Day 27 (June 1, 2010)– Sliver Falls and Grove of the Patriarch

     After much debate with myself and a ranger’s recommendations, I decided to hike two trails, Silver Falls and Grove of the Patriarchs. They are connected by a 1 mile long trail so I was going to combine them into one hike, however on my way out to the trailhead I got a little distracted. I got about 2 minutes down the road from Paradise when I spotted a fox lying on top of an embankment by the road. I figured I would take a few minutes and take some pictures. I ended up spending an hour and a half watching this fox. Ok so most of you are saying it’s just a fox. You were right until I noticed something pocking its head out from a small crevice at the base of the embankment. This changed the course of my day.

     Yes, that is a kit (baby fox). This is the reason I got distracted. The kit kept sticking his head out of the hole like he was going to come out, so I decided to wait for him to come out. As I was being quite and waiting for him to come out, I was keeping an eye on the mom. Out of the cornor of my eye, I see mom get pounced by this black thing. It was a second kit. The first one still hadn’t come out of his hole, so I was watching the kit run around. Then all of a sudden a the second kit is tackled by a third. This sight kept getting better. As the second and third kits were playing, I noticed a fourth kit watching. I continued to watch and was thinking, this is a lucky sight and since I know where the den is, I can easily come back. About this time the first kit, decides to join the other three. They four of them start running around and playing. I couldn’t believe it, I just started holding the button down on the camera to get as many pictures as possible of them.

     After an hour and half of watching them, the mom decided that I much have some food and decided to approach me. At this point I left. From there I drove out to my trailhead on the eastern side of the park.

     I started on the Silver Falls Trail. The trail first goes past a hot spring. From there the trail follows a large creek or small river. After about a mile, Silver Falls appeared. Silver Falls gets its name from the color of the water. The falls is fed by an active glacier so the water is white in color.

     It was getting late in the day so I decided to hike straight back to my car rather than hiking the additional 3 miles to the Grove of the Patriarchs. After I made it to my car, I drove to the Grove of the Patriarchs. I know this is cheating but it was getting late and I didn’t want to be hiking at dusk in cougar country alone.

     When I got to the Grove of the Patriarchs, I decided that I would hike the 1.1 mile loop. The loop follows a crystal clear stream. This spring is feed by an inactive glacier so it doesn’t have the white material that other streams are plagued with. After a short walk, the trail crosses a suspension bridge to a large island.

After the bridge, I entered the Grove of the Patriarchs. Grove of the Patriarchs is a stand of tree that is over 1000 years old. These trees were over 150 feet tall and an diameter of 5 feet. It was very impressive.

On my way back, I ran into some of the other employees from Singapore. They were amazed I was hiking by myself, but I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. We talked for a bit and then I went back to my car and headed back to Paradise.