Mailbox Peak (2.5 miles up 4000 vertical feet of climbing)

All the pics here (click me)

Last week Dan and Laura and I met up out at the trailhead for Mailbox peak.  We got started about 6:30 and quickly realized it was way too late to start this monster.  We got about half way up before throwing in the towel.

We all agreed we had to come back and start a little earlier so yesterday a group of us met back up at the trailhead to give it another shot.  In attendance were Ross, Stephanie (after her second ACL surgery), Dan, Laura, Tom (Dan's brother), Natalie, and myself.

We headed up the trail at 5:30 and were quickly climbing.  This trail really does not waste much time before going straight up the mountain.  And I mean straight.  The demeaning part of the trail is that it seems to get steeper as you go up so as you climb it is getting progressively harder.

The whole climb is under a heavy canopy and is beautiful.  If it were not for the buzz of I-90 in the background you would never know you were 45 minutes from Seattle.

We ground up and up and up, finially starting to see light at the top.  This light was not the top but a giant boulder field that we climbed up and up and up.  At the top of the boulder field the meadow area started and was covered in wildflowers.  My progress quickly ground to a halt as I took out the camera and kept taking pictures of all the flowers.  The fog was pretty heavy which just made the lighting better for photos and I could not pass it up.

After about 3 hours we all were on top standing by the famed mailbox on top of mailbox peak.  Several of us signed the summit register, we ate some snacks and then headed back down.

The trip back down was about as hard as up because if how steep it was and I was very happy to have my trekking poles along.  About 1/2 way down the sun started to set.  We were in several groups at that point and Ross and I stopped to wait for Natalie so I could give her a headlight.  We gave Natalie and light and headed down the mountain.  For some reason Ross and I thought it would be a fun challenge to see if we could make it to the bottom without turning on our lights.  We made it within 100 yards of the trailhead before we turned on the lights and walked out to the gravel road.

Everyone was psyched to have made it to the top and we celebrated in the parking lot by destroying a bag of pretzels.  Then we all loaded up for the drive back into Seattle.  Thanks guy for such a fun hike.

Up to Carbon Glacier

View all the pics here (link)

This past weekend Natalie was away in NYC for a friends wedding.  I figured if she was having a girls weekend then it was off to the woods for me.  My neighbor Ross was game so we left the house at 7am Saturday morning headed to Mount Rainier National Park.  The goal was to camp up above the carbon glacier.  

When we arrived at the ranger station we found out that we were next in line behind the guy who got the last pass for the campsite we wanted.  We ended up with a permit for the carbon creek campground which turned out to be a nicer place to camp than were we wanted, even if it was not quite as far out.

So we started the trip with a 5 mile bike ride from the car up to the trailhead.  It was interesting riding a bike with 30lbs on my back but it was really nice to be back on the bike after taking a few years off.  

Then we hoofed it in just under 4 miles I believe to our camp at Carbon Creek.  We got a little turned around but after some searching we figured out where the place was.  There was a sweet suspension bridge on the way over to camp so I took about 5000 pictures of that.  We nabbed a great spot and setup camp really fast before loading up our dayhiking gear and heading up the trail.

It was not long before we came into view of the glacier.  I am not sure what I had pictured but this looked a lot like a gravel pit.  I can see why it is named the carbon glacier as it was black and covered in dark rocks.  It was an interesting contrast with Rainier gleaming so white you could hardly look at it in the background.  An amazing sight.

We kept heading up the trail, and I mean up, and passed the dicks creek campground where we had wanted to stay.  There was probably a nice view but the campsites were not much to look at.  We agreed that things had worked out well for us and continued up.  There was supposed to be a pretty lake at the top with an amazing view Rainier over a wildflower meadow.  Well after several miles of going up and up and up we hit the snow line.  Looks like no wildflower meadows for us.  Just to be stubborn we kept pushing up past the snow line a bit but realized that all we were going to accomplish was to get out feet soaked since I once again did not bring my gators.  Ok, they are coming on every trip from now on even if I am going to Arizona.

We eventually decided it was time to throw in the towel so I sent a quick message to Natalie from my spot messenger and we headed down.

