Goat Rocks Wilderness - Day 1

After some nice time in Seattle, Shannon and I were feeling rested up and our feet were healed up for another long backpacking trip.  This time, we picked a 3 day trip into the Goat Rocks Wilderness, an area South of Mt. Rainier.  We hadn't explored much of this mountain zone so it would all be new for us!  Nice!

Our first day started out like so many hikes in the Cascades... you've got to earn your views...

But we put the work in and a few hours (and miles) later we rolled our way into beautiful Palmer Basin.

We continued up and out of the Basin and had our first views of the Goat Rocks Massif itself. 

 

The trail turned a corner and we came running into Goat Lake.  We were more than a little surprised to discover a snow covered lake... in the middle of August.  Get yourself together Goat Lake... it's summer.  I can't imagine how cold and snow laden this place must be in winter to have this much snow now (at less than 7000 feet!).

 

A great campsite revealed itself and we spent the afternoon enjoying watching Mountain Goats on the hillside (I guess the lake is aptly named) and checking out views of Mt. Adams distant from our tent.  Our first day was packed with views and we couldn't wait for tomorrow's trek.

 

GumShoe Walk

We live close to Phinney Ridge and noticed about a bajillion fliers for a "GumShoe Walk" last weekend.  This was a "detective walk" where you follow clues from point to point.  At the end, you turn in your form and get in a drawing for some local prizes.



We thought this would be sort of easy like "Go two blocks East, what color is the sign" instead we were thrown into a world of riddles and trickery.

Here's a look at our card so you can see what we're dealing with here (click it to make it bigger).

Examples include:

"Boulderwise, where rectangles float among river rocks, duet, trio or quartet?"

Huh?  How about:

"pausing at the tired pendulum"

That turned out to be a swing.

Needless to say, we got lost... a lot.  In fact, we completed 5 out of 30 of the clues before requiring a beer break.  Feeling tired and defeated, we agreed to try and finish 8 of 30 on that first day and then call it a day... 

At one point, we got lost and some guy started yelling at us from across the street.  It turns out he was the "Riddle-Master" and gumshoe creator walking the course backwards to help people like us.  Meeting Mike (the riddle-master) was helpful because in five minutes we learned about the way he thought.  Everything was plain and obvious to Mike... like... duh of course a swing is a tired pendulum!

After then we started to pick up momentum.  We buzzed by our plan for the day.  Our forms were due by 6 PM if we wanted to be eligible for prizes, it was 5 PM and we had ten clues to go.  We thought we had a chance to finish.

At this point, we also were close to two other groups of "gumshoes" one with a man we referred to as Gilligan because of his hat (and demeanor?).  It became a duel against time...  and also against Gilligan. 

Long story short, after running the end of the course, we finished on time and we watched Gilligan walk past the very last clue (the "alien stop" was a space themed bus stop) without noticing it... VICTORY!

Here is Shannon victorious with Gulligan in defeat behind us.  Gilligan, if you ever read this, sorry we beat you bro!

 

Seattle Summer... and the livin' is easy...

Shannon and I have been having a great time in Seattle the last two weeks.  We've recovered from our road trip, caught up with friends, been backpacking in our home mountain range and generally enjoyed the city.  We have just less than two weeks left here and so it's time to start our transition out of our house with lots... and lots... of packing.  That's why I'm writing this blog post.  It's procrastination.... but shhhh... don't tell Shannon I'm not packing.

One of our exciting days here has been our 6 month wedding anniversary.  We made it 6 months!  One of the pieces of marriage advice we read somewhere was to limit "change" in your first year of marriage... well it seems we threw that out the window and things are going great!  Anyway, here's Shannon with some anniversary flowers (and corn) from the Phinney Farmer's Market.

  

I've snuck in some bro-time since we've been home too... including a fun mountain biking trip with Taylor and Jeff.  It's been a long time since I mountain biked and felt good to be back on the old steed.

 

We've had good Seattle weather so grilling out has been mandatory.  We had one last hang-out at our house... which we moved outside for optimal grillage.  Good times with good friends!

 

I'm working on a few more blog updates that we'll put up in the next few days including our GumShoe Walk and backpacking trip to the Goat Rocks Wilderness... so stay tuned as we get back into blog-ville.

Hood... Columbia River Gorge... and Home!

