Ticked off on the Lyle Cherry Orchard Trail 2010-04-24

[JayThompson]

I drove down to the Gorge last Saturday to get a bunch of hikes in that I had not done. Originally a trip that I was sponsoring for my hiking club but turned into a solo trip when no one showed any interest in driving to the Gorge from the Kitsap Peninsula. When I arrived at the Gorge I intended on staying at a campground in Lyle Washington named the Wishbone Campground. Unfortunately when I arrived, the campground was still closed for the season. Why the campground has no web page or a message on their answering machine saying they are still closed for the season is beyond me, but its really my fault for not planning better. Since my campground was closed, I figured I would head out for my first hike and find a place to stay later. I went to the Cherry Orchard Trail at Lyle.
http://www.portlandhikersfieldguide.org/wiki/Lyle_Cherry_Orchard_Trailhead
The hike up was uneventful and very beautiful. Lots of Lupines and Balsamroot in bloom. I heard the ticks this year were pretty bad and I had my eye out for them on this trip. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Almost every step I took I could see ticks (or I imagined I saw ticks) hanging from the grass and flowers that were hanging over the trail. Very hard not to brush up against the little boogers. Gives me the creeps just thinking about them. I managed to get a couple shots of them using a macro filter (too cheap for a macro lens yet) that I think came out OK.

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I hiked up to the top of the plateau and followed the trail through a neat section of oaks praying the ticks wouldn't rain down on me from the branches above and I soon came to an intersection. Not knowing which way to go I took a right and after an 8th of a mile or so I came to the orchard. Not much left of the orchard I'm afraid and I didn't get many pictures of the remaining trees there. I did try to get some panoramas of the view from the Orchard which turned out OK I guess.
At this point I turned around and headed back down. On the way down I saw some of those neat little blue butterflies or moths that hang out around mud puddles and tried to get a good shot of them. I also saw another butterfly at the trailhead when I was done with this hike. After this hike I drove to another trail called the Weldon Wagon Trail near Husum Washington. (http://www.pwckitsap.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=134)


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