Chenuis Falls Trail - A walk in a rainforest

---

It has been a while since I last wrote a blog post (more than an year :-o). I moved to the US as part of my work and it took me time to get settled here. I also had my wedding bells ringing a few months back and it took this long for everything to calm down so that I could motivate myself again to continue writing about my adventures. I shall start with the latest and then start filling the ones I have missed since July 2018.



On September 7, 2019, Reddy, Yashwanth (KP) and I decided to head to the Tolmie Peak hike at the Rainier National Park. We took KP's car and started out at around 10 AM in the morning. I sat in the front seat beside KP not knowing his stringent personalized navigational quality requirement. After a lot of back and forth and shouting, I decided move to the back seat leaving Reddy in charge of the personal navigator job. Most of the drive was fairly normal except for the last part which was like a dirt track where you could not drive more than 20 mph. As we reached the parking lot, we realized that we had not passed the ranger station where we had hoped to buy the National park pass which is the parking permit. There was the option of keeping the cash at a counter at the lot but that required 30$ in cash and I just had 20$ while KP had 1$. After a lot of contemplation where KP kept thinking of asking people for 10$, we just decided to head to the ranger station which was the length of the whole dirt road and some more. We bought the pass there and then decided to just head to a trail on the same path since getting back to the Tolmie peak trail-head would take us another hour and it was already 1 PM by then. We asked the ranger for the options and he told us that there is a good waterfall trail and a lake trail along the Carbon river road. We decided to try both with our first stop being the waterfall trail (Chenuis falls) and based on the time constraints, the lake trail (Green Lake trail).



The initial part of the trail was the same for both and it was a very well made path with barely any elevation. The trail was ideal for biking but we did not have any bikes with us. It was really a simple walk than a hike with huge evergreen trees surrounding us. We passed through the rain-forest for about 3.5 miles taking some photographs of the canopy of trees. Reddy tried his hand at videography with my Z6 and boy was I surprised at the quality (Unfortunately I do not think I shall use it very well since I prefer photos). At the left side of the trail, we saw the trail-head to the falls through the Carbon river which was dry for most parts except at 2 places where there were small footbridges built using some trees. Once we passed this, we again got into a dense forest trail for a very small length of about 0.2 miles. At the end of it was a beautiful secluded waterfall which had crystal clear water. It did not have much water but was very pretty nonetheless. We spent time having our snacks which was not much since we had not expected to start our hike so late. I took some long exposure shots and all of us tried our creativity at photography in various ways. KP also tested the waters by walking into the water but quickly realized that it was too cold to stay there. After lazing around for a while, we decided to head back and try out the hike to the Green lake though it was getting late. As we reached the Green lake trail-head, we realized we had to cover another 1.8 miles one way and started first to the Ranger falls which was a mile from the trail-head on the way to the lake. The ascent here was continuous and it was tiring especially with none of us having had any filling food since the morning. As we reached the Ranger falls, we were tired and decided that we would enjoy the view of the falls and then head back to the car. Peanuts and energy bars could only get us so far. The Ranger falls was bigger than the Chenuis falls but was not as pretty to look at. It was still soothing and we took a small break to catch our breath. We then started back and by the time we reached the car it was almost 6 PM and we were really really hungry. All of us craved for woodfire pizza and we decided to head to Farelli's pizza which though filled our tummys' was not at all worth it.



The hike was a really beautiful one in the rain-forest and an easy one. Even though you do not see the sweeping vistas one is used to near Rainier, this is a very peaceful yet satisfying hike due to the vibrancy of the rain-forest throughout and the tranquil area near the waterfalls. When we went for the hike, it was not very crowded either. If you go a bit early you can finish both the Chenuis falls and the Green lake which we sadly could not.



It's been great to start writing again and will hopefully post another one next week.

---

Photos

The Rainforest
Tall trees surrounding us making it a beautiful path to walk on

Bridge to Chenuis Falls
KP balancing his way on the bridge

Water Strider
The commonly seen water strider insect. I got a very interesting macro shot here. Generally its really tough to catch them since they do not remain at a place.

Comments

[Anand Srinath Gopalan]

Nice read!
Nice post man! Rainier ( and Washington in general) has been on my list for a while, your photographs make a very compelling case to cross it off soon :)

[Reaper1991]

Thanks :)
Well Washington is a very beautiful state with lots of hikes and places to travel to