Archive for the ‘Playing Outside’ Category
Monday, August 14th, 2006
I had no idea there were crayfish in the Alpine Lakes. Neither did my friend Knox so both of us were amazed to see three of them, right below us in the water. Two of them engaged in battle while a third stayed out of the way under a fallen tree snag. Knox tried to catch one but they’re quick little buggers. It’s just as well he wasn’t successful. What would we have done with one little four inch crayfish?
The hike to Talapus Lake is as easy as pie, perfect for the late start, those with challenged hamstrings, or those who think that hiking to the pretty stuff is beyond them. There are a few switchbacks at the start, but nothing too steep. The trail meets the river at various places giving you the excuse to stand around admiring the view while you’re really having a little rest. Towards the top - and it’s just over two miles to the lake so it’s short - the trail flattens a bit and opens into a lovely Japanese garden with bridges and raised walkways and the sound of water and dappled light and lush green foliage and haiku inspiration everywhere.
The lake has plenty of fallen timber along the shore, perfect picnic benches. Chipmunks skittered about though they never came close enough to steal some lunch. Big blue dragonflies circled back and forth across the water. In the distance, trout threw themselves all the way out of the water and back in again.
We dawdled by the lake for half an hour or so, then wandered back down the trail to the car before driving to North Bend for milkshakes at the Dairy Freeze. While I was sitting outside enjoying my espresso milkshake and a discussion of how we’d find out about Alpine crayfish, I realized that it was the third time in barely over a month that I’d been in the big outdoors and then, at the Dairy Freeze for sustenence.
Ah, what a life!
The Great Outdoors is
The perfect prelude to an
Espresso milkshake.
A few more pictures here.
Talapus Lake, hiking, milkshakes
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Saturday, August 5th, 2006
Sometimes, when you head for the great outdoors, nothing goes right. Your body is a bit sluggish, maybe from not enough breakfast or not enough sleep. You never quite warm up. You don’t have the right clothes and you end up always feeling a little chilled around the edges. Your sandwich gets squished at the bottom of your pack and ends up an unattractive mass of food that would be better eaten with a spoon, if you’d remembered to pack one. You get a flat and you actually have to repair it because you haven’t packed a spare. When you finally get back to the car, you go straight to the nearest coffee stand, where you promptly spill your drink on your shorts. You have forgotten to toss a change of clothes in your car. You go home, take a shower, and climb in to bed thinking, wow, I could have Just Stayed Home.
Yesterday was not that day. Yesterday, Sarah, Mike and I rode the John Wayne Iron Horse Trail. And it was perfect.
We met at Rattlesnake Lake to park the first car. Sarah and Mike were just pulling in to the parking lot as I arrived. “Whaddaya say we eat lunch?” Sarah said, so we picnicked on the grass next to the lake. We watched the boats slide across the water while little girls splashed around at the beach. Fueled up for the ride, we tossed my bike and gear in to Mike’s pickup and headed up to the Hyak trailhead.
The tunnel, which is one of the big draws for this ride, is just past the Hyak trailhead. We strapped on our lights and plunged into the darkness. Water was falling from the ceiling. There was a pinpoint of light in the far distance, the crunch of gravel under the tires, and a weird echo when I rang my bell. Mike disappeared ahead, but we’d see him every now and then when my light hit something reflective. The lamps picked up wires on the walls and six feet of trail, beyond that, there was only blackness and the tiny light at the other side of the tunnel.
The tunnel is just over two miles long and it’s cold in there. We rolled out blinking on the other side, instantly rewarmed by the sunshine.
The rest of the trail is hard packed gravel, easy riding on fat tires. It’s bumpy and today my hands are a bit sore from the rattling, but my legs aren’t complaining at all. The trail is about 21 miles, we did it in 3.5 hours. You could ride it a lot faster, but we kept stopping to look at things on the way – the view from the trestles, an immaculate and oh so pretty backcountry campsite, a stream gauge, the highway, some rock climbers who’d wandered up from a trailhead below… There’s no water on the trail, but there are plenty of lovely spots to stop for a snack and there’s the luxury of outhouses at various places on the way. You ride past boulder fields, clearcuts that have turned in to meadows, through maple and birch forest. The trail smells of water, of clean earth, of pine and spruce.
This is a remarkable ride. The 2.2 percent downhill grade makes it very easy to go the distance. You can’t coast the entire way – though you can do it as a leisurely spin. If you want you can gear down and hammer on the pedals until you get going quite fast – there’s no traffic, no stoplights, and, when we were there, not many other people. The reverse direction, from Rattlesnake Lake to Hyak, must be quite a slow burn as you’re always going uphill. We took the easy route, though ambitious cyclists could absolutely do it as a round trip from Rattlesnake Lake.
