Boulder River 11-5-11

On Saturday, Dave and I took Cedar out for a hike on the Boulder River Trail.  This 8+ mile round-trip hike is a lowland hike, so it's pretty good year round and has very little elevation gain.  For those who aren't up for that long of a hike the 1st waterfall is about a mile in.
It has been getting colder, darker and wetter as it usually does here in the northwest over the winter, but this day was glorious.  Last time I did the Boulder River trail it was in the spring with patches of snow, huge fallen trees completely blocking the trail and it was just me and Cedar.  I was happy to have the trail all to myself, but a bit nervous when I thought I saw a cougar track.  This time I had terrific company and sunshine was beaming down all over us.

The river was full and cloudy with rain run-off. 

The waterfalls were full too and so pretty as they cascaded continuously down the cliff’s contours.  We would like to go back and scramble up to see where they come from. 

Despite the warm sunshine, winter was not far off.  In the shade of the trees it was quite cold and we could see the snow line on the frosted hilltops above.

I was pleased to see some fun fungi along the way too.  The purple is violet cort, the orange is sulfur shelf (also called chicken of the woods) and the coral-looking ones are corals.  I saw another that I should have taken a picture of that was very jelly-like.  I thought it had just gone bad, but was actually an excellent sample of toothed jelly fungus.

What a wonderful hike in every way!

Favorite picture of the day.  J

Lakes and Dams 10-29 and Run Scared 5k 10-30

Dave and I went to enjoy the fall colors in the hills in an area I had not seen too much of.  The tiny town of Concrete bears further exploration, with a picturesque bridge and a lovely little main street I had never seen.  The hills around it had dams, lakes, lovely fall color and some other interesting things including a system for taking salmon above the dam that involves trapping and trucking them, and tiny huts with benches in for possibly measuring the level of ground water above/next to the dam.

There was a cool old building also, covered with graffiti, moss and odd stalagtites.  It was mostly bolted up with metal blocking access to the inside and the roof.  Peaking in was tantalizing though.  It looked like a big kid playground. 

At this dammed lake, the clouds moved enough that we were afforded a lovely glimpse of Mt Baker.

The next day, I got my boys up early and Bradley, Justus and I all ran a 5k at Seattle's Seward Park.  It was a lot of fun, and it was great to be running with them.  They made it seem effortless and I was so worried I wouldn't keep up, that it distracted me from noticing how long we were running.  The costumes were distracting too.  There were some really funny ones.  We are #679, 680 and 681 (I'm the tiger).

Ice Caves and Surrounding Area 10-23-11

I've been distracted, so it's catch up time!  I finally made it to the Ice Caves.  What a gorgeous place.  I had not been because the mileage was so short and wanted to go on longer hikes for training or to fill up more of a day.  This was a 1st date hike though, so was perfect.  Dave had been before, and we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day in the northwest.  Although it's possible it was pouring and I just didn't notice LOL. 

You can't go in or on the caves- they are very dangerous, with melting ice being unstable and varying degrees of thickness.  People have been killed going in and having chunks of ice fall on them.  You can get right up in the doorway though.  If you look back in there you can see that they are not just straight single caves, but kind of a network of large channels the water has melted out.  Drips come down from every bump in the ice ceiling and there are holes the sun can shine through.

The fall color that day was splendid, glowing yellows and oranges against the pewter rock and wispy clouds.

There was an interesting crevice that looked like the entire hill had been cleaved in two and a small stream churned its way down, deepening the crack.

After looking around the ice caves, we drove around some dirt roads in the area and looked around.  Dave knew where to find some cool rocks that have leaf imprints between the layers.  There is a large piece there that I got a picture of.

There were a couple of beautiful lakes as well.

On the way to see the lakes, we found this tree that looked like an ent.

And also a lovely specimen of Amanita Muscaria.  Not a nice mushroom.

What's in this log?  It's Dave!