After our visit to Crater Lake we headed North eventually to spend a night by the Columbia River Gorge before heading back to Seattle.  I (Scott) couldn't help but convince Shannon to visit the Timberline ski area and lodge on our way home (it's only 15 minutes out of the way!).  Timberline lodge is a super historic and beautiful building built back in 1937.  It was a beautiful spot to stop and we grabbed a refreshing beer on our journey.

 

It looks like the summer skiing on Hood is getting thin, but still kickin'.  That's their year long ski spot in the center.

 

We got to the Hood River and the "mighty" Columbia River and struggled a bit to find a campsite/hotel... finally settling on a nice Best Western for our last night on the road.

In the morning we checked out a few of the Gorge's waterfalls before heading up I-5 back to Seattle.  The gorge is a pretty beautiful and unique area.  A great way to end our road trip!

 

We'll probably post sporadically in Seattle as we enjoy our "stay-cation" here... so stay tuned!

Crater Lake!

Shannon and I were hoping to get in one last National Park before heading back to Seattle for a little bit of a stay-cation before our European adventure begins.  We picked Crater Lake because of it's general proximity to the NorthWest and because neither of us had been there before... compelling reasons enough on a spontaneous road trip.

Our drive into Eastern Oregon showed two things:

1.  Eastern Oregon (basically until Crater Lake) is really boring.  We thought we were finished with driving like this so we weren't mentally prepared.  Hard times.

2.  It's fire season.  Oregon is currently ablaze with a lot of wild-fires and the smoke is drifting all over Crater Lake.  We learned a lot about fire management and how we more or less botched it in previous decades.  Those mistakes are making for intense fire seasons now.  It was a little spooky to look at a map and see that we were basically surrounded by fires.

3.  Crater Lake is pretty... even with a little smoke.  Definitely worth a stop, although not the most the stunning site we've seen, the geology is pretty interesting.  Basically a volcano erupted and collapsed on itself.  The lake is formed by snowmelt and rain alone.  There are no rivers in.  There are also no rivers out (it's in a volcano caldera).  This means the water is some of the purest in the world.  We enjoyed taking it in!

Quick Trip to Jackson!

After recovering from the backpacking trip in Pinedale, we headed west once again. We didn't get too far before we hit Jackson, though.  And since we can never have our fill of beautiful mountains, we decided to get a little taste of the Grand Tetons.

Both of us have been to the Tetons before, so we just did a quick pic by the sign and viewed the mountains from just outside of Jackson.  Of course, a major bonus of our Jackson stop was getting to have lunch with my friend, Missy.  Missy and I go way back to AmeriCorps days, and since then we have been able to meet up in various locations (Jackson, Park City, Alaska etc.).  It's because Missy decides to live in places that are inherently cool.  We had a great lunch at Cafe Genevieve, where they have something called Pig Candy.  That's right, everyone, candied bacon. You can't go wrong. Great place to catch a bite if you're ever in Jackson.  (And the foodie blog continues...)

Anyway, we had a great stop in Jackson.  Shout out to Missy for continuing to live in cool places. (You can check out her adventures here.)  Hopefully we'll catch you somewhere else soon!  We continued the drive west and landed in Boise, Idaho for the night.

Wind River Range - Day 4

Our third night in the Wind River Range was cooooold.  It frosted overnight... in July.  Alas, we woke up Thursday morning to beautiful skies. 

We ran into a Park Ranger and Shannon asked about some cairns we had watched them knock over which designated our trail out.  After consulting the map, the Ranger agreed that Shannon was right and he'd replace the cairns.  This was a pretty proud moment for me... yes, Ranger Guy, my wife is a better navigator than you (today).

We headed out the aforementioned trail and spent our last few miles enjoying the alpine and views of the craggy Wind River Peaks

 

We had to head downhill eventually....  Our downhill trail was mostly through a forest that had been burned within the last few years. We saw a lot of the "life-after-fire-death" type of stuff you see in National Parks and nature shows.  Pretty.

 

Finally we made it back into the New Fork Valley and had one final ford before the last two miles of trail.

Shannon's feet suffered quite a bit through the trip and the last few miles were definitely a painful challenge.... but... we made it!  We headed into Pinedale and completed our backpacking trip in style at the Pinedale Brewing Company  (if you're there, try the stout).

