Bruce with the White River Valley and Mt. Rainier in the background.
Rendezvoused with Russ at 5:45 am at Whatcom Falls Park and drove to Greenwater, WA, which is most of the way to Crystal Mt. Our purpose was to ride the Palisades Trail, which descends from the cliffs above to the White River.
The ascent is nearly 4,000 vertical feet on logging roads with a relatively mellow grade (it took 10 miles to make the climb), which finally brought us into a stand of very big old trees, including some noble and grand fir.
From here, we ripped all the way back down to the valley floor on singletrack, with one exception, which was an extremely tight series of switchback culminating in a 25 foot ladder down a rock wall to more switchbacks.
Here and at other points along the trail we came out to the edge of cliffs which afforded dramatic views of the Palisades, which gave the impression of insurmountable battlements, like something out of Mordor in The Lord of the Rings.
There were lots of roots in the trail but few of these were very scary by Galbraith standards. In fact, the trail had only a half dozen seriously technical sections, all but two of which I rode.
Approximately 3900 verts in five hours and five minutes total ride time. The total time
for the trip, doorstep to doorstep, was 14 hours. |
