Author: DJHikers

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.

Track below.

Track

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.

Track below.

Track

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.

Track below.

Track

Looking North

Last Sunday I did a WTA Trail Ambassador tabling event at the Evergreen State Fair in Monroe, WA. My table partner was Richard Mellon. Richard is a great guy. He lives north and west of us in Anacortes, WA. Anacortes is in the NW corner of the state, on the water, served by various ferries.

Richard’s descriptions of the town and a park near the town called Sharpe Park caught my interest and today Jan and I headed there to check it out. We loved it.

Sharpe Park has a nice network of trails. I am sure you could stitch together a longish route but Jan is not a big hiker so we just took the Sares Head Trail to the Overlook, about 1.8 miles round-trip. The trail goes through very beautiful second growth forest with quite a number of sights along the way – a pond, huge boulders, etc.

The view from the overlook is spectacular, if you like views from high cliffs overlooking islands and a large body of water. It didn’t hurt that the weather today was perfect, about 75 degrees and quite sunny.

The city of Anacortes is much bigger than we thought it would be. We walked around, had lunch, browsed in some shops. There is a Saturday Farmer’s Market but it closes at two, and that’s about the time we finished lunch. We will be back and will make sure we have more time to explore this great waterfront city.

Here is the view looking south:

South

Heart Attack Hill

I hiked today on the Tolt Pipeline Trail. I have done this one a number of times but I stopped last year because of heavy road construction nearby that made access annoying. I tried again today and the road was all clear.

This is a nice one. From a workout standpoint, it is a bit more vigorous than my standard Section Line hike. On that one, when I count right foot steps (about 1,200 to a mile for me) there are 1,450 uphill steps. I counted today on the Pipeline Trail and there were a total of 1,750. The Pipeline Trail is very different in a lot of ways, and with respect to the uphill this trail is very hilly, lots of ups and downs. The downs on the way out are ups on the way back and so on.

As much as I love the mountains, every time I put gas in the car I am unhappy about ten gallons costing about 50 bucks. So I keep hiking locally. Perhaps tomorrow I will get out to a mountain.

The Pipeline Trail – at least, the portion I hike – goes through a horsey neighborhood of quite prosperous looking houses with plenty of horses:

Mister Ed?

One house has bee hives in the backyard:

Bee-Loud Glade

Anyway, it was about 7 miles and a good workout on a beautiful almost-fall day.

Looking North

I finally got out to the mountains. I parked along the side of Homestead Valley Road and hiked up the service road to an unofficial trail that took me up to the PTC. From there I went to the Mine Creek Trestle, turned around and went back to the car via the service road.

A bit less than 4 miles, not all that strenuous but it is a start. I absolutely have to get back to doing difficult hikes and today was a decent starting point.

Here is the view, looking west at Change Peak, from the Garcia/PTC intersection:

Change Peak

Track