White Chuck Bench 03-15-20

Keeping health and social distancing for corona virus reasons in mind, I headed out with the adventure dogs to a trail that we very rarely see anyone on.  Living up to expectations - we were the only ones on it the whole time.  Yay!

This trail does not have a singular 'wow feature' but is just a really beautiful hike through the forest up on on a flat forested bench, sometimes above a river.  You get peek a boo views now and then of the river, and of the peaks surrounding, but it's all about the forest - moss, trees, interesting rocks, and streams.

We had done about 6 miles at Paradise Valley Conservation Area the day before for Cedar's 11th birthday - meeting up with people friend, Katie, and pooch friend, Pixel - so I wanted to keep this day around 5 miles.  You can hike much farther on this trail.  I have never hiked all the way to the end.  Apple Watch stats: 4.82 miles and 423 ft of elevation gain.

There were a lot of blow downs on the trail, and one little landslide/slump.  All were fairly easily negotiated by going over, under or around. With small dogs, we often do a combination as they go under and charge ahead while I try to pass the leashes under to myself while scaling the obstacle they passed underneath.

Today I must have been a bit tired of stepping over logs, as one of the last ones I caught my toe on and took a header - scraped both knees and one shin.  Ouch!  Luckily if you're hiking 'walking it off' isn't a problem - it's what you have to do.

All in all - a gorgeous day that we all enjoyed.  Luna decided she had enough hiking about 1/3 mile from the car though, so I carried her the rest of the way while my 11 yr old adventure buddy trotted right along at the end of his leash like he could walk 50 miles.  Gotta love these two!

This last photo is taken in Darrington of White Horse Mt - it is just so gorgeous!  I fall in love every time I drive through there.

Sharpe Park and Tommy Thompson Trail 3-8-20

Today we had double the usual fun!  Our first destination was Sharpe Park on Fidalgo Island.  I had volunteered with a WTA work party on Friday to work on a section of the trail system here, and really loved the park.  I wanted to show Dave what we had worked on, so we loaded up the adventure dogs and off we went.

This trail system has woods, stream, wetlands, and views of the sea!  I expect bald eagles. hang out here, but I didn't see them in this particular spot either day.  We took Porpoise Way to Madrona Trail where we had been working and it was totally amazing how much more work had been done since Friday.

Cool mosses

Then we caught the Sunburst Trail which goes along the hillside above the sea (with only peek-a-boo views now and then).  There was one nice overlooking, but we only stayed a moment and carried on to catch the Sares Head Trail.  Sares Head is a lovely overlook of the Salish Sea and San Juan Islands.

When we got back to the parking lot we were just .3 mi shy of my 2 miles to count it as a hike, so I jogged the dogs back down the hill to a picnic table and back to finish out my distance.  Apple Watch stats for this hike:  2.07 miles, 431 ft of elevation gain.  There are other trails you can take (and actually we did take a spur trail along the pond a ways too).

After wrapping up this little hike, we went to a place neither of us has been - the Tommy Thompson Trail at the Fidalgo Bay Aquatic Reserve.  Yes, we could hear traffic and see refineries, but the trail is a lovely paved walk (we only did the last mile of it - so 2 out and back) that goes out over the water.  We parked at the Fidalgo Bay Resort and walked past a little pond where we saw a lovely pair of green winged teals along with some mallards.

Out on the trail over the water we saw buffleheads, grebes, golden eye and loons among others.

We didn't get rained on, got some great exercise and got to check out some new places - so a great day all around.

Ancient Lakes 2-29-20

The latest weather pattern here seems to be some nice weekdays (and some rainy ones), followed by a rainy weekend.  Desiring a non-soggy hike for a change, I decided to head over the mountains to see what was on the other side.  Dave decided to come along with Cedar, Luna and I, so we all headed out early, driving east.

We went over Stevens Pass on the way - and it was a breathtakingly beautiful winter wonderland.  The snow was coming down like mad, and there was a thick layer of snow and ice on the roadway.  If you didn't have all-wheel or 4-wheel drive, chains were required.

Once we got past that fun stretch, we wound down past Leavenworth, Cashmere, and past all the vast orchards - the sun was shining and the sky was blue with fluffy white clouds sailing around - woohoo!  It looked like summertime.

