the most and took refuge at the 7 Cedars Casino to watch the Seahawks game. 

Watching a football game at a casino is NOT the sort of thing I blog about here. But of course there are a lot of things I don't blog about. At least the Hawks won that day.  As for the Super Bowl,  we'll try to forget about how the game ended shortly after The-Play-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named.

But I digress.  

I'm curious if anyone else has hiked that Cat Creek Loop with more success. What are some of your regrettable outings? Tell us about about your dud of a hike/trip/dinner out. Perhaps we can spare each other a similar experience with the warning.

Happy trails (really!) and thanks for visiting Pacific Northwest Seasons.