Length: 2.75 miles
Elevation Gain: 10 feet, so practically none

I don’t know what I was expecting when I visited the Mima Mounds after hanging out at the Billy Frank Nisqually Wildlife Refuge (it’s only a 30-minute drive from one to the other), and maybe something is just deeply wrong with me, but I found the mounds completely underwhelming. Perhaps if I had come when the wildflower show was still going strong, my opinion would be different. But I came in late July when all the color was gone from the mounds, aside from the endless sandy gold of the grass.

The mounds are also next to a shooting range, or at least so close to one that during the entire time I was there, I could hear endless BLAM!BLAM!BLAM! even when I rambled to the far end of the trail. It certainly didn’t add to the experience, that’s for sure.

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Length: 2.6 miles
Elevation Gain: 850 feet

I did this hike on a whim. At approximately noon yesterday, I realized that the weather forecast for the rest of the week, the entire weekend, and most of next week would be rain, rain, and more rain. So much rain we all might grow gills, I mean, it’s anyone’s call at this point.

I was seized by a sudden need to get one more outdoor jaunt in while the weather permitted, so after work, I ran home, threw my hiking pack together (water, flashlight, sweater, 75 cameras — you know, the usual), and drove through rush hour traffic to get to the trailhead for the Heybrook Lookout. Thank goodness for late summer sunsets.

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