Fishing the Snohomish 8-15-12

I took about a week off from work and Dave and I were supposed to take Cedar and also my ex-dog Skye across the state to visit my dad.  Unfortunately he was still sick and I was 3 kinds of sick so I had to do little relaxing things around this area instead of bringing a ton of germs to my dad.  We still managed to find fun things to do.  One of these things was to launch his boat into the Snohomish River and fish.  He packed us a picnic, and while we didn't catch anything, it was really fun.  What a huge and beautiful river.

While on the river we caught no fish, but some leaves and weeds, and I even caught a large and heavy piece of bark that was quite exciting until I realized it was not a large and heavy fish.  We also enjoyed seeing parachuters and hot air balloners.

There was a cool dilapidated old railroad bridge that kids apparently used to party on.  Now they seem to congregate near it, as when we returned to the boat launch we could hear them loudly having less than intelligent conversation. 

Sunset was pretty from the river.  I liked this old farm house.  Which reminds me!  I wish I had taken a picture or a movie, but at one point there was a family with a pug who were playing on a beach of the river.  A hereford cow with a very small calf came out of the brush near them and the pug went after them!  The cow was understandably threatened by this odd midget wolf-descendant and charged it a bit, stomping around and tossing her head, and the woman ran at the animals yelling for "Pugsley."  I was a bit worried that the cow might charge this bigger target, but luckily instead Pugsley gave up on its large beef dinner and came back to her and the herefords moved on up the river.  It was exciting, but I was glad I didn't need to go use my First Responder training. 

Also a train happened to go over one of the working railway bridges while we were on the river.  It was actually pretty cool to see from this angle. 

Mountain Biking to Monte Cristo 8-3-12

It was a hot day that Justus, Dave and I mountain biked up to the Monte Cristo ghost town.  I had hiked this before and noticed that the vast majority of the trail is a dirt road, so perfect for biking. 

The river crossing, where bridges have historically not lasted, is a large log.  It was a bit tricky to get the bikes over the root ball, but otherwise there was plenty of room for both person and bike.

The rugged ridges along the river were gorgeous with the blue sky backdrop.

The trip to Monte Cristo was a nice challenge for people that haven't been on bicycles much and especially for Dave who had been sick for a couple weeks.  The elevation gain is not huge, but it is a steady gain, and even where it seems flat you are doing a bit of pedaling. 

It took us a couple hours to get in.... only about 30 minutes to get back out!  Everytime we stopped we were swarmed with biting deer flies too.  Yikes.  It was worth the trip though!

One of the cool things in Monte Cristo is the old railroad turn around.  It seems so out of place now, with no trace of train track (other than one buried under the trail and uncovered by the river's erosion of said trail).

There were also pretty wildflowers out there for our viewing pleasure.  What a lovely day!

Toward the end of our ride, Dave was going to attempt to bicycle through the river instead of crossing on the log.  It got deep pretty fast, so he turned around, but it was very entertaining for Justus and I, and probably very refreshing for him!  : )

Ashland Lakes Trail 7-29-12

I tried to do this hike last spring, but ran into a lot of snow, which my barefoot shoes didn't do much to protect me from.  So I made it only as far as Upper Ashland Lake.  This time I was determined to finish and get to the 3rd lake, Lower Ashland.  Getting into the mountains will cure whatever ails you, and Adventure Dog seemed to particularly enjoy it also.

Pardon me, whilst I go nerd on you, but right off the bat on this hike I was excited to see the largest congregation of slime mold I have ever seen.  This spot was over a foot in diameter.

A lot of this trail is wet... .some of it VERY wet...

Dual-purpose Stream-Trail

So much of it, including around Upper Ashland is made up of a variety of boardwalks.

There were also these "step" some of which were really more like rocks, as you can see.  This trail is not a good one for barefoot shoes as it turns out, even without snow.  I caught one of my pinky toes on a root a couple times and I've been limping around for days with a swollen foot.  Rocks and roots are stronger than feet apparently.

The first lake you get to is Beaver Plant Lake.  It's a nice serene lake, and despite a lot of bugs around they didn't bother much with me.

The next lake is Upper Ashland, and you can go all the way around it on a loop part of the trail.  I veered to the left and then went on toward Lower Ashland on the far side, and then came back on the side of Upper Ashland I hadn't seen yet.

There were flowers blooming along the trail, especially around the lakes where the sun could get to them best.

 There were also shade-loving flowers opening up below the shady trees.

The third lake was my favorite, and that was Lower Ashland.  I did this hike late in the day and knew I was the only one out there by the time I hit this last lake.  There were a lot of huckleberries so I figured bears might be about (I would be hanging out there if I were a bear for sure!) If it had been earlier I would have liked to have spent quite a bit more time at this third lake.  It even had a cute bridge that I didn't take the time to cross.

When I left this bush, not all of these huckleberries were still there.  Bwahahaha!

One of the most fascinating things on this hike happened to be the trees.  They were old and huge and gnarly and twisted and gave this trail a different aura than other trails I've been on around here.  Here are some of the characters I met.

Doorway Tree

Trip-You Tree

Hollow Ent Tree