18.5 miles of hiking • 8750' elevation gain • 1 night
Backpacking trip up Herman Creek. We arrived at a full parking lot so we had to park along the road. We began the long uphill trudge through the woods intending to stay the first night @ Cedar Swamp camp. Some huge trees up there! Beautiful. After setting up camp, I hiked up to Mud Lake before sunset. Not much to see, with the exception of some giant scratch marks on a tree. Not sure what created them. Back to camp for the night. The next day we packed up and headed down the trail. At Casey Creek, we decided to go up to Nick Eaton Ridge. Oh boy! Didn't realize what we were in for. This "trail" goes straight up an extremely steep hillside almost 2500 feet in only 1.6 mile. After coaxing my angry wife up the hill, we took a well deserved break and decided to head out the ridge and return to the trailhead via the Gorton Creek trail.
