This was one of those hikes that you either love or hate. Hate because is about 12 miles so you can’t stop frequently to take pictures but love because the scenery is beautiful. Hate because the trail is nothing more than an old rail track so it’s covered with small rocks large enough to slip but love that it goes down next to a creek. This trail is located in the Washington side all the way up in the high desert. As you will see in the pictures, the scenery is completely different to all the other hikes I have done in the past. It’s dryer and certainly there aren’t that many mountains. Vegetation is also very different. The whole trail is about 31 miles and is the old rail tracks that connected the cities of Lyle and Goldendale. The train tracks are no longer there, only the bridges and iron pieces from the tracks. We started by driving to the end of the trail near Klickitat where we left half of the cars. From there, we shuttled in two cars to the point where we started the hike. Although it was a bit cold and windy, it was a fabulous bright sunny day. This was very lucky for us since there was a snow advisory for the Columbia River Gorge and the Portland area. According to the forecast, it was supposed to snow and rain all day long. Not for us, we only got a bit of hail with full sun. We started the trail at an open field walking next to the river that soon took us to the canyon. Along the way we found many interesting things. Although hunting is not allowed in the area, we did find a couple of carcasses, probably from small animals. Further down, vegetation changed a bit and we did enjoy the flowers and the new green fields. For a long while, everything was pretty much the same. Great scenery mixed with new flowers and bright colors. The trail got a bit weird after a turn where we found a wood burning stove in the middle of the trail next to a sofa. There was some other stuff near by. As we continued walking, we found a couple of RVs and old construction debris. It seemed to us that someone lives there although we did not see anybody. Further down, we found another set of RV’s and signs of people living there. On this second place, it was a bit stranger. On one side, there was a boat converted into a house. On the other side of the trail, there was a bus converted into a house. Weird. Our final reward for the day came when we drove back to get the cars at the trail head. The looks of the valley and the weather systems moving in were just incredible. It was a very interesting hike which will probably never be repeated.
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