Off The Coast of Ballard: July 2017

We were going to get an early start on Friday morning, hit the trailhead and make tracks to Tuck and Robin lakes. But then Leigh’s brother Tom and sister-in-law Nancy said they’d be in town before heading out on an Alaskan cruise. The only available time was Friday morning. We’re flexible! So Leigh put on a breakfast.

The next hurdle was logistics. Tom and Nancy had their two kids along with her parents and a rental SUV loaded to the gills with luggage. The plan after brunch was for them to go to the cruise ship, unload parents, kids and luggage, then for Tom and Daniel, Leigh’s nephew to get the rental car back to the airport and take light rail back to the cruise ship. Leigh and I did some quick, independent math and came to the immediate conclusion there wouldn’t be enough time. So we volunteered to help.

Traffic for all parties was difficult and to make a long story short, we were able to drop Tom and Daniel off at the cruise ship 19 minutes before the gates closed for their one week Alaskan cruise. Whew!!!

Battling more traffic, Leigh and I set out for the Middle Fork trailhead. We started hiking around 5 and about 6 miles later at around 7:15 we found a nice secluded campsite on the river. With no one around we set up the tent, cracked the box of wine and had cocktail hour in our camp chairs right on the river. Quite nice. The mosquitos did their best, but couldn’t penetrate the bug hats.

After discussing options the next morning, we opted to head another 6 or so miles to Goldmyer Hot Springs. Oh was that the right call.

But first we had to get there. We were on the Middle Fork Trail at the junction of the Dingford creek bridge. We had the option of taking a slightly shorter route on a forest service road on the north side of the river or continue on the Middle Fork Trail. Either option would land us at Goldmyer. We opted for the trail. While scenic, there were two somewhat hairy river crossings. One wasn’t that bad, but the final one across Burnboot Creek consisted of a 18 inch or so diameter log across perhaps 20 to 25 feet of fast moving water. The log was 10 to 15 feet in the air. It was daunting. And I didn’t get any pictures!

We were rather relieved at getting across and the thought of documenting it wasn’t first and foremost in the mind. Survival, or at least getting across without incident, was top of mind.

Goldmyer hotsprings has quite a history. Probably best to start off with William Goldmyer. Restless guy.

Born in Virginia, but headed out to California when he was 18. After a year, he set out and walked up the coast, through Oregon and arrived in Seattle. In his mid 20’s, he became the first settler of Sand Point, what is now a neighborhood in Seattle bordering on Lake Washington. He logged, then mined and had several mining claims. One of them became Goldmyer hotsprings. He did get married and one of the witnesses to the marriage was Ira Woodin. Founder of Woodinville.

William had a vision of a resort and called it ‘Crystal Hot Springs Resort’. He erected some tents, but sold the property in the early 1920’s. By the end of the ‘20’s, Bill Morrow purchased the property with grand visions. Large hotel, bath houses, swimming pool and tennis courts were in the plan.

Over the years he worked on the property, building a rustic lodge and tent platforms to serve his guests. Through the 30’s he worked on the property, but WWII put an end to the dream as resources were diverted to the war effort.

By the 60’s the property was run down and during the 60’s and 70’s the hotsprings became a place to party. Vandalism and carelessness further degraded the property and in the mid 70’s the property was pretty much trashed. All this time the Morrow family retained ownership of the property and in ’76 Veida Morrow, a woman with a vision, donated the property to a non profit she and other family members formed. Northwest Wilderness Programs.

The mission was to revert the property to a pristine destination and volunteers set to work to do just that. Broken glass was cleaned up and restoration efforts were taken to bring back the beauty of the area.

When we visited we were greeted by an enthusiastic caretaker and we took advantage of the ‘senior discount’. She set us up with a nice campsite. Only 20 people are allowed on the property at any one time and each campsite is fairly private.

The hot springs themselves are a 10 to 15 minute hike up the hill. The main pool is in a cave, some 20-25 feet deep into the mountain with a nice pool reaching about 106 degrees. The water cascades into two other pools and there’s a cold plunge pool as well. Very civilized.

Several Old Growth Trees still grow on the Goldmyer property

My artistic shot. Foxglove on the Middlefork.

For this weekend, our track is in black. Starting at the Middle Fork trail head we headed up the Middle fork trail camping Friday night just shy of the bridge near Dingford Creek. We then continued up the Middle Fork Trail (note - do so only if you are comfortable with crossing large creeks on narrow logs) to get to Goldmyer. On the way back we took the forest service road back to Dingford Creek then crossed the bridge and retraced our steps back on the Middle Fork Trail.

The route in Red was our Otter Falls trip a couple of weeks ago. The route in Blue is earmarked for some future trip.