Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Mallardy Road






When I go hiking, I want to get away from roads, park the car at the trailhead and get out on my own two feet. So why am I writing about a road?
First, because Mallardy Road is beautiful, and second, because flood damage has made the road impassable to cars after 1.2 miles, it is a defacto trail. During summer you'll find very few cars on the road, since they can no longer reach the Mallardy Ridge trailhead 7 miles from the Stillaguamish River. It's an easy walk that is lined with salmonberries through second growth timber, passing a quiet pond and crossing Mallardy Creek at the start (its confluence with the South Fork Stilly) and 2 1/2 miles later on a bridge slated for repair in the fall of 2009.
During winter it takes on a whole new character. Cars can go no farther than the Mountain Loop highway, and if you procede on skis or snowshoes you soon enter a realm of peace and quiet, the only sounds are those of birds and the gentle murmur of the creek. Forest Service roads, dusty and noisy in summer, become still and wonderous in winter. The wide lanes and gentle grades make for excellent snowshoe trails, and their are so many miles of them that solitude is almost guaranteed, except in those places where snowmobiles and their infernal combustion engines shatter the peace so that fat, lazy people can sit on their asses while leaving a trail of smoke and decibels in their wake.
The hike up Mallardy Road is only limited by the time and energy you want to commit. For a short day hike, the bridge over the creek is a good turn around point. If you want to stay for a day or two, you can hike the 7 miles to the trailhead and then go for another 7 to 10 miles to the ridge itself, although you can expect to have to negotiate numerous blowdowns along the trail, which hasn't seen maintenance for a couple years. The payoff for all that work is the expectation of a solitude more complete than almost any other trail in Western washington.

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