Mt. Rainier

Check this beauty out!

Rob and I drove to Mt. Rainier last week to go on a hike. The picture above is one of a only a few that we have where you can actually see the mountain. The fog rolled in shortly after, so we could only assume the mountain was still there as we hiked at it's base.

There are SO many hikes in the National Park (I somehow didn't know this prior to the trip). We chose the Skyline Loop (at Paradise) which is a really popular hike, but because it was my first time hiking around the mountain we wanted the best views (a description of the hike says, "The Skyline Trail above Paradise takes you quickly to nearly 7,000 feet-about as high as you can get in a short hike from the car anywhere in Washington state. The loop trip is spectacular on clear days, with views to the Rainier summit above, wildflowers all around and a view south as far as Mount Hood below.").

It is a little strange to hike on a busy trail, I felt like I was in the middle of a pilgrimage at times, climbing stairs in a line with other hikers. But it really was beautiful and obvious why it's so popular.


The hike turned out to be a little more than we bargained for, just because there was a lot of snow on the trail. Something about me and hiking: going down steep trails freaks me out - I see visions of myself sliding or stumbling to the depths below - but during this hike I learned a new fear: hiking in snow (especially when it's combined with a downward slope).

For example: (yep, we did this)

I survived, there were actually only about five stretches of snow and Rob held my hand (literally - I'm a wuss, I tell you!) through the stretch that was the scariest...

...this one. Just kidding.

Us on the trail Skyline Loop (wherever you see fog, just picture a 14,411 foot mountain):


The bathroom on the trail was cool. I pretended we were actually climbing the mtn and this was basecamp.

We had to take the trail slow because of all the people and the snow. It was taking longer than we had time for, so we saved a mile by cutting through the trail via the Golden Gate Trail, which is still 1.5 miles long (we had come 2.5 miles already).

I don't know what the second half of the loop looked like, but the Golden Gate trail was so so beautiful:

What a great hike! Hopefully we'll spend more time at the National Park in the future!

Camping in Chelan

Our road trip was a couple of months ago and we still haven't posted about everything we did. Rob put up some nice posts from a couple stops, so I thought I'd share about Lake Chelan. Our last stop in our 4-stop trip.

We thought about going to the lake, finding a hike, or some other outdoor adventure. But, we had had enough of that during the previous days on our trip and decided, instead, to hit up the water park! It didn't have a wave pool or, my absolute favorite thing in the whole entire world, a lazy river, but it had some really fun slides that entertained us for a few hours.

After setting up camp (again) we went into town to see Toy Story 3 here:

and we sat here: (edge of the balcony)

and my handsome husband is right here:

Chelan is a cute cute town. We didn't see much of it, but I do recommend visiting. We camped at the State Park which was okay. Our spot was not private at all, which can be a bummer (because it doesn't feel like camping and can be a little awkward), but there are plenty of private sites that I'm sure you have to call way ahead for. It was another warm night (the previous night, in Oroville, had been warm too, but both nights in Manning were very cold), in fact we woke up to a very warm tent. The sun was right on us and it was a frantic, desperate, couple moments of trying to breathe the outside air. I had decided to start changing before it hit me fully and I wouldn't let Rob open the tent door. He had to stick his mouth up to a crack in the tent window to breathe in some outside air. I thought it was funny, and very classic of camping.

The only picture we have of this campsite:
Rob playing around with the camera (something about F Stop mumbo jumbo)

R.I.P roadtrip beard

I was digging it, but now it's gone.

Zion's Camp

This past weekend we saw that it was going to be beautiful weather up here in Seattle, because of this, we decided it would be a good time to take our nieces and nephews camping at Zion's camp in Belfair. Zion's camp is the church property that I spent a lot of time at as a youngster, but I haven't been back to in 10 or so years. They have done a lot of updates and its a really fun place to camp.

Here is a video of us enjoying our time there:

Canada Camping

So now back to that trip that we took at the beginning of the month. After we left Vancouver, we made our way East for our first night of camping in BC. On the way we stopped off in Hope, BC, which we soon found out was a shooting location for a few movies. How do I look as an action star?

While in Hope, we heard from the tourist center guy about some railroad tunnels nearby. I am a sucker for old railroad tunnels, especially long and dark ones. The Othello Tunnels did not disappoint.



After we left Hope, we drove another couple hours on the Crowsnest Highway. Our final destination for the next couple of nights was Manning Provincial Park. Here is our campsite:

Our campsite was near lightning lake. At the head of the lake was this really cool bridge.
The next morning we took a hike around the lake. The views were pretty spectacular.
Near the recreation area of the lake we saw a ton of ground squirrels. Here is Stephanie in her attempt to make friends with the little guys.
Later in the evening we went across the highway from our campsite to check out a lookout that we had seen on the park map. The view was pretty awesome to say the least.
Stephanie points out the lake that our campsite was next to:
One of the cooler/funnier things about camping at Manning was the programs that the rangers put on. We saw one on the schedule that we needed to check out: A deal or no deal spoof called "Real or Not Real". It was pretty funny for about 10 minutes, then we ditched out.
We opted to instead play Phase 10 back at camp while drinking hot chocolate. Excellent choice.

Overall, our time in Manning was great. It was a little chilly considering that we were higher up in the mountains, but the scenery was quite remarkable.

Summer Hikes (so far)

We had a slow start with a bunch of stuff happening this summer, but in the past couple of weeks Steph and I have made a concerted effort to catch up on our summer hike quota.

Last week, we ventured up Highway 2 to hit Bridle Veil Falls. The hike was a slow and steady climb, with a bunch of stairs. Bridle Veil Falls is on the trail to Lake Serene, but we had read that the trail to Lake Serene was pretty brutal, so we decided to stick with the easier hike. The hike had a nice payoff in the end however:


On Wednesday, we left early in the morning and drove up past Granite Falls to hit a hike on the Mountain loop highway: Heather Lake. Steph wanted to revisit the hike after doing it as a 2nd year at girls camp. She told me that at the time she thought the end of the hike was one of the prettiest places that she had ever seen -- she wasn't lying:


Once you get up to the lake, there is a nice half-mile loop around the lake.

Here is my swatting stick to combat all of the spider webs.
This photo is by Steph who is well on her way to becoming a renowned nature photographer.

Hopefully we'll get a few more hikes in before the summer ends. Let us know if you want to tag along!

Molson, WA

Remember forever ago when we went on that trip to Canada? While we have neglected to post about the last few days of our trip, I wanted to take a moment to share one of the coolest places that we visited: Molson, WA. While settling up for the night in Oroville, WA, we saw a map which listed Molson as a nearby ghost town. We took the 20 minute drive and found a small town of a population of about 50. In the entrance to the town was the ghost town, with several old abandoned buildings that tourists could walk through. But what was even cooler was that the old high school had been turned into a really awesome museum.

Now the museum wasn't really cool because of what was inside it, but more because it was an old high school with many of the classrooms left in tact. It made me nostalgic for a time that I had never been in.