If you’re going to do the one way, like we did, you need two cars. One of them needs to carry all the bikes. You need lights for the tunnel – don’t screw around with this, you can’t see a damn thing in there. You want gloves because the gravel trail is hard on your hands and if you fall, it’s going to be rough. It’s good to have a jacket for the tunnel, it’s really cold in there. Take plenty of water and some snackage. Fat tires are good because the trail is rough – think dirt road. Pack a spare, a repair kit, and your tools, this is no place to blow out a tire – five miles on a hiking trail dragging your bike can’t be much fun.
Rattlesnake Lake is a terrific spot to leave one friend with the bikes while two others make the shuttle run back to Hyak to get the other car. But here’s an idea. Pack a cooler and all the stuff in the Rattlesnake Lake car. Set up your friend in the park with all the fixin’s for your dinner. By the time you get back with both cars, your friend has got the coals going and is grilling your gardenburger just the way you like it. Or, hey, you can do what we did and head in to North Bend for fried carbs and sugar burgers and shakes at the Dairy Freeze. There’s nothing like fried carbs and sugar after a good ride.
Riding the John Wayne Iron Horse trail might be my new favorite thing to do outside the city. Get your bike out of the basement, round up your gear, and head on up to Hyak. The ride is easy enough that you can do it even if you haven’t been on your bike in ages. You’ll be tired when it’s over, but there’s no reason to think you can’t do it. And give me a call. You need two cars, after all, and I can hardly wait to do it again.
The rest of the pics from the ride are here. If those aren’t enough for you, Sarah’s pics are here. That’s me in the call box.
rail trails, John Wayne Iron Horse Trail, biking, outdoors
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Monday, July 17th, 2006
When I was a younger lass, fresh to Seattle and hopped up on long summer days and citrus thinner, it was not unheard of for me to jump in the car at dawn, go for a 16 mile day hike, and make it back in time to eat BBQ in the garden. If that sounds crazy, let me assure you, it absolutely was. That same summer, I would ride my bike 35 miles Marymoor Park, go bouldering for an hour or two, and then, get this, ride back again. Sometime in August or early September, my stepfather was in town and I’d just shorn off all my hair. “What happened to your hair?” he asked. “No, wait, check that, what happened to all your body fat?!?!?” It’s okay. I had just got divorced, I was new in town, I was oh, maybe just a little bit screwy. I’m back to a much more manageable and less scary self these days, body fat and all, but I still like a stomp in the woods. Which is why it was good to finally get out for the day with South Pole Sarah.
We walked 9 miles, round trip, to Melakwa Lake. I’m sore and more than a little tired. But it was a beautiful day, one on which I would never have guessed we’d have the trail to ourselves. Yet we did - we saw no one in the three hours between the time the large group of teenage girls came down at the trailhead and when we asked that couple “How much further?” near the top. We saw a few more people on the way down, but nothing like I’d expected for this popular, close to Seattle trail. And we stopped at the diner in North Bend for burgers, fries, and milkshakes on the way home. A near perfect day.
In case you haven’t yet been out this season - what is wrong with you - here’s just a little advice to make your trip go as well as ours did. This isn’t your standard safety guide, which you should totally check out on your own, maybe you have one at the front of your trail guide. Oh no, this is the stuff you’re going to forget, or, the stuff that - if you remember it - makes you stand out from the mere amatuers you’re sharing the trails with.
- Wear sunscreen and, if you can stand it, a long sleeved shirt. A baseball cap is good too. I’m just looking after your youthful skin.
- Do you have a ziploc bag of toilet paper in your pack? Hello?
- It’s not a bad idea to pack your lunch the night before. If I remember, I like to put my water bottles in the freezer, then they defrost throughout the day and my drinks are always cold. I’m also big on Tupperware containers for packing my lunch, it gives you way more possiblities and your food won’t get smooshed. Dude, you’re just day hiking, don’t be so uptight about the weight.
- Bring another pair of shoes and a shirt to leave in the car. If you want, hey, take a whole change of clothes. Yeah, you’re smelly, whatever. Changing in the parking lot beats driving all the way home in damp hiking clothes.
- Stow some extra snackage and water in the car. You’re not always a 15 minute drive from the diner. It can be hard to make it home if you’re starving and parched. And actually, it’s not that safe for you to drive if you’re totally bonking, man.
I ain’t saying if I remembered all these things this time out, but that’s no reason you can’t take advantage of my mistakes knowledge. Now, go on, get out there.
hiking, safety, Cascades, outdoors, manic behavior
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Sunday, February 5th, 2006
We went snowshoeing today again. It was, as always gorgeous. And empty. Pics are here.
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Wednesday, December 28th, 2005
It took me a bit to work up to it. I’m not sure why, after all, we have the snow base and the weather has been pretty good. Still, when you know winter is just setting in, there’s not a lot of pressure to rush out on to the snow. No matter. Because finally, after lolling about for a little over a week, I went skiing.
Yes, you are shocked and ashamed of my laziness. In my credit, we lost a few days to rain and I did go snowshoeing once last week. Plus, Christmas was in there and earlier this week, we didn’t have a car. So you can let me off the hook for about half the days I squandered. Also, toss in a sympathy day or two for jet lag and for the fact that I wasn’t too psyched to go out the first time of the season alone. But as of today, ski season is open. If I’m not skiing, I’d better have a damn good excuse.
