When we went to Stone Door for our Christmas hike, we decided to go a bit further than the last time we visited.  On our previous trip, we had a second hike scheduled and didn’t have a lot of time to spend at Stone Door.

This time, having no other destination and not having worked up an appetite for lunch yet, we decided to take the steps down through Stone Door to see what it was like from below.

The steps, I’m sure, have been improved since ancient civilizations used them long ago.  The rocks look to have been cut and placed for easier access.  This does not, however, make them an easy descent.  Especially not with two dogs on leashes.  Fortunately for me, Pat took the dogs ahead and carefully made his way down the steps while I took some shots from above.

Twiggy takes the lead down the Stone Door steps

Pat holds on to the Stone Door frame while working his way down with the dogs

The way down was made more treacherous by the water dripping on the rocks.  Slippery in places, steep, and uneven, I had trouble making it safely while protecting my camera from dripping water.  Good thing Pat had the dogs.

At the bottom of the stone steps, I paused to take a shot back up the crevice.  The “pitcher handle” at the top of the steps is a misshapen tree that looks like it might have been one of the forces that originally pried apart the rocks (not really, but its shape is pretty mysterious).

A tree forms a pitcher handle at the top of the Stone Door steps

The stone steps only took us down about 50 feet or so.  The river at the bottom of the valley was still well below and out of sight.  We continued down a bit further, curious to see if we would have a view of the river.

Once through the Stone Door, a big chunk the rock face has slid down the mountain, leaving a flat spot.  The park added wooden stairs for the next section of the descent.

At the bottom of the Stone Door, wooden steps make for easier access

We had a bit of a dog logistics issue at this point.  About half way down the stone steps, Pat had let the dogs off their leashes, feeling it was safer for all.  They decided to go around the wooden stairs and headed off on a rock that came to a dead end over a big drop.  I got a little frantic that they were getting close to the edge and in calling them, caused Tisen to panic and, instead of meeting us at the bottom of the stairs, which would have been easiest, he decided to leap up the 4-foot retaining wall to get back to my side as quickly as possible.  He did a belly flop into the wall on the first attempt.  He made it the second time and showed no signs of injury, so we allowed ourselves to snicker a little.

Tisen flopped into the retaining wall trying to jump back up to get to the top of the steps

We all made it to the bottom of the stairs together safely.  We stood for a few minutes looking back at the rock face we had just come through.  I imagine the stories if it could talk!

Straight, even, and not slippery, the second section of the descent went much more smoothly