Gales Creek

I enjoy hiking in the Coastal Mountains. The verdant rainforest with its abundant ferns, creeks, and large trees are always a welcome sight. I parked at the Gales Creek Campground on a cool early spring morning. The trailhead was empty of other hikers. Amazingly enough, I wouldn’t see another person for the next 4 1/2 hours.

The steep trail began along Gales Creek for about a mile before turning onto the Storey Burn Trail. If I had kept going on the Gales Creek Trail, I would have gone over Bell Camp Road to Reehers Camp. I described hiking the other direction on Gales Creek Trail in a previous post: A Late Winter Hike to the Summit of the Coastal Mountains.

Summit of Coastal Mountains

As the Trail began gaining elevation, it passed Slide Falls and many small tributary creeks. Spring wildflowers were poking out everywhere, including trilliums, wood sorrel, toothwort, skunk cabbage and many more.

After crossing the Storey Burn Road, the trail descended on the west slopes of the Coastal Mountains to a path underneath Highway 6 near the Devil Fork of the Wilson River. Turning east, I began the ascent on a nice hiking trail to Roger’s Pass, my second crossing of the day over the crest of the Coastal Mountains. From there, it was a two-mile jaunt downhill on a well-maintained trail through second-growth forest to my car.

It was a good way to gain some well-needed solitude and see many sword ferns, alders, maples, Douglas firs, a few hemlocks, and pine trees, and, of course, wildflowers.