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Patterson Mountain Trail.....Winthrop Washington


























As we traveled up the Methow Valley the sky was bright blue with lots of clouds...the closer we got to Winthrop the stormier the weather looked....lots of dark clouds moving around and building up.....we decided as long as it wasn't raining really hard we would go ahead and hike.....The Patterson Mountain Trail starts across the road from the actual lake, nice parking area....climbs just a little ways up the side of the mountain, until you pass through two gates depending on which direction you take.....the trail makes a loop, from there the flower show really started and continued the rest of the trail.....at one point you have to climb up and over a wood ladder secured to a tree to get over a barb wire fence....pretty creative way to pass over the fence...would be very interesting to watch the runners that were going to hit the trail on Sunday complete this section....the Balsam roots, Sunflowers were starting to decline...but still plenty to get good shots of and get your fill of their beautiful yellow blooms....lots of lupine spread out among them, a nice variety of parsley's...and mustard's....the flowers were pretty fantastic and just what I was looking for after 3 hikes that were two early for much in the flower department....the hike is fairly easy.....a few steep inclined switch backs...the views of the Winthrop valley floor are very wide and expansive...nice view of some Mountains likewise....a little on the cloudy side over the mountains....as we reached the top the sky's started to break up and show some blue...it was over all a fantastic little hike...GPS tracked the trail at about 3 miles....we decided to skip the extra section out to the view point....a very pleasant hike...worth doing again for spring flowers and a great view of the valley floor......

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