Canyon Ridge Trailhead

My daughter recently received a brand new pair of hiking boots from her grandmother, so on September 25^th, 2009 I decided to take her on a hiking adventure. This wasn’t our first hiking expedition. In fact, over the past several months we’ve had numerous outdoor explorations, and this particular outing would be a trial of the new boots. I thumbed through my Whatcom County hiking guide (a Christmas gift from my wife) and, based on a small black and white pic placed amongst the text, I decided on a destination called Canyon Ridge. It looked like it was pretty and we hadn’t been there before. We set out at about 10am (an early start for the two of us).

The road we took initially was route 542.  At around mile marker 32 we took a turn onto a one lane road that wound up the side of a ridge.  We followed this path for about seven miles and enjoyed the sites.  About halfway up we came across a park ranger who was stopped next to a pickup truck.  I thought our journey was over.  I rolled my window down and asked the officer if the road was closed off, but he told me that it wasn’t and that they were just speaking to the hunters about how their day was going.  “Hmm, a hunter area”, I thought to myself.  We continued our drive. Continue reading »