Today’s hike was a quick run up to the White Iris trail. Carly had come down for Father’s Day and we had until early afternoon so we did a quick hike to see if the white iris were in full bloom yet.

We started off early to make sure we had enough time to do the hike and get back home in time. We left about 8:00 and headed up 4614. It has been several years since I’ve been up this way and I made a wrong turn. I thought the 4615 junction was farther up 4614, but I was wrong. We made it all the wy to the current end of 4614 – it was bermed a few years ago:

After reviewing maps to figure out where I made the wrong turn we headed back. We finally made it to the real western trailhead on 4615. We looked for the trail for a few mins (it is an abandoned trail and is rather brushy) – I finally found it and we headed up. As we went up, there was a lot of small tree blowdown from the winter as well as a LOT of brush – since it had rained, it made for a very wet hike. We cut and lopped several trees off the trail as we went up.

As we continued up the hill, what started as a light mist started getting heavier. It went on and off, but since the trail is so brushy, we did some maintenance and everything was drenched, we both got VERY wet. We continued up the hill, losing the trail a few times along the way, but mostly following it. We soon got to the beginning of the bloom:

And here is probably the best bloom photo of the day – it might not have been in full bloom but it was blooming pretty good:

We continued up and got to the downed log where we had to turn north (left) and continue up the hill. There were several large logs that have come down in the cut area so it made travel tougher. We got back into the old growth and headed up a ways. I checked the time and it was a little after 11:00. I figured we should turn around to make sure we got home in time. We were both really wet anyway, and there wasn’t anything terribly different that we would see if we made it up to the 4614 road anyway. So we turned around and headed down.

We made good time on the way down and got back to the truck right at noon. We headed out and then called home to see if we had enough time to stop at Fearless for lunch. We were both hungry. We had enough time so we had a nice lunch at Fearless and then headed home.

It was great to hike with Carly and to see the white iris in bloom, even though it was a very wet day.