It was -8 when we left the house, which in Fahrenheit, is Really Damn Cold. (Actually, it’s in the low 20s.) The sun was a flat silver disk behind high clouds that were dropping a very light snow. We skied a little over 10k - enough for the first time out. J. left me behind on the flats and the uphill sections, but I dusted him on the downhill bits because my skis are still wearing a coat of cold weather wax from last winter. The snow is perfect - grainy enough to grab when you’re going uphill, but fast enough to keep you in motion on the flats and going downhill.
It felt pretty good to be on the snow again. I’m tired and sure to be sore tomorrow from even this little warm up, but that’s okay. Now that the first ski of the season is out of the way I can get to it and start skiing like a rich kid on holiday - daily - and start eating like Ariel Sharon Homer Simpson! I mean the pre-stroke Ariel, not the post “no more donuts for you” version.
Of course tomorrow, no go. We’re off to gorgeous Steyr for a visit. We’re staying overnight, so no skiing on Friday, either. It’s worth the sacrifice, we’ll have good company and a night out on the town instead. S’okay. With nothing but snow in the forecast as far as the eye can see, the snow will wait a day or two. We’ll be back on it by Saturday.
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Saturday, November 26th, 2005
I was up at 6. Erin called at 715 and by 745 we were heading east into a driving rain. I’d checked the forecast and the pass conditions so I knew it was snowing. I was psyched to be heading up to the mountains for the first snowshoe of the season.
The trail to Latham Lake starts at the Nordic Center at Stevens Pass. We picked this trail for a few reasons: We wouldn’t have to drive all the way back from Leavenworth to get home, we didn’t need a SnoPark or NW Trail pass, and we were there. Plus, the snow was looking mighty attractive and rather than drive another hour to Leavenworth, we wanted to get to it!
The Nordic Center wasn’t yet open for the season so there were no crowds. A few sledders played in the parking lot, a couple walked their dog along the Forest Service Road. The facilities guys were outside the ski rental chalet but the place was not open for business. It was striking to see all this quiet when just a few miles west, the alpine ski slopes at Stevens Pass were packed, the parking lot full of ski busses.
Bundled up and strapped in to snowshoes, we headed up the hill, parallel to the creek. The snow was falling, but it was a nice dry snow and we were protected by the huge hemlock and spruce trees. There were pretty views of the creek below, big white pillows of snow piled up on the stones and logs that lay across the water. Pale green moss sparkled with snow and ice crystals, decorating the trees in strings of tiny bottle glass beads. We walked up.
I stuffed my poles back in to my pack, finding them not much use on the narrow trail. We crossed under the noisy power lines, shuffled about for a few minutes finding the trail’s continuation and then, more up. Up. Up. It wasn’t your brutal steep climb, just a continuous grade. After about an hour the trail flattened out somewhat. In places, it seemed like we were walking in the river bed, but the snow was deep and compact enough that the boots stayed dry. This was my favorite part of the trail - it was so quiet here. The trees had opened up a little - they were bigger but let more sky and snow in, and with the altitude gain the snowflakes had gone from dust to big flakes that sat on your hand for a minute before disappearing.
We passed a marker saying we were entering the National Forest. A few yards further up the hill, we stopped for a snack. Erin had hot cocoa in her thermos (yum!). My granola bar had frozen in my pack - I hadn’t realized it was that cold. We were sure we’d gone the distance, but still, no lake. We decided to go up a little bit more to see if there was an obvious saddle. The trail turned brutally steep here and after a difficult climb, we opted to turn back.
While certainly I’d have liked to see the lake, Erin had chores to do, I had dinner plans, and there were two hours between us and Seattle. We both were feeling very satisfied and accomplished, lake or no lake. After all, we’d done exactly what we’d set out to do: go snowshoeing! The big trees of the Pacific Northwest decorated in frost and snow, the sparkling noise of the river, the moss jewelry hanging on the branches, a flawless snow, and no wind. What a perfect day.
After driving back across the pass, I stopped the car at a gas station/convenience market. Ravenous, I plowed through a tupperware container of Thanksgiving leftovers. Erin made short work of a burrito. I was home with time for shower and a short nap before heading out to dinner. This morning I’m sore in places I’d forgotten I had, but I’m also really happy. Winter is coming and soon I’ll be in a snowy playground. I can’t wait for days like yesterday to be a dime a dozen.
Gear note: A few weeks back I got a pair of MSR Denali snowshoes on loan. The frame isn’t the tube frame you often see on most snowshoes, it’s more like a cookie cutter with teeth in it. I can’t say if these things offer good floatation; our snow just wasn’t that deep. I can say, however, that I got in and out of the bindings in a snap and that the traction is excellent. I felt like a cat climbing a tree on the steep part of our hike.
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