I had read about this hike last year, and we never made it out, so today we went. Monte Cristo is an old abandoned ghost town about two hours (driving, plus a four-mile hike) outside of Seattle in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. It was a mining town, but floods kept taking out the road, so now the forest has taken over again. It's a pretty easy hike, as most of it follows the old road. You do get to cross a river on a giant log, which is kind of exciting, and there are a couple big hills, but there isn't any climbing or long switchbacks like some of the trails out here.
Being in the woods, listening to the river, was wonderful. I forget how much I like the trees until we go to the middle of a forest again. The town itself has an old railroad turntable, a few buildings that were down by the tracks, and pretty much only one building left up in the actual town site—though they've labeled where a lot of the houses used to be. The main street was named Dumas Street, appropriate in a town called Monte Cristo. There are a few other odds and ends strewn about—wheels and tools—but the forest has pretty much taken over once again.
We ate lunch once we got to Monte Cristo, I had a lovely TLT (tempeh, lettuce, tomato), though I probably could have eaten two.
Four miles in and four miles out, and we were ready to come home and eat again.
