Sunday db and I went to Burke Mountain for a hike. db borrowed the car from work so we could go out for a hike on the weekend and it seemed that Golden Ears was inaccessible so we did a little research and found this gem of a park in our backyard.
We entered the park next to the Rifle Range. Hmm. Guess what? It's very noisy at the Rifle Range on a Sunday morning. I can't imagine wanting to head to the rifle range on a Sunday or ever really, but it seemed to be fairly busy. So anywho we headed onto a trail with the deafening sounds of popping gunfire following us for the first leg of our journey.

We headed up the Coquitlam view trail that was a bit of a climb, but the trail is fairly wide which is nice. Of course there were some pretty spectacular trees. I love how open the forest looks on the west coast because you see mostly tree trunks because the trees are so tall. Even though the forest floor was relatively dry looking there was quite a bit of snow on the trail. The snow was packed down so it wasn't too much of an issue (in my trail sneakers! I really need to get some hiking shoes). I could see tracks in the snow that I had followed from the park entrance: one set of human footprints and one set of dog prints. They weren't from that day, but it was kind of neat to keep encountering these footsteps every time we hit snow. Of course I started wondering about the person and dog and the trails they must hike together. It also occurred to me that the prints only went in one direction so that means the trail must hook up with one that leads out of the park. We didn't make it that far, but we went a good distance in.

The first clearing we came to was along the power line that is marked on the map by the black slashes cutting across the map. The view was pretty nice from there. We kept going until we eventually reached a creek that looked a little tricky to cross. The sound was wonderful though. We turned back from there.

It's nice to explore the parks in our area. I'm glad I didn't hear the report on the radio until this morning about the grizzly bears coming out of hibernation early this year. Okay that was hundreds of miles away from here, but still...you know me I'm bear obsessed. Grizzlies aren't really spotted this far south, however, the park does list the Grizzly bear as one of the species that does pass through the park. Hard to imagine really, but I guess it's possible.

Anywho...I look forward to visiting other trails in the park. When my brother comes out this summer hopefully that's one of the parks we can check out, but away from the rifle range. We'll find a trail on the other side of the park.