A Haunting History - Iron Goat Trail

I was trying to find where I wrote about this hike before, and somehow I didn't! This was my third time on this trail, purported by some to be the most haunted in Washington. Buckle up, because we got a lot of history to cover with this trail!

Iron Goat Trail
Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest
Parking permit: None at the Interpretive Site trailhead, NW Forest Pass for all other trailheads ($5 per day/$30 per year)
Distance: 12 miles round-trip
Elevation gain: 700'

The trailhead is off of Highway 2, about 32 miles west of Leavenworth. It's just west of Steven's Pass. If you park at the Interpretive Site, no parking permit is needed. There are also trailheads at Martin Creek and Wellington, but a Northwest Forest Pass is required at these.

As you set out from the interpretive site trailhead, you can sign the guest register and pick up a map similar to the one above; the printed ones I found also showed the newer Martin Creek Connector and Kelly Creek Trails that are west of the Martin Creek trailhead (I will have to revisit and explore these someday). The maps mark out the historic mile-markers of the railroad, which are also physically marked on the trail, making it very easy to figure out where you are.

My suggested route is to start at the interpretive site and follow the trail all the way to Wellington, then cut back using the Windy Point crossover trail. This leads to a round-trip hike of around 12 miles.

The caboose adorns the interpretive site trailhead.

The trail follows old railroad grade of the Great Northern Railway. Originally built as a series of switchbacks over the mountain, the First Cascade Tunnel bypassed the hill when it opened in 1900. Winter weather conditions were still harsh. Trains often faced multi-day delays due to snow-covered tracks.

Old trail tunnels, most of them caved-in, dot the trail.

A modern replacement for an old truss bridge

Early on the trail, you'll discover an "adit", a short tunnel used to bore into the tunnel construction area and excavate from the center. This allowed tunnel excavation to happen on three fronts (front, rear, and center), and shortened excavation time. It's a rather impressive feat of engineering, especially considering how difficult it must be to survey the rugged terrain even in modern times in order to line up three excavation sites to all meet up together to make one tunnel.

The adit opening

 Avalanches were always a concern on the railway. In the winter of 1910, a mail train and a passenger train became stuck by a snowstorm at Wellington. They were parked outside of the First Cascade Tunnel due to fears of asphyxiation if the trains were pulled into the tunnel. On March 1st, early in the morning, an avalanche came down just past the hotel in Wellington, wiping both trains off their tracks and down into Tye Creek. 96 souls lost their lives, mostly rail workers. Some believe their spirits linger, leading to the belief that this trail is haunted.

The wall of an old snow shelter. A wood roof and beams would have stretched out from this to protect the tracks from snow.

A scenic privy by Windy Point

The Wellington disaster spurred the creation of several snow shelters along the track to protect future trains. Most of these consisted of a long concrete wall, with a wooden structure extending out over the tracks to protect them. Most of the wood is gone, but the walls remain.

Near Wellington itself, a solid all-concrete snow shelter was built to further reinforce that section of track. The trail leads straight through the quarter-mile snowshed, and there is a memorial to the avalanche disaster about halfway through.

Parts of the trail are almost overgrown. Here you really have to hug the old snowshed wall.

Portion of an old bridge

Inside the Wellington all-concrete snow shelter

In 1929, a new tunnel was built. The Second Cascade Tunnel is six miles long and still in use today by Burlington Northern Santa Fe. It completely bypassed the old grade, making it obsolete. While most of the wood from the snowsheds was harvested and recycled and the buildings are gone from Wellington, the concrete structures remain, a haunting reminder of the people who worked and traveled here and the disaster that happened over a century ago.

Checking my mail - Mailbox Peak

Part of the reason I hiked Goat Peak was to prepare myself for an even more difficult hike. That's right. I went out with a friend and tackled the famous (or infamous?) Mailbox Peak in North Bend! This one was a doozy! It's not a beginner's hike, that's for sure.

Mailbox Peak
WA State Dept. of Natural Resources
Parking permit: Discover Pass ($10 per day/$30 per year)
Distance: 9.4 miles round-trip
Elevation gain: 4000'

Note that the parking lot closes at 8pm. It took my friend and I about 11.5 hours to hike this. We're exceptionally slow, but if you think you might not make it back in time, there's shoulder parking available outside the gate.

There are two trails up Mailbox Peak. The old trail is 2.5 miles. It's unmaintained, rough, and steep. Lots of people still take on the legendary challenge of the old trail.