The hike itself was really lovely - a sagey desert surrounded by towering, crumbling columns and knobs of rock - basalt?  Definitely igneous.  The only sound was our footsteps and the cry of ravens.  It was so peaceful.  Now and then we did pass other hikers or mountain bikers, and they were all really nice and happy to also be out in the sunshine.

After about 2 1/2 miles we reached the ancient lakes area, and the farthest lake agains the bluffs had a waterfall pouring in.

We sat down and ate our lunch where we could see and hear the falls, and while we were eating, we saw a beaver swimming around in the lake.

On the way back there was a particularly large chunk of rock that had either fallen from the nearby cliff or possibly used to be connected and the material in between had eroded away.

We drove back through Snoqualmie Pass, as the conditions there were better than Stevens, so ended up doing both a loop hike and a loop drive.  What a great day out!

Westport WA 1/24-26/2020

After finding out that some of my family members were planning a trip to the coast on my birthday weekend, Dave and I agreed that this would be an awesome opportunity to crash their clamming trip for some ocean and family time.  On Friday after work, we headed to Westport, WA.  We hadn't picked the destination and had never been there but my cousin recommended a dog friendly hotel, and we were up for the adventure.  We stayed at the Mariner's Cove Inn - it was not on the beach, but was dog friendly (for a fee), and the owner was really nice.  It was also pretty cute, with a stream flowing through the property, a covered bridge and lots of outside seating.  I should have taken some pictures of it.  I would stay there again - it was in a nice central location.

My birthday was on Saturday, and started with a nice early espresso from the Cptn Jack's Espresso, yum!  Then, as soon as it was light, Dave and I took the dogs to the Westport Lighthouse State Park.  They have a really nice paved trail through the dunes, with some social trails to the beach, little lookouts, benches and social trails into the woods/wetlands on the other side.  Lots of exploring is possible here.  We just walked down to the end of the paved trail and then back on the beach.  It was so fun!  Here are a ton of photos!

After that we went shopping downtown in some of the little gift shops and had a delicious breakfast at the Blue Buoy.  We could hear sea lions, but didn't see any - we did see this cute seal in the harbor.  I love that it is off season.  I don't love crowds.  I also loved that although it was supposed to be rainy and windy this weekend, it was just cloudy and mild.  We really lucked out and could spend almost all our time outside.

Another cool feature in this rustic little down is their aquarium.  The two docents working there, were incredibly knowledgeable and friendly.  They really made our visit there the best, since flood waters had clouded up the aquariums a little.  It was almost eerie seeing the cool local fishes swimming through the gloom.  The other cool thing was they allowed dogs in.  Cedar was more excited about trying the shrimp and small fishes they were feeding the resident fish (and we got to feed them too! it was fun!), but Luna actually looked into the aquariums at the fish and was interested in seeing them swimming.  Her favorites though were the 3 ducks that live at the aquarium.  She was polite to them, but I think she wanted me to let her in there with them haha.  I wish I had more photos of the aquarium too!

That night we went to the clamming beach while it was still light just to check it out, and I left my fanny pack on a bench at the parking lot there.  We realized it was missing when we got back to the hotel and drove back to the beach.  By then it was dark and we were trying to find two large trucks that were in the parking lot when we were - we drove down the beach where there were dozens of other vehicles driving and parking so the people could get out and go out into the wet sand at the edge of the waves to dig razor clams.  It was wild seeing all those lights bobbing around everywhere. Amazingly, Dave flagged down a ranger and the people had not only found the pack (which had in my money, ID, and credit card as well as my camera), but had turned it in!  It was such a relief and good ending to a nice day.  We found them and they tried to refuse a reward.

After the we ate delicious pizza and had a beer at Blackbeard's Brewing Company.  I had a really unique and yummy mead drink there instead of a beer.  It was a great ending to a really busy and fun day!

On Sunday we drove down the coast to Tokeland.  There we had breakfast at the Tokeland Hotel and Restaurant.  There were deer on their grounds and hummingbirds coming to their feeders.  Great and unique food!  Then it was time to check out the ocean one more time and part ways.  What an incredible weekend!