Читать книгу Afoot and Afield: Portland/Vancouver. A Comprehensive Hiking Guide онлайн

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You begin by a sign saying that Hidden Falls is 4.75 miles away. Walk through a pleasantly rustic picnic area, and then turn right at an unsigned junction. Soon thereafter you come to a second junction—this one with the Tarbell Trail, which is heavily used by horses. The sign here says that Hidden Falls is now 5.8 miles away. Apparently the falls is not only hidden, it is also a moving target! Actually neither sign is correct. Hidden Falls is actually 4.9 miles away.

Turn left onto the Tarbell Trail, which wanders gradually uphill in a typical, second-growth, Douglas-fir forest. With just over a century of growth since the 1902 Yacolt Burn, most of the trees are little more than 1 foot thick, but a few are as much as 3 feet thick and nearly 100 feet tall. Vegetation covers almost every square inch of the forest floor, especially Oregon grape, oxalis, thimbleberry, salal, false lily-of-the-valley, and sword and bracken fern. There are also lots of vine maples, whose leaves turn scarlet and orange in late October.