We got back to camp, fished our beer out of the creek and kicked back in the campsite for a while.  Not too long after dark the day caught up with us and we turned in for the day.  I froze again proving to myself that I just need to bite the bullet and get a feathered friends 10 degree sleeping bag.  I must be getting old because I am getting really cold camping at night.  Nah, that can't be it!

Sunday we had a pretty quick hike back to the bikes and then had a blast racing back to the car.  I slowed us down taking lots of wildflower pictures.  Hopefully my buddy Stu will chime in and identify the ones I am not sure of.

Another great trip.  Looking forward to our car camping 4th of July adventure coming up this weekend.

Back to Rachel Lake -Dayhike

All the pics here (click me)

Natalie had to grade all weekend so I was going to get back out backpacking but due to a prior commitment on Saturday I turned my plans into a day hike.

I headed out of Seattle around 9am and headed the hour and a half to the trailhead out I-90.  I have done this hike quite a few times at this point and it is one of my favorite quick getaways.  It is 4 miles in to a beautiful alpine lake.  The first 3 miles are pretty flat and then you gain 1300-1800 feet in the last mile or so.

I was not sure what the conditions were going to be this time of year so I packed several items to make it a good trip.  I carried my flyrod on one side of the pack in case the lake was snow free (link to fishing trip in 2008), and on the other side I packed my ice axe figuring that if I had enough time I might try to get back up to Alta Peak (link to this hike in 2008).

Well both the fish and snow gods were against me and I did not use either of my toys to fish or climb but it was a great 8 mile dayhike.  The lake was still snow covered and because of how low the snow started (3000ft) it took me a bit longer to get up to the lake and I did not have time to attempt Alta.  So I ended up hanging out in the sun up at the lake for about an hour taking in the silence and looking out over the lake with a cool blue ring around it where it was starting to melt.

The highlight of the trip ended up being down in the valley where the hike is generally a little boring.  All of the wildflowers were out in force.  The ground was packed with trillium and some other yellow flower (pictured above) that I feel like I should know the name of.  There were dozens of snow melt waterfalls running down the ridges and it smelled like spring.  Check out the pictures link above to see all of the flowers.

It was a great day to soak up some sun and I look forward to getting back out.  Hoping to head out on a legit backpacking trip in the next few weekends so more coming up.

Long weekend in the Enchanted Valley (Olympic National Park)

You can see all the pics here (click me)


What a great weekend!  Saturday morning I met Dan and Laura at their house with my backpack all loaded up for the weekend.  Natalie had to sit this one out so that she could finish up some grading so I was playing the part of the third wheel.  


We left Seattle at about 9am and headed out to Olympic National Park.  True to form we planned this trip the night before but as always it worked out great.  The destination was the Enchanted Valley in the south west side of the park.  Choices were limited as the snow line is still pretty low as I learned last weekend.  So this trip would top out at around 2500 feet and keep us under the snow.  

We stopped off at the ranger station to get our back country passes and chat with the ranger about the crowds/animals/trail plan/etc and found the whole experience very relaxed.  Generally I have a slight problem with camping in national parks just because there is so much red tape.  You can only camp in certain spots, you have to tell them where you are going, etc.  I understand this is because the park is so heavily used and it is necessary but it still always bothers me a bit.  We had the exact opposite experience.  The ranger told us that it would be pretty busy but not to worry about it.  He made a suggestion about where he would camp but that we could go where ever we wanted.  He even said, "ah just write down a site for the records but you don't have to stay there".  It was nice having this kind of relaxed attitude for a holiday weekend.  Anyway, he did tell us that he had been out a week or so ago and saw 14 bears, elk, and a few goats.  He told us all about what we could see and about the trail in general.  It was probably the best stop I have ever had at a ranger station.

We left the ranger station and headed up the road to the trail head.  About 20 minutes later we arrived to a packed parking lot.  There were license plates from Virginia, Utah, Oregon, California, and obviously Washington.  This was going to be good as long as it was not too busy.

