Getting There
The Trail of Two Forests is 28 miles from Woodland to the Cougar.
There are a couple of gas stations here. Continue east on SR-503 which
becomes Rd 90 for 9.5 miles to Ape Cave. Looks for the sign to Ape
Caves, June Lake, Climber's Bivouac, Ape Canyon & Lava Canyon which
is Rd 83. It's 0.3 miles to Trail of Two Forests and 0.7 miles to Ape
Cave.The Marble Mountain parking lot is 4.6 miles north of the ToTF on NF-83.
This was my 2nd mentor session with new MSHI mentors, first for the 83 road. I'd stayed at Cresap Bay and met the mentees at the MSH headquarters in Chelatchie.
We stopped at the Trail of Two Forests, then headed up the Marble Mountain Sno-Park.
The Hike
Distance: 4.45 miles
Elevation Gain: 532 feet
Maximum Elevation: 3,143 feet
On the ToTF part, we met some USFS interns from the north (Randle or Toutle, I can't recall.) We asked them if we could practice visitor interactions with them and they agreed. After ToTF, they were headed to Ape Cave.
I was off to a rough start as a Mentor. Rod did most of the talking with the "visitors" while Paul and Jenny hung back. We didn't stay there for too long since the others seemed to want to get out on the trail.
As I'd done with Christoph, we parked at Marble Mountain and took the Pine Marten trail to the washout then walked the road to the June Lake Trailhead and up to the lake.
At the washout, we noticed a couple of mountain bikers getting ready to ride the road to Lava Canyon. Paul and Jenny hung back, while Rod and I chatted.
We continued to the trail and up to the lake. We stopped there for lunch, then hiked back to the cars. The whole time, I was hanging back with Rod while Paul and Jenny zoomed ahead out of sight, not seeming to want to engage with visitors.
At the washout, we met a car with two women that weren't sure their car could make it through. Jenny disappeared somewhere. Maybe a bio-break but didn't communicate that to the rest of us.
I didn't take any pictures and I almost immediately felt like I wasn't really leading very well and was preoccupied by that.
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| Photo of June Lake from a different day |
Paul and Jenny obviously wanted to hike a long distance and didn't enjoy being "held back" by the slowest in the group. Instead of seeing it as learning opportunity, they were impatient and I was privately annoyed.
When we reached the cars again, Paul and Rod declined my offer to drive us through the wash to take a look at Lava Canyon and the Lahar Viewpoint, both areas that one would rove during a shift.
Jenny
was the only one that wanted to go. We chitchatted a bit and hiked down
the end of the paved part of the Lava Canyon Trail. I'd already called
Columbia and gone "out of service" so we didn't really advertise
ourselves as MSHI volunteers.