 We're working our way to Crater Lake... and then... back to Seattle!

Wind River Range - Day 3

We were more than a little bit relieved to wake up on our third day in Wind River Range to partly (mostly?) cloudy skies and no rain.  We had a long day ahead (9 miles) so we had our oatmeal and got on the move. 

The first part of 4ish miles of our day would take us down into the Trail Creek Valley... kind of sad to head down into the woods after being above tree-line so much the day before.  Fortunately, we were headed right back up and out.  First to Green Pass, then Summit Lake for lunch and finally on our way to No Name Lakes where the views really opened up:

I am a big time lover of all things Alpine and it's views like this that really get me going:

 

Staying high for the last 4.5 miles including stunning lakes like this one:

 

 We spent our last night at Palmer Lake where the skies finally went full on bluebird.  We celebrated with some mosquito free reading time in the tent and scotch.

Wind River Range - Day 2

Day Two of our adventure started with hearing the peaceful sound of raindrops on our tent.  As soon as we emerged from the tent, constant wetness pretty much defined this day.

Scott and I theorized that the Cascades found out that we were cheating on them and sent the RAIN, because it was a very Northwest-like day. For those of you who have never hiked 7 miles in constant rain, well....perhaps you're smarter than we are or you're from somewhere dry.  But as Scott likes to sing, "if you're gonna be dumb, then you gotta be tough."  (It's a real song!)   So...on we marched.

This also happened to be the day we gained the most elevation, finally reaching a pretty beautiful alpine plateau.  And, Scott caught his first glimpse of snow!  It makes him very happy.

I could only imagine what this terrain would look like under clear skies.  Nonetheless, it was gorgeous. Alpine lakes, wildflowers, trickling streams, etc.

We eventually reached the end of this plateau, and before descending part-way down into a valley, we had a pretty incredible 360 degree view of alpine glory all around us.  Having hiked mostly in the Cascades, I really appreciated the "rockiness" of the Winds.  They are, after all, a sub-range of the Rockies, so I guess it makes sense. 

We descended down, down, down to Clark Lake, where we rapidly set up our tent and attempted to dry out. We created a "wet zone" in the tent, as seen in the picture.

After maybe an hour, we heard the raindrops stop.  It was a great sound. We were able to eat dinner without getting wet and Scott "farmed" our wet things to dry for the next day.

It was a trying day, mentally and physically, but let me say here, I'm pretty lucky to be married to such an amazing guy. Scott was so encouraging and helpful.  He often is, but it was especially needed and appreciated in this situation. If you've ever adventured with Scott, you know he'll get you into some Type 2 fun.  And there is no one I would rather have Type 2 fun with. :)  (What is this Type 2 fun we keep talking about???)

Wind River Range Adventure - Day 1

After four adventurous days in the Wind River Range in Wyoming, we're out of the mountains, cleaned up, and enjoying looking back on the stats of the trip:

-32 miles
-4 days
-1 moose encounter
-1 day of never-ending rain
-1 day of blue bird skies
-8 blisters (Scott - 1, Shannon - 7, yikes...)
-15 granolas eaten
-Plenty of elevation gained.  Plenty.

So... let's jump into the story...

On our first day, we drove from Salt Lake City to the New Fork Canyon trailhead.  We would spend the first day heading up canyon.  The New Fork Canyon is pretty amazing with huge granite walls all around.  Here's our first look... by the end of the night we were deep into the canyon you see here.

 Mid-way up the canyon we had our moose encounter.  I had really been hoping this would happen since the Winds are stuffed with them and it would be great to get a picture of Shannon with one for her Dad (whose nickname is Moose).  What I didn't expect was that Shannon is... well... terrified of large mammal encounters... I knew this included bears, but didn't know it included Moose.  So Shannon let me take this ONE photo (which basically doesn't show the moose) before essentially running down the trail.

 

As we worked up Canyon one of our challenges for the day was river fords.  I think we crossed the river 2... maybe 3 times this day?  These were pretty legitimate fords without bridges and with fast, cold, knee deep water.

 

 Finally we made it to New Fork Park.  A spot about 7 miles up canyon where the trail levels out and there is beautiful river and meadow to enjoy and camp in.  We setup our tent and had a good dinner before heading to bed.