We chose to go up the new trail. For the first four miles, the trail switchbacks up the mountain with fairly gentle grade. There are a couple creek crossings within the first mile and a half; these represent the only water on the trail, so fill up if you need to. The trail is mostly in the woods, with a few sections of open talus to cross. I heard the distinctive meeps of pika here, though I couldn't see the elusive little furballs.

Half a mile from the summit, the new trail rejoins the old trail for the final push, and what a push it is! You're going to climb 970 feet in that half mile, and it's gonna hurt.

First you come to a large boulder field. The photos look more intimidating than the actual hike. It looks like a stairway to Mordor, but we passed it relatively easily. Brace yourself, because the trail gets a whole lot worse.

After the boulder field, you're gonna climb straight up. The trail gets rocky and dusty and steep. Even four-legged buddies were having trouble on this section of the hike (my own four-legged friend stayed home). A few people we met on the trail didn't make it up this section and didn't summit. For me, when I'm this close, it's too close to quit, so I very slowly pressed on to the top. This section of trail was absolutely brutal. It's the most brutal hike I've ever done!

I saw a flag waving at the top and silently prayed it was finally the summit. Sure enough, as I approached I finally saw the iconic mailbox!

My hiking buddy striking a pose, plus some kid who had unlimited energy and was the only one not tired at the end.

Make sure you sign the summit register in the mailbox, plus check out what other trinkets are in there. I left some of my business cards in there.

I'll probably do this hike again another year, but for this year, that was exhausting enough!

It's still Hike-a-Thon, and you can help by clicking here to sponsor my dog's hike! We're two weeks into August and already at 24.5 miles! You can donate through the end of the month, but why wait?

Deception & Debauchery - Sumas Mountain Gold Mine Trail

For a few years, I'd head about some old gold mine remnants out in the county. Specifically, I had stumbled across a reference to "Nooksack Gold Mines". It was about a year before I traced those down to Sumas Mountain and it took a bit longer after that to find a decent map. Finally, it took about a year for the weather and my schedule to align to head out here.

There are very few maps out there; next time I go out I will try to map it out myself. I'm using ER's map from Big Rock Excursions, since that is the best one I've discovered (ER has also written a pretty decent trail guide himself over there at the link). There is a loop but we did more of a "Y" since we could not figure out the loop. Go figure.

For what seems like such an obscure hike locally, the trailhead is actually quite easy to find. From Everson, head East on Main St. Go straight as Main St. past Highway 9 and it will turn into S Pass Road. When the road makes a sharp turn left to the north, turn right on Sealund Road. Park near the end on the grassy shoulder, taking care not to block anyone's driveway.

Shoulder parking.

We ran into three other groups of hikers on the Sunday we went out, including a family from Nebraska. We also found evidence on our return hike of horses that had passed through the area while we were out. Despite being somewhat obscure, the trail does enjoy its share of visitors.

Sumas Mountain Gold Mines

(original map via Big Rock Excursions)

WA Dept of Natural Resources

Parking permit: none needed)

Distance: ~3.5 miles round trip)

Elevation gain: ~1000 feet

The trailhead is next to a fence and hugs a property line. From here you can take the gold mine loop or you can be ambitious and summit the whole mountain. (The summit hike is notoriously steep; you'll gain about 1000' in under a mile).

Trailhead sign

All the trail guides you will read will warn about the first 100 yards being notoriously muddy. We went after a long dry period and the trail was dry. However, deep pockmarks in the soil were evidence of how boot-suckingly deep the mud can get.

Across the street from the trailhead, a pair of loaner rubber boots hang from fenceposts for the unprepared. Best bet if it's been wet anytime in recent memory is to back some rubber boots for the first bit of trail and then stash them for the return.

These boots were made for mucking,

Once we got past the fenced field and away from the sun-baked areas though, we still found plenty of mud awaiting us!

Mud!

Glorious mud!

We found a decent-sized root-ball the trail wound past.

This time of year we also came across lots of edibles. I found my first ripe thimbleberry of the season!

Thimbleberry

Huckleberry

Salmonberry

Creeping Blackberry

The trail guide we were using said to "ignore a spur on the left". The first junction we came to was more of a "Y" and it didn't really seem like a spur so....we went left?

This wasn't in the trail guide.

It took us where we were heading, so I guess it was the right way.

