Hills, Trails & Terrain

The weather has been turning crispy over the last week of September. Saturday I realized that I haven't ridden the Interurban Trail yet this summer and might not get another chance before the rains start. In the past I've ridden the whole way starting from Ferndale, making about a 50-60 mile round-trip, but this year my energy level hasn't been up to such a long ride. Instead, I took my bike by car to start from Fairhaven Park, riding only about 16 miles, including a detour into Fairhaven for an affogato to revive me at the finish.

The trail was pretty as ever, the shaded parts cool enough for long sleeves even in the afternoon. At a couple of road crossings there are gulleys that would have had trestle bridges back when the trains were running, but now there are just steep down- and up-hills with a lot of loose gravel. In previous years I've ridden down (and even up once or twice) on skinny tires or on thicker knobby tires, but this time my front wheel slithered around so much that after one try I walked my bike on the steep parts. Not sure whether it was from nerves or poor condition - but the uphill pushes were a good workout for the ol' posterior chain. 

This sign board map is probably out-dated now

Halfway out I stopped at the Fragrance Lake Trailhead lot, thinking I might try riding up the trail for a change, but only about two turns up the hill the upgrade and loose gravel got to be too much for me and I turned down. Instead I went back to Chuckanut Drive, and rode as far as that one viewpoint with the big tree in the middle, where I took in the view of the bay before heading back to town.

When I rode up Lemonade Hill, the last climb on Chuckanut Drive before getting back to Fairhaven, the slope seemed much easier than before, but realistically that's probably because I've usually ridden it at the end of a much longer ride.

On Wednesday when the weather was turning cool and a little cloudy, I went back for another last-chance day trip, to walk the Fragrance Lake Trail that I couldn't ride up. For most of the way the trail is a wide dirt and gravel road, steep enough to make me breathe hard at first when walking briskly, but I huffed and puffed until my metabolism got revved up.

For any mountain bikers reading this: Near the start of the trail is a sign where the Double Down mountain bike trail ends, warning hikers not to go up that way because of the chance of meeting fast-moving (out of control) bikers coming down. The foot trail curves around for about a mile and half, until you come to the top of the mountain bike trail, which drops down very suddenly off the main road. Farther up the hill is another mountain bike trail called the Double Black Diamond; I didn't go that way, either.

Bottom of the mountain bike trail

Top of the trail

About halfway up a small landslide has taken out about half the roadway, enough that trail crews couldn't get their trucks past, but it was easy and safe to walk by and continue up to the lake.

Fragrance Lake is really a pond, only about three quarters of a mile around, but it is clear, cool and pretty, with impressive rock formations along side the trail, mostly weathered sandstone that can be crumbled with the fingers. In a few places there are small footbridges over dry creeks that must have been gully-washers feeding the lake during the rainy season.

A few couples sat here and there at the water's edge but I enjoyed quiet and solitude, listening to birds and wind, and once to some sort of purring or growling and chuffing from back in the brush beside the trail - a mountain lion maybe? We gave each other our space. It began to rain lightly as I walked around the lake, but the leaf cover overhead was still dense enough to keep the rain off.

Fragrance Lake

As I walked around the lake at the top of the trail, several times I heard jet airplanes crossing over the bay, and once a helicopter passed by behind a hilltop ridge, probably from the air force base at Whidbey Island. I had a passing thought that maybe they were scrambling for Iran or Ukraine, but some more deep breathing and listening cleared my mind.

dry waterfall by the trail