The plan was to hike in either 7 or 10 miles and setup a base camp for the next two nights.  The trail was beautiful.  There were waterfalls all along the trail, the wild flowers were starting to come out, and we were hiking in a misty rain that actually felt really nice.  As we went up the valley we started to see more and more evidence of elk.  There started to be more game trails spread around.  We did not see any animals however and were soon at the campground 7 miles out.  We were feeling good and decided to push another 3 miles to the next campsite.

The forest kept getting thicker and I really felt like I was walking through a movie set.  The trees were huge!!

After another hour or so we rolled into our spot 10 miles out.  There were quite a few people out there but we never felt crowded.  On the way out we really did not see too many people on the trail.  We ended up camping on a sandbar that was set back from the Quinalt river a bit.  I believe we may have camped at the elk latrine as there was tons of evidence of them around.  There were several fresh piles of bear poop about 15 feet from our campsite as well so we made sure to pick out a good location for the bear bag that night.

We had a great time chatting away around the fire until well after dark when we decided to turn in.  We all had high hopes of seeing a bear the next day.  Little did we know....

I woke up first Sunday morning and stumbled off to pull the bear bag down out of the tree and retrieve the coffee I needed to wake me up.  I was half expecting to see the bag on the ground with the contents spread around (you never know how clever the local animals are) but was happy to find our food hanging in the tree just like we had left it the night before.  I carried everything back to camp and made a cup of coffee.  I kicked back, sipped my coffee and watched the far river bank hoping to see a black ball of fur.  I had nearly finished my coffee when I decided that I would head down to the river and see if I could find any bear prints.  Dan and Laura were still sacked out  but I figured they would be up shortly.  After a great walk, and having not seen any bear prints, I walked back over to camp to find Laura and Dan staring into the woods behind our site.  Turns out that about 30 feet from our campsite a huge black bear had decided to bed down for the night.  This was the first black bear I have seen on the west coast and it was massive.  He did not seem to care at all that we were over in camp and would periodically look over, yawn and go back to sleep for a while.  Turns out the whole morning while I was staring across the river bank hoping to see a bear all I had to do was turn around.  Eventually our bear woke up and silently slipped off into the woods.

We had a bit of a slow start Sunday, it was vacation after all, and around 11 we headed up the trail with our daypacks.  We headed 4.5 miles up into the enchanted valley and were blown away by how beautiful it was.  There were waterfalls coming off of 3000ft cliffs, crazy river crossings, and bears bears bears.  We saw 4 bears during the day with one far off on a meadow, two just off of the main trail and another one that I spooked on the way back to camp as he was walking up the trail.  We saw one elk perched up on a bank high above the trail just keeping an eye on everyone.  Neither words nor pictures can do that hike justice.  We all agreed it was our favorite hike in Washington so far.

Back in camp we ate dinner and were asleep by 9pm.  I believe it took me about 12 seconds to fall fast asleep.

The rain cranked up a notch Sunday night which made for some great sleeping weather.  We all woke up feeling rested Monday morning.  Dan and Laura had a bit of a flood issue but luckily they were both dry for the most part.  As we were drinking coffee Dan spotted a bear across the river so we went down and watched him for a while.

We broke camp and started the 10 mile hike back to the car.  The trail was extremely muddy from all of the holiday traffic and the rain overnight so it was slow going. I managed to spook another bear on the way out.  We were low enough in the valley that I had stopped looking for wildlife when I heard something big move over to my right.  Turns out I had come around a corner and was about 4 feet from a big bear.  I think he was about as surprised as I was so we had a little stare off and I told him he should move along.  After a bit he wandered off down the trail.  That got my heart going pretty fast!

The rain did not let up Monday but after about 4 hours we were back at the car.  We were all feeling the 29 miles we had put in over the last three days and were happy to change into dry clothes and take off our packs.

It was an amazing trip and my only regret was that Natalie could not make it.

Unsuccessful camping attempt outside Salmon-la-sac

My neighbor Ross and I have been trying to get out backpacking for quite a while now.  This weekend we were making it happen.  We rolled out of Seattle at 7:30am on the dot (early for us) and after a quick coffee stop we were headed out I90 to the mountains.  The destination was Waptus lake outside Salmon-la-sac area.

