CHS 1 Hike - West Fork Teanaway, Cheese Rock & Bible Rock

Lots of different wildflowers and song birds. Cool geology just 2 hours from Seattle. Descending from Cheese Rock, we took a steep and not-well-traveled trail off the southeast side. Good wayfinding skills are needed for this route in which the trail frequently disappears and requires a couple places of scraping through tall shrubs. But was a great place for finding wildflowers and spotting/hearing warblers of many types. Likely, the brush is a deterrent to mountain bikers. The cloud ceiling was just lowering as we arrived at Cheese Rock. By the time we got to Bible Rock, clouds obscured the distant peaks. On a clear day, it would be quite a view (I took a picture, anyway). From the top of Bible Rock we went a short way south for a peek over the sandstone lip to appreciate the back side of massive Bible Rock and the deep undercut in this sandstone. On the map, it appears another 0.5 miles to continue down the slope and make a U-turn to walk back under the overhang to view the undercut area ... but our group was not prepared for the additional descent/ascent and added mileage ... but worth including in the plan for a future trip.

Mosquitoes were only an annoyance when we were near a water source. We encountered no ORV or any other people on the Thursday trip. The vault toilet at the trailhead is clean and plenty of toilet paper. Like the posted signs say, don't park on top of the turnaround area. An after-hike stop at Twin Pines drive-in on Hwy 970 for a milkshake is a must-do! (Picture: view from Bible Rock of Teanaway R valley and Stuart Range ... obviously, better when it's not cloudy)