MY DAY OFF AND MY FIRST REAL HIKE

I’ve been wanting to do the Narmada Falls hike since I first got to Paradise way back in June. You start at the falls and hike to Longmire where the National Park Inn is located. It’s a 4.3 down hill hike. The down hill appealed to me plus you see 3 water falls.

The falls are a stunning cascade of water, the trail has many stone and rock steps, not the easiest for me to handle especially as there are lots of hikers and falls looky-loos from the top to the bottom of Narmada falls

As I proceed on down the trail it became latticed with tree roots, making it difficult for big, clumsy feet but at this point the crowd thinned out, and a quarter mile down the trail I was all alone. Alone enough that I thought I really should have been more specific as to what time I started and what time I expected to return and will do so on future hikes. For the next two miles I only saw 2-3 groups of hikers, visited with a nice group of ladies from Puget Sound and one is now living in Port Orchard where I have been living.

More water falls are down the trail

Crossed a half dozen bridges like this, but this was the only one with a railing

Along the way I came across this old wooden water supply pipe line made of cedar and steel support rings

This was the hard part, rocks, rock and more rocks. I couldn’t even see where the trail was and a kind man offered to lend me a hand getting down the rocks to this narrow bridge with water rushing under it. I crossed the log bridge successfully and had just 1.7 miles to go to Longmire where the National Park Inn is located and where I could catch the employee’s shuttle back to the top of the falls where my car was parked.

After a lovely trout dinner at the 1/2 off employee discount I found I wasn’t going to wait the hour for the shuttle after all, as one of the maintenance crew was headed to Paradise and offered to give me a lift back to my car. All in all a great day off. Signing off KO