I have never hiked in this area that is loaded with alpine lakes and was really excited to get out in the woods, fish a little, and put in some miles with my backpack on.

The trail did not disappoint.  We walked along the Waptus river for most of the trail enjoying the cool air and silence of the woods.  We were making great time until about the 6.5 mile mark where we dropped down into a valley that had about 5 feet of snow covering everywhere.  The trail disappeared completely but as long as we kept between the river and the foot of the mountains we knew we were headed the right way.  It was hard work making it across the snowfields with a full pack and no snowshoes or gaiters.  Every once in a while you would be walking along and suddenly post hole in the snow to have to wriggle out like a beached whale.  It was slow going but we were enjoying the exercise.  

The big question mark in this trip from the beginning was a river crossing we knew we were going to have to make.  About a half mile from our intended campsite the bridge had washed out and we knew we were going to have to ford the river.  Being 2 feet deep in snowmelt water sounded a bit painful but it was a warm day and we knew it would not take long.  As long as the river was as I had read we would be fine crossing but you never can be sure this time of year.  

Well we never found out about that river crossing because about 8.5 miles into the trail, 1/2 a mile from the river crossing, I managed to have a medical mishap.  I was crossing a log much like the 15,000 logs I have crossed over the years when this particular one happened to break as I put all of my weight on it.  I fell through said log and involuntarily grabbed onto a small tree below it to stop myself from falling.  Well the tree I grabbed happened to be a pine with a large spike sticking out of it that did a pretty good job out cutting most of the way through my hand.  ouch!!  I was actually a bit more angry that the trip was over than I was in pain.  Ross and I managed to clean out the hole with ice cold water and got the bleeding stopped.  After thinking it over for a few minutes we made the correct choice and headed back to the car.  8.5 miles back to the car....

It was a good hike and I am amazed how great we felt for a 17 mile day.  I was happy that my feet and legs held up well this early in the season but it was a bummer to have to head out.

We got back to the car and headed back to Seattle.  My hand was not hurting much when we got back so I put off the trip to the emergency clinic until Sunday morning.  I spent a few hours of my sunday waiting to be seen by a doc.  Got a tetanus shot which I was wayyyyy over due for and was told my hand looked ok and to just let it heal on its own.

So boys and girls, what did we learn on this little adventure?  Well I learned that things happen and Ross and I were perfectly prepared.  I also learned that I am in better hiking shape than I thought.

I am hoping my hand will close up before this weekend so I can head out with Dan and Laura for a little backpacking trip. 


Here is a little end of post humor to offset the awful picture at the beginning.  

Catching up after a long break from blogging

I just looked back at my posting history and it looks like 4/12 is the last post I made. I admit I have fallen off of the blog wagon a bit but things have been very busy.

We had Natalie's dad come out for a great visit. We took him around the normal full circuit of Seattle sites that we all know well (pike place market, kerry park, golden gardens, chittenden locks, etc) and added in a few side visits to a few of our favorite bars. I think Phil appreciated St Andrews pub the most as he could get his soccer and scotch fix all in one place. We ate great food and had a really good time touring the city and catching up. We even managed to get in a cookout with all of our neighbors and friends. It was a really fun visit and we can't wait to see him, and everyone, in September for the wedding.

A few weeks later I headed to Vegas for my bachelor party. The old Banner Elk gang (Matt, Nick, Sean, Palmer) was all there, Atlanta was represented by my buddy Mason, and Ross was our Seattle representative. It was a really good time having everyone out. I had not seen Nick or Matt since I moved so it was really great catching up and seeing how everyone is doing. The funny thing is that even though most of us had not seen each other in years it felt like it had only been a few weeks. Everybody just kind of picked up where we left off. Great friends. More pics and writeup can be found on Nicks site here. It was sad to say goodbye to everyone at the end of the trip but great knowing I will see everyone again out in Seattle in September. Thanks again guys for a great trip.