One thing about the trail was that it was rather overgrown. I felt like I should have packed a machete. Much of the trail looked like this:

So much green.

You definitely want to wear clothing to cover up even though it's been warm out. My exposed arms were all sorts of cut-up from thorny bushes by the end!

After a creek crossing, there's a marked junction with a "Cabin" sign that leads up to the old John Friendly Cabin.

Here we turned and ascended somewhat steeply through a clear-cut area. It was hard to leave the shade behind, as it was hot on the day we set out. Still, there was some nice color on the trail.

Flowers!

And as much as clearcutting is an environmental travesty, omg check out the view it left behind!

View!

The steep, hot climb is worth it though, because eventually you find this:

The cabin in the.....clearcut?

According to geocacher Forest Finders, the cabin was built by John Friendly in 1891. After the area was logged, the Backcountry Horsemen restored the cabin and renamed it Sumas Mountain Outpost. 

The area has the cabin, a fire pit (though the area as of this writing is currently under a burn-ban), lots of horse tie-downs, and a squat privy.

Filling out the visitor registration.

Inside, the cabin has an old stove and is stocked with some basic supplies and bedding for those looking to stay the night.

Stove

Cabinets stocked with cookware, TP, and other basic supplies.

Ladder to the attic folds up when not in use.

The kitchen

Bedding upstairs.

More bedding upstairs

The cabin even had a handy map painted inside!

Not to scale.

The privy is past the horse tie-downs in what was a very overgrown field when we visited.

Pretty-view privy

This is one of the more scenic privies I have seen, as it has an amazing view of the county back behind it.

"Git-R-Done" likely not the original text John Friendly had on his privy.

I did not use this privy but the husband assured me it was stocked with 2 rolls of TP when he used it.

A few more shots of us posing in front of the cabin...

Yours Truly

The Dear Husband

Here is where we got lost and confused. The trail guide said to head east to a nearby junction that would let us loop down to the gold mines. We went east...and found a service road that was not mentioned in the guide we had.

It seems to be a well-maintained service road, too.

We went down it a ways until it felt like it was not going the right direction, and we didn't see any junctions. So we just turned around and headed down through the clearcut the way we came. Someday I will go the other way around the loop to see if I can find the junction from the other direction.

We headed back to the junction with the "Cabin" sign and headed the other direction to find the evidence of former mining operations. Not far down the trail, a spur off to the right lead us to the old site.

What we were seeking: piles of old rusted crap.

The gold mine operation is a special one. According to historian Michael Impero, there wasn't any actual gold dug up. Miners C.F. Bernard and J. Swinehart recorded 7 claims along Swift Creek. They built a stamp mill, a hydroelectric plant, a hotel, a "dance hall" (and by dance hall, I mean brothel), and bunks for the workers.

Foundations of either the mill or the brothel, depending on who you ask.

They entertained investors here (and by "entertained", I'm talking about the brothel). They even showed off the gold they mined in a safe built right into the hillside!

The safe remains in the hillside above the remaining building foundation; the door permanently stuck open.

The gold was a lie, though. The mines were "salted"; the gold was actually planted by Bernard and Swinecraft in order to fool the investors. There was no actual gold coming out of the mines. Just empty mines and a dance hall with lots of prostitutes.

Remains of a mine cart near the safe.

In fairness, there's another side to the story. According to a comment on Dave Tucker's blog, someone purporting to be Bernard's great granddaughter says, " The mine was part of a corporation with stockholders. The company was dissolved in court and never was it mentioned in that court process as being a scam. I am C.F. Bernard’s great granddaughter…fun story, but totally made up."

Resting by the safe

Nefarious investment scheme, or a legitimate mining that ran down on its luck?

Heading past the safe, the spur rejoins the main trail. Continuing a short ways down leads to another spur that veers off to the creek where something unnatural appears.

Closer inspection reveals one of the old mining holes leftover from the operation!

Hole....

We took turns poking around inside. There was a lot of standing water and hungry mosquitoes in there. It was narrow and dark. I can't see how people would have worked in there!

Supposedly there are a couple other remaining mine sites in the area, but this was the only one we could find. It was time to turn around and head back home.

I found a simply gorgeous banana slug on the hike back! Look at this guy!

The farmer had his cows out when we returned as well. We could see them across the field.

This hike was definitely interesting with lots of nifty historical artifacts. I hear the view from atop Sumas Mountain is excellent as well, so I definitely see a return trip here in the future!