13 miles of hiking • 1500' elevation gain •
One last trip out in 2016! Went to see the Metlako landslide, and weren't disappointed! It was a pretty cold morning, and we met at the outer parking lot. Driving in to the closer departure point was a bit sketchy, but not too bad. Only three cars ahead of us. We put on our microspikes in the parking area.
As we wandered on up, lots of little debris slides had come down recently across the trail. Especially right at first. Mixture of snow, ice, and rock. The streams were all running very low. We were glad we had spikes on, as we were routinely walking on snow and ice, and some of the passages would've been damn tricky without traction.
All of a sudden, we were at the Punchbowl Falls cut-off! WTH? We'd somehow walked right past the Metlako viewpoint spur. Not sure whether to be embarrassed for having absent-mindedly missed it, or whether this is a somewhat profound indicator of just how greatly the forest had changed. Just before getting back to Sorenson Creek, we took a side trail down to a spot where we got our first full-on view of the landslide. WHOA!!! It was YUGE!
Took a lot of photos of the slide. Tried to take some of the falls, but the view was severely less interesting than from the former viewpoint. Then wandered over to the old spur trail, which now leads straight to the edge of a cliff. This is just crazy. Took lots more photos. Then followed the slide southward a few hundred feet, and took lots more photos. YUGE, I tell ya!
Well, after getting our fill of this little "disaster," we once again headed up-valley and just enjoyed this most beautiful trail. The sun was out, snow was on the ground, it really couldn't have been prettier. Crossing Tish Creek was a piece of cake, especially using our microspikes over the logs. A giant tree has fallen across the High Bridge canyon.
We continued southward to the creek just beyond the Wilderness boundary. Ate a little lunch there, and turned around (to meet a curfew, as well as beat the incoming storm back home). On the way down, we found one more spot where we could see the slide, and were astonished to discover water flowing from the ground, right beneath a spot we had stood to take photos! Ai yi yi...
Great day in the woods! [This was actually hiked on 12/31, but a bug here on WentHiking forces it to be coded as 12/30 for it to be included in annual stats.]
