No, no. Nobody was lost in the woods. Plenty of people apparently got lost getting to the North Bend Starbucks, though. All assembled at last, the caravan headed out the Middle Fork road to the Gateway Bridge where three separate trails awaited.
Matt and Heidi took Ti and headed upstream toward the Dingford bridge. It's six miles one way so we didn't expect to see them again.
Andrew took his party up Stegosaurus Butte which is an illegal trail-in-development marked only by some flags. It's about two miles up 1,000 feet. I got them up the first hill so they could see the first flag and off they went with a badly photocopied map for guidance.
Molly and her two kids, Amy, Clara, Tokul, and I headed downstream toward Rainy Creek Pool. It's a short, flat hike to the junction of the creek and the river. Amy and I had tried it when she was about eight months pregnant and that was the last hike she did before Clara. At the time we thought we'd completed the trail, but in retrospect we hadn't. This time would be different, right?
Well, we hiked farther than we had before, but wound up on the trail heading upstream at Rainy Creek rather than down and with three of the six of us under six years we decided to retreat to a pool we did pass and hang out there for lunch. On the upside, it's quite clear there's a trail up to Rainy Lake and Preacher Mountain, but that has to wait for another day.
On the way back we ran into Brian and his kids at the pool. Many rocks were thrown at logs and a frog was almost caught, but it got away in the end. We headed back to the bridge and ran into Matt and Heidi who had made it a few miles up the trail before the flies and bees pushed them back.
The kids were tired and the flies continued to bite so we called it a day. I left a note on Andrew's truck so I'd know if we needed to come find him (yes, he did make it out) and we were soon back on the South Fork and relaxing in the cool shade of home.
