I hiked the Teneriffe Talus Loop today. I am constantly amazed by how many trails there are so close to residential areas in the state of Washington and how accessible they are.
Ollie obviously gave me company on this trail. He is a fantastic hiking buddy. The only wrinkle is that he takes his job a little too seriously and will growl at people on the trail. Just to put things in perspective he saved me from 1 chipmunk today.
I would rate this as a moderate trail. There are large parts of the trail that are flat, and even where there is an incline it is pretty gradual. There are sections of the trail that I would say are steep and got my heart rate up in the 160-180 range The trail is lovely, most of it is shaded, and some parts are definitely overgrown, but not in a way that it is impassable. We passed about 5 streams, some of them were dry and some still had running water. There are trees on both sides for most parts of the trail, so you don’t have a breathtaking view. The final viewpoint is nice, you can see the valley below and all the mountains. You pretty much are hiking through a forest the entire time.
Crowds: We got here at 8:30am on a Saturday and there were 10 cars in the parking lot but lots of places to park. When may have seen a total of 15 people in the entire duration we were there. I felt like we had the entire place to ourselves.
Dog Friendly: We did not see other dogs on the trail, it is a pretty good walk for the dog, enough to get him tired and sleepy for the rest of the day.
The trail took us roughly 3 hours to get done and was totally worth it. I am hoping we can come back soon.
PS: Here is the GPS Recording of the trail. Should give folks a good breakdown of how the hike went down.
