Hiking in the Puget Sound

Christmas Lake

After more than a month of staying away from the mountains and treating my (apparentlly) stress-fractured right foot with anti-inflammatory gel and ice and a compression brace I couldn’t take it anymore and I drove to the Cedar Falls parking lot and did the Christmas Lake hike.

What I did today is just a bit more strenuous than what I have been doing on my neighborhood walks but here is the difference:

Christmas Lake from the North

Rattlesnake Lake (still very low water level)

Anyway, tomorrow is also supposed to be nice and if my foot continues to fell not-so-bad, I will get out again somewhere.

View from the Upper Ledge

After a week of nursing and icing and semi-resting my right foot I ventured out to the Middle Fork to Garfield Ledges. It was a beautiful day with a great view and, to my great relief, my foot was just fine. I think it is a type of tendinitis so (I hope) if I continue to treat it with respect I will soon be able to go anywhere, and not jut on a 3.22 mile hike like today.

View Along the Trail

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Rattlesnake Mountain

I got out today and went up the Cedar Butte Trail to Saddle Junction and headed SE down the Southside Trail. I took that to Olallie Trail and headed back down to the PTC Trail and back to the car. About 6 miles. A good hike but for one thing: shortly after heading down the Olallie Trail my right foot started to hurt.

I wound up limping back the 3 miles to the car. Ouch. It has been hard to walk ever since, but I am hopeful that Ibuprofen and ice and elevating the leg will help. I do NOT want to deal with an injury at any time but particularly not when I have been able to get out on the mountain trails again.

Mossy Trees

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Snoqualmie Point

The stars finally aligned for me to do another hike. I was sick (mild but seemingly unending cold) for six or seven weeks and the weather has been nasty. But today was wonderful, no rain, in the 50’s.

The bad news is that, while I have been going to the gym and going for walks, that is not the same as hiking. So I scaled back my relatively ambitious plans and settled for going up the Rattlesnake Mountain Trail about a mile, then back down, navigating the Snoqulamie Point park heading back to the car. I went down to the stage and walked up (see photo below, view looking up from the stage) so that was a little bit of an extra workout.

Looking Up

I hope to be getting back fairly soon and ramping up the efforts.

Christmas Lake

Jan and I got out today to Christmas Lake, which is just east of Rattlesnake Lake. It was only about 2.3 miles or so, and fairly moderate in elevation, but it was a nice day and Jan is just getting started hiking.

I am going out somewhere tomorrow, perhaps to Twin Falls, this time to go all the way to the top (the Palouse-to-Cascades Trail).

I hope to get out on the snowshoe trails in the near future; the mountains are already crowned with white.

Stan’s Overlook

I got out today to Rattlesnake Mountain, doing the Stan’s Overlook hike up and down. I sure have missed the mountains.

Now that Jan is retired we have been doing some little local hikes – Meadowdale Beach Park yesterday, a nice place – but a good workout in the mountains is the best.

The Trail

Derek, Cam, Jill at the Balcony

Yesterday was my birthday and in the morning I did a nice little hike – Pratt Balcony – with Derek, Jill and Camden. Fun! And they loved the hike, it is a little challenging but not long and with a huge payoff: the view is terrific.

Cam came home with me and stayed the night. We had dinner with Brittany, Christopher and Dean. A nice birthday.

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Garfield Mountain

Jan and I went to the Middle Fork today and hiked a bit on the Quartz Creek Trail. Sadly, the Popeye’s chicken restaurant near the freeway exit is closed for what appears to be remodeling. Bummer, I love those sandwiches.

We did 2.69 miles, not bad. Jan is getting more and more exercise on the trails, by the summer she will be challenging the mountain goats.

The mountains and forests:

Forest Heaven

in this area are so beautiful. It is the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest and where we were closely borders the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. Great stuff.

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Forest

I have been doing local hikes like Tolt Pipeline, Norway Hill, etc. and have not blogged about them. High gas prices have kept me closer to home.

But Jan is now retired and we have been going for walks together. Yesterday, we did a hike. Our plan was to hike to the Twin Falls bridge, above one waterfall and below another, but Jan is not used to hiking on a hilly, rocky trail so we turned around a bit short of the bridge. But Jan did a great job, we will be doing some hikes that are a bit less hilly.

It was a cold but beautiful day:

South Fork Snoqualmie River

I hope this inspires me to go back to the mountains and forests I love so much.

Cedar Butte Looking North

I got out today to Cedar Butte. Not the longest or most strenuous hike in the world but it was great getting into the mountains again. About 4 miles, no big deal but I do love the forest and the mountains.

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