One weekend was spent selling Palmer's motorcycle that had been sitting in my garage since we rode the Trans America Trail together last year. Funny how as soon as the sun comes out everyone wants to buy a bike. I had about 5 people scheduled to come look at the bike on Saturday alone and the first guy ended up buying it. Sad to see it go but I believe it will pay for a new roof for Palmer's house. Not quite as much fun but thats life. Being grown up is pretty lame sometimes.

Add in some working and working and a month and a half really disappears.

Great weekend of birthday, splitboarding and wedding planning

I don't think we could have packed in anything else this weekend if we tried.  When I got home from work on Friday Natalie told me to be ready to head out for something at 7:30.  Birthday surprise!

We headed downtown and I was psyched when we walked up to my favorite sushi place.  The surprise was just beginning.  We were a few minutes early so we grabbed a drink at the bar before heading into the reserved seating area that I had always wanted to check out.  There are pillow on the floor in front of a very short table.  I always thought it was really cool but it must hurt to crouch down like that while you eat.  Turns out that under the table it is cut out so you can stretch out like normal.  This was pretty key when everyone started showing up and in our group of friends we had one pregnant and one that just got knee surgery.  One by one all of our best friends from Seattle showed up.  It was great to be surrounded by all my favorite people in Seattle, great sushi, and some tasty beers.  We all had a great time eating way too much and chatting away.  Before we knew it 11pm had arrived and it was time to head out.  Thanks again to everyone, it was a great time!!

We got home with plans to catch up for one last drink but I was heading out early in the morning to go up into the mountains with Ross and decided it was a good idea to call it a night.

All the snowboarding pics here (click me)

Saturday morning I rolled out of bed, met up with Ross, threw the last of my gear in the car, and we headed out of Seattle.  We headed back into the mountains after the snow gods had blessed us with 3-5 feet of new snow, depending on where you went.  We pulled up into the Hyak snowpark parking lot (same place as last week) at about 9:30.  The plan was to take the same route up but then branch off and head over to the Kendall clearcut.  This is a mountain just next to Kendall Peak (sort of) that was clearcut years ago and has trees coming back in but is still open enough that it is a fun place to ski.

We made pretty good time getting up to the top of the road and then headed out into new territory.  It looks pretty straight forward getting over to the road that we planned to take to the top of the clear cut.  Once we got close though we realized we were going to have to get across a crevasse about 10 feet down.  The creek that runs through the valley had managed to keep this gap open all winter.  We had to move quite a ways up the mountain before we found a snow bridge that was substantial enough for us to cross on.  After this little adventure we decided to take a nice long lunch/coffee break.

After lunch we kept heading up and discovered that there were going to be several snow bridges we were going to cross before we made it to the main part of the road.  Things turned out great and we managed to work our way over to the road and head up.  and up....  and up some more....  That mountain was a lot taller than it looked.  We set a turn around time of 2:30 and as soon as 15-20 minutes were left we kicked it in to high gear and surprised ourselves as we crested the top of the mountain.  We took a few minutes to catch our breath but the high winds had us strapping on the boards for the ride down pretty quickly.

It was not a long ride but we got some great turns in.  We even scouted a much better run for next time.  Funny how you don't see the routes until you are looking back at where you came.  The snow was amazing and worth every inch of the climb.

I am getting better on the splitboard but still have a bit to learn.  These past few weekends have been a great way to get out and figure out what I am doing.

Saturday night the neighbors all got together for a mexican dinner out over in Greenwood.  After that we took it easy over at Jake and Kays until about midnight when I headed back home.

Sunday arrived early and Natalie and I hit the road/ferry to Bainbridge Island for an open house at the resort where we are having the rehearsal dinner and are having guests stay for the wedding.  It was a beautiful day and we knocked out several big items on our to do list as well as tasting all of the choices for the rehearsal dinner.  Luckily there was enough time to squeeze in a good sun break out on the back lawn of the hotel overlooking the water.  Not bad...

After the open house we headed over to the Farm Kitchen (where we are getting married) to meet a potential florist.  We got there a early and soaked up a little more sun before meeting with Amy (the florist).  She was great and we gave her a deposit before packing up and heading to dinner at a little restaurant on the water looking back at Seattle.

Now that was a great weekend!