Mark and Brian had come up with a plan to do a backpack in the siouxon Creek area that included a loop over Siouxon Peak and another over Huffman Peak. Some of this changed as we went along, but that was the idea.
Day 1: Siouxon Creek trailhead to Chinook Creek trail junction
I met Mark early in the morning and we went from there to pick up Brian on the way to the trailhead. According to the plan, we had an easy day ahead as we were only hiking to the fork with the Chinook Creek trail. Brian had mentioned that it was going to be about 8 miles, mostly flat travel. We started from the lower trailhead quickly descending to the creek. The first thing we noticed was that Siouxon was running incredibly low. I couldn’t say how low but could estimate a foot at the vey least. It was scary. The hike went fast with fantastic views of the creek as we went. Some memories came back as we got closer to the bridge over Horseshoe Creek as you see the waterfall to the left of the trail.
I did remember this fall carrying a lot of water. I was still beautiful but again, not a lot of water. Further down the trail, we passed the trail junction with the Wildcat Creek trail that requires fording Siouxon Creek. We didn’t know at that point if we were going to cross there or somewhere else, but if the plan was to do the Huffman Peak loop on the way out, we needed to cross somewhere. I did the Huffman peak loop a long time ago and I remembered crossing on the way there and then on the way back. That time wasn’t terrible, but I couldn’t say it was easy either. This time, the crossing section looked pretty easy with enough rocks to be able to cross without getting our shoes wet. We continued on until we got to the bridge over Siouxon Creek. We’d read that it was closed because it was about to fall off. The Forest Service had parked it and even put ribbons across but somebody took them off. We crossed on the bridge being careful not to jump or do more damage. This was our destination for the day. The puzzling part was that it was still very early. When we checked the map and the GPS, we realized that Brian and Mark had estimated the distance of the first day from the upper trailhead instead of the lower. Once we picked up a campsite, setup camp and had lunch, we went exploring. At first we thought about continuing upstream on the Siouxon Creek trail but with the water level being so low, we decided instead to follow the creek itself. It was a hot day so getting wet was not an issue either. We walked about a mile upstream passing some narrow canyons and small waterfalls. It was a very scenic adventure that would have been very easy to miss.
Later that evening, after dinner we went the other way to check the Chinook Falls. It was going to be the same route we would take the following day for our day hike to Siouxon Peak, but we wanted to check the waterfall. I’m glad we did as it was almost magical in the late afternoon and low light.
After a while, we went back to camp for a good night sleep.
Day 2: Siouxon Peak loop
The plan for the day was to leave camp after breakfast and head up on the Chinook Creek trail up to the Huffman Peak trail. Reach Siouxon Peak from there and then come back down on the Wildcat Creek trail to complete the loop. We started going up again thru Chinook Falls and taking the trail on the other side of the creek. Right after the fork the arduous climb started. Most of the trail was a dense forest and we could hear the creek down below. As we hiked up, several mountain bikers passed us pedaling their way to the top. Most of the hike up went without many views or interesting things to comment other than some gigantic cedars half way up. As soon as we reached the junction with the Huffman peak trail, views changed dramatically. We came out to the end of a dirt road with open views to the north. Some trees were blocking part of it but Mt St Helens was close enough to almost reach out and touch. To our left, we could see the remnants of the road that was converted to a trail and our destination not too far away. This section was completely exposed so the beating sun didn’t help. We found ourselves dragging our feet as we continued up. In the distance we could clearly see Helens and Rainier and, depending on the angle, part of Mt Adams to the back. Finally the trail made a couple of switchbacks as we were getting closer to a point in the map were the trail makes a hairpin turn. We realized we were going to get some good views from there but we were not ready for them. At the hairpin, some tress were blocking the views but a short path went around to a rock outcrop. The views from that point were just incredible. Right in front of us, down below we could see the Swift Reservoir at the foot of Mt St Helens. Farther in the distance Mt Rainier was also clearly visible and a bit to the right, Mt Adams was peaking over the ridge line.
After numerous pictures taken there, we continued on and took a spur trail to the top of Siouxon Peak. Since the trail had made almost a 360 turn at the hairpin, we were now looking south so the views extended over the Columbia Gorge to Mt Hood. We stopped at the summit to eat lunch while enjoying the views. Once we ate and got fried with the sun, we decided to continue knowing it would be mostly downhill, but before that, we needed to reach the Wildcat trail. To get there we hiked on the ridge line between Huffman Peak and Siouxon Peak which continued to offer some really nice vistas. Then we got to the unction, veered left and started… climbing? Well, it so happens that before going down, you have to go up. It wasn’t a long climb but after reaching Siouxon Peak we were a bit tired. Eventually the downhill arrived and we started quickly going down thru mostly drier forests and very little bushes and undercover. Most of the trail didn’t offer much in terms of views until you get farther down and get the first glimpse, from above, of big water fall as it plummets down into the abys. A couple of switchbacks later you make a last turn and there, right in front of you is the very tall and green Wildcat waterfall.
We stopped there for a while to take pictures and rest as our legs were really sore by then. The last part of the loop was reaching the bottom of Wildcat and taking a connector trail that took us back to camp late in the evening just in time to soak in the creek, have dinner and go to bed.
Day 3: Hike out
The original plan was to pack and hike up the Wildcat trail (the same trail we hiked down the day before), go over Huffman peak and come back down the other side. Distance and elevation was comparable to the 10 miles 3000’ of elevation gain we had done already, but our sore legs said it was going to be too much. Besides that, we didn’t want to get back too late so attempting such a long route around was just not feasible. So instead, we packed our gear and went back to the Chinook Creek to play in the water, build cairns and take pictures. We spent most of the morning doing that before going back to camp where we had a quick bite, grab our gear and hiked back to the trailhead.
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