Rattlesnake Mountain
I have been hiking locally at places like Norway Hill and St. Edward State Park and not blogging about it. But today I took the bike out to the Palouse-to-Cascades Trail for a bike ride. I went east (slightly uphill) and then back west a total of about 8.5 miles. It was fun and longer than my last ride.
Here is a photo of where I turned around:
Turnaround Point
And here is the track:
Track
Looking North
I got a decent hike in today but it was a strange day for traveling.
My plan was to drive to Carnation and explore the Tolt-McDonald Park. Jan and I were there once, and I was there alone one time, but there are a lot of trails, including some steep ones, and I wanted to check it out in more detail. En route to Carnation, via the Woodinville-Duvall Road, I encountered a totally closed down stretch of the road.
I backtracked and took what I thought would be a decent detour. Alas, this road was also blocked a few miles down. I went farther north, to Avondale, and took that to SR202 and took that to Fall City, and then headed toward the freeway. I stopped for coffee at the coffee shop just off Exit 22 and the barista asked me if I was going west and, if so, good luck, construction. Freeway backed up for miles.
I decided to head east, to Exit 38, to check out the route from the Homestead Valley Parking lot to Deception Crags, a popular rock climbing area with a Porto-San and a picnic table, where I am planning to travel with Jan at midnight on 8/13 to view the Perseids meteor shower.
I went past the picnic table to the Change Creek Trail, just past the large blowdown at about 6 mile up the trail:
Blowdown
I got past if but due to the amazing road adventures I heaeded back down. Too bad; the blowdown can be skirted and it would be nice to travel farther.
On the way back I exited at Exit 22, just as the freeway clogging began. The freeway is down to one lane from Exit 20 to about Exit 11 (roughly) and was backed up two miles east of that. Yikes!
I went back on SR202, to 520, to the 405 freeway and back home. I will not be traveling in that direction again any time soon. Too bad, as that is where most of my hikes are.
Bummer! I will have to head north, I guess, In fact, I might go back to Cascade Pass on Thursday.
The Eponymous Bus
Just another conditioning hike on the Section Line Trail. I will get out again tomorrow, not sure where.
View from the Boat
On Friday Jan and I drove all the way up to Diablo Lake to do the boat tour and lunch I booked for us a few months ago. It was a great outing. It is a 2.5 hour drive but a nice drive, with much of it through forest and in view of towering, snow-capped peaks.
Diablo Lake is almost teal colored thanks (we learned) to various minerals carried into the water as glaciers on the surrounding peaks melt and run down into the lake. The entire area is stunning.
The Boat
On the way back we stopped at the North Cascades National Park Visitor Center and I got a mug, a couple of postcards, and a T-shirt. This place is so outstanding.
Jan had a great time and the lunch afterward was tasty – salad, soup, and bread, all from local ingredients, expertly prepared. I give this boat tour 5 stars out of 5.
Ross Dam
View from the Trail
I did a little jaunt today on Squak Mountain, heading up the East Side Trail about a mile and then went down through the Sycamore neighborhood. I love some of the houses there. One of them had a nice collection of Morning Glories:
Morning Glories
Just under 4 miles, I plan to do Poo Poo Point tomorrow. Will I do it or wimp out?
Track below.
Track
Round Lake
I did my old favorite conditioning hike today, following my trip to the grocery store with Brittany and Dean. No big deal on the hike but it is nice to get out.
I need to get back in shape.
Rattlesnake Mountain
I got out today, hiking from the Cedar Falls lot down the PTC to the Cedar Butte Trail, across the Southside/Westside trails, down Olallie to the PTC, and then to the Christmas Lake Trail. I parked in the pull-out before the official lots and so when I finished the Christmas Lake Trail I was almost back at the car.
There was a bit of rain but I was in the forest and only felt a few drops. It stopped by the time I got down to the relatively open PTC. It was all good.
Abut 6.2 miles altogether, a nice outing.
Track below.
Track
Russian Butte from Pratt Balcony
I did a little 3-miler today to Pratt Balcony. Nice view, not a tough hike.
On the Balcony
I am thinking of getting out tomorrow to try for Truck Summit and that is a stout hike.
Beautiful summer weather.
Track
Neighbor
My niece Jaclyn is in town from Idaho for our grandson Dean’s 1st birthday party. That was yesterday, 6/24, and it was fun.
Jaclyn and I had planned to hike in Olympic National Park to Pyramid Peak. We wanted to take the 5:30 (first) ferry across the Sound to Kingston and drive from there. But when we pulled up to the ferry waiting area it was dark. A quick search on the phone revealed the first two ferries had been cancelled and the first one was scheduled for 7:13. Doh!
We quickly came up with a new plan – Jaclyn wants to visit as many National Parks as possible and North Cascades National Park is on her to-do list so I headed to I-5 and went north while Jaclyn started researching hikes in that park. She came up with the famous hike Cascade Pass. She had read that the last 3.1 miles of forest road to the trail head was closed so we were prepared to do a road walk.
Little did we know that those 3.1 miles are uphill all the way. By the time we got to the trail head I was bushed. I handed off the bear spray and Garmin to Jaclyn and told her to head up. I was going to just hang out in the parking lot. And the views there are amazing:
Ho-Hum
But after about 30 minutes I felt fully recovered so headed up the trail because I could not help but run into Jaclyn on the way down. And indeed, about 2 miles up the trail there she was, on her way down, having hiked up to almost the end of this section of trail.
I wound up doing just over 10 miles and she did about 12.5 miles. The track below represents her progress – great job to Jaclyn!
On the way up, while we were driving to where we could park we encountered an enormous black bear:
Yogi?
Glad we didn’t run into that guy on foot.
Track below.
Track
Stegosaurus Butte
I have been doing regular local hikes but not putting them in the blog because – bleh – good workouts but not photogenic at all.
Today I had to drive to the Middle Fork because I was scheduled to volunteer for the Washington Trails Association at an outreach event. Tomorrow, 6/24, is officially Washington Trails Day, and WTA has tables at a number of trailheads 6/23 and 6/24 to talk to hikers about getting on our Trail Action Network mailing list and, in general, talk about trails and hiking.
The event was scheduled to start at noon but I got there about 8:30 because I wanted to hike. I parked at the Middle Fork lot and cruised up the connector trail. I was going to do Garfield Ledges. But doh! I got across the Taylor River bridge and realized I had forgotten my pass so I turned around and went back and put the pass on my dashboard.
Then, having lost that time I crossed the Gateway Bridge, which spans the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River, right near the junction with the Taylor River, turned left and wandered down the Middle Fork Trail for a couple of miles, turned around, and headed back. I waited near where I thought we were going to put up the table for the others to show up. Here is our table and my co-volunteers:
WTA Table
Note how empty it is. I doubt we talked with more than a dozen people for the three hours we were there. We were supposed to be there for four hours but we bagged it after three because of how slow it was.
But the area is beautiful:
River Deep, Mountain High
And I have no regrets about a mostly fun day.