Halloween

Had a great Halloween. The pics can be found here. Link

The plan was a core group would be "Faces of Ferrell". The idea being that we would all show up as a Will Ferrell character.

Great day of fishing this saturday

Dan and I got in a great fishing trip up to Rachael lake this saturday. The hike in is a pretty good push with the first 3 miles being pretty flat but the last mile going straight up.

It was a beautiful fall day with all of the leaves changing on the way up. The fall out here is very different from the color I am use to in NC. There were also not people from Florida parked all over the place so that was a change from NC as well. Instead of having everything changing there were just patches all over the mountains and around the scree fields that were bright red and orange.

We got started a little late as usual but by the time we made it up to the lake the sky was perfectly clear and the wind was setting in across the lake for the day.

Since I have yet to catch a fish in Washington and was beginning to believe that they did not really exist up here I did not have high hopes for the lake. About 10 minutes into fishing I hooked my fist trout, Dan got the next one and I caught 2 more after that. All in all we probably only fished for about an hour but it was great.

We kept the last two fish we caught for a little lunch before we headed back.

 

We packed up all of our gear and headed up into the woods to build a kitchen. I got some water boiling for the red beans and rice dan brought and he got started on a fire for us to cook the fish over. Neither of us had any idea how we were going to cook these fish over the fire but we improvised and ran sticks down through them and then suspended them over the fire. In the end our system worked great and we both agreed that it just does not get any better than hanging out at an alpine lake away from everything eating fish that you just pulled out of the lake.

It was hard to head out for the day but the sun was starting to dip as we hiked away from the lake. A few hours later after walking 45 minutes in the dark we got back to the car with stomachs still full and headed back into Seattle smiling.

I am hoping for a repeat next weekend.

Mount Saint Helens

Link to all the pics: Here

Ok, so all those other hikes we did were not nearly as cool as this!! I will not write too much about this one since the pics say it all but Dan, Laura, Natalie and I headed up to the mountain Saturday morning and started the hike up the mountain at 6:15 Sunday... wow, that was an early start. With all of our stops it was about an 8 hour round trip hike. I have never hiked anywhere like this before.

It was great getting out with good friends and seeing an amazing new landscape. Worth every step!!

WOW what a hike!!

Summary: Dayhike where I said "wow" a million times
Link to all of the Pics: Here
So I thought last weeks hike was cool but Natalie and I got out this Sunday and did a hike that blew it away!!

We started off the day by getting up at 6:45 and going down to the Iron Girl 10k at Greenlake that Natalie ran. It was a very cool event with 2700 women running. I had been planning to go for a day hike after watching her race but when she finished she said she still had enough energy to make the hike, Iron Girl that she is.

So we headed up to the cascades with a rough plan of what to hike. We had actually tried this trail earlier in the year but turned around when it got to be late afternoon and the only people we saw going up had ice axes.

We started out at 2200 feet and headed up Hibox Canyon. After about 2-3 miles of pretty flat walking we started heading up. The first stop was at a really pretty alpine lake. From there we headed up the trail to see what was up there, still not too much of a plan in mind. As soon as we started climbing I got the bug to take the trail up to the top of Alta mountain (6400 feet). We checked out the ridge line and it looked pretty do-able. The Marmots and Pika's again whisteled us on. Natalie was still feeling pretty good so we kept going. As we climbed the scenery kept getting better and better. After many many false summit we hit the top. What a view!! From the top we could see Mt Rainier, Mt Hood, and Mt Saint Helens, along with all of the other cascades peaks surrounding us. After hanging out at the summit a little too long and saying wow about 1000 more times we decided we should head down.

In the end it turns out we did wait around at the top too long. The last hour we hiked in the dark with my headlight and finially hit the car at 9:00pm. It was a long day and we were wiped out but it was worth every step... I can't wait to go back and explore some of the other surrounding peaks.

Next week we are off to hike Mt Saint Helens.... Should be another great set of pics for that one. We are crossing our fingers on the weather.

Lundin Peak Attempt

Summary: Attempt to climb Lundin Peak in the Cascades
Link to all the pictures: Click Here

Got out for a great day hike last weekend. The plan was to try to get up to Lundin Peak which is about an hour outside Seattle. We hiked along the PCT for 4 miles or so before turning off onto an unnamed trail that would take us up to the tree line and then leave us to wander. I really wanted to get to the top of the peak but after getting up there decided it was no too smart to attempt without a rope and more daylight. It was a great hike and the views were fantastic.


We managed to get up to the false summit but that was our stopping spot for the day. The plan is to go back with proper gear and get up to the top.

It was nice to get out of the city and into the silence. The only thing we could hear was the wind, marmots whisteling to each other, and the pika's squeaking away in the scree fields. I was pretty dissapointed on the way up that I did not get to see any Pikas but on the way down a few popped out to squeak at me.



Just for fun here is a link to the sound of a pika --> Here

And a Marmot --> Here

Well that is it for now. It is a nice sunny day so I am off to sit by the lake, read, and plan a hike for tomorrow.

A little different commute

[zipedit]

Yesterday I decided to do a little something different on my commute back from Shelton. Rather than head east to I5 I went west and headed up into the Olympic mountains. I have had a few routes on my gps for a while that I was wanting to try out that skirt around the edge of the park on gravel. So on with the pics:

I had to alter my route a little when I came across this. I was willing to give it a shot getting around the pic below...

...but when riding solo, with my work laptop and other gear in the bags I was not willing to keep going past the spot below.

This was heading back down to the highway. I had to cut out a little early so I could catch a ride home on the ferry.

Here is the ride back on the kingston to edmonds ferry. In the end it ended up being about 40 miles of gravel. If the weather holds out next week I am going to hit another section on the way home.

Daily Ramble -Found a new site to suggest who I should vote for. Guess there is not too much question there. Check it out...

Who should you vote for?

Barack Obama				78
John McCain	-6

You expected: Barack Obama
Your recommendation: Barack Obama

Party: Democratic
Born: 1961, Honolulu, Hawaii
Family: wife and two daughters
Career: Business International Corporation; NYPIRG; attorney and constitutional law lecturer
Political career: Member of the Illinois State Senate from the 13th district, 1997-2004. Incumbent Junior Senator from Illinois since 2005
Hot topic: Universal healthcare
Did you know? He is the only African American currently serving in the US Senate
Supported by: Oprah Winfrey, Eddie Murphy, Will Smith, George Clooney, Halle Berry, Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Michael Jordan, Jamie Foxx, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Ed Norton, Jennifer Aniston, Zach Braff, John Cleese, Leonard Nimoy and Brooke Shields