Family Hike Series - Part 4

Wow – what a gorgeous hike that was! I have to say the Winner Creek Trail is one of my favorite hikes.

Mother, Noel, Hank, Myself and my guest, Rich Reading from Denver, did the hike together. It was a great day for hiking, too – the weather was perfect for it, and the trails were in very good condition.

There has been a considerable amount of trail maintenance done on the trail lately – a lot more boardwalks installed so you don’t have to trudge thru all that muck and mud. On a sad note, the “hand-bucket” thingy has been taken down and replaced by a regular bridge. We were all really looking forward to hauling ourselves across the gorge in that bucket…

We of course ate lunch afterwards at the Bakery – you simply cannot do that trail without stopping by there! The staff working at the Bakery seem to be all from Russia, with only one English speaking person in the bunch. They somehow managed to turn Noel’s name into a 4-sylable word! I can’t even begin to spell that one out phonetically… As always, the food was delicious. I’m never sure if it’s because it’s good food or because we just came in from 2.5 hours of hiking out in the elements, you know what I mean?

On the drive back into town, Rich and I pulled over into just about every pull-out there is so that he could take pictures. That creek where the “combat fishing” takes place was particularly beautiful. We saw two juvenile eagles hanging out with their parents, waiting for their meals to be tossed up onto the beach for them. Amazingly enough, we also saw a Harbor Seal in the creek! Who knew they would be there!

Potter’s Marsh was Rich’s favorite pull-out, however – he is an avid birder, so really appreciated all the nesting water birds. We saw two sets of fluffy little baby birds on the beach. Oddly enough, you could walk right up to them – their parents weren’t attacking, like I fully expected them to (memories of Arctic Terns dive-bombing us each year at the lake kept running thru my mind)