Category: Day Hikes (Page 6 of 12)

I just got back from an amazing solo trip to the northern California Redwoods. I was last there when I was 12, and I decided it was time to (((hug))) a few really big trees again. These trees are so huge that it’s hard to photograph them well. I had to put myself in a bunch of the photos just to show the sheer size of them. I camped at Jedediah Smith State Park campground, which was very nice. There are really no appropriate words to describe what it feels like to stand at the base of one of these trees and know that it’s 350 feet tall and 1000 years old. Incredible.  My 2 favorite hikes were the Tall Trees Grove on day 2, and the Cathedral Trees on day 3.

Day 1 – The afternoon I got to Jed Smith State Park, I walked through Stout Grove, and then hiked out to the Boy Scout Tree. It’s a beautiful hike, and since it was late afternoon I only saw a few other people. Just me and the trees…

Stout Grove:

Boy Scout Tree

Day 2 – I drove to the Thomas Kuchel Visitor Center in Orick and got a permit for the Tall Trees Grove, which is limited to 50 people per day. I was looking for solitude, and this was by far my favorite hike of the trip. At one point, the tallest recorded tree on the planet was in this grove. From the Tall Trees Grove a trail accesses Redwood Creek, and I stayed out on the banks for a couple of hours enjoying the quiet, the solitude, the sun, and a little bit of yoga thrown in for good measure.

I stopped at the Lady Bird Johnson Grove and did a bit more yoga IN a tree. Even though the tree was completely hollowed out, it’s still very much alive and well with a huge canopy, and seemed quite happy to have a yoga “tree” in it for a moment.

Day 3 – I drove out to the Gold Bluffs road and hiked through Fern Canyon, did a bit of log-jam scrambling over trees only to find the trail was closed on the other side once I got through the jumble of branches. The canyon is beautiful and so green!

Last but not least by any means, I drove along the scenic Drury Parkway and hiked out to Cathedral Trees. It’s very obvious why this cluster of trees are called “Cathedral,” they are huge and beautiful and I had them to myself for the afternoon 🙂

This has been one of the dreariest, rainiest, most gray winters on record in Western Washington. In 6 full months we have had only 9 (yes, nine) official days of sun. Being desperate for sun and vitamin D, we packed up on Thursday afternoon and headed east, camping at Sand Hollow Campground near Vantage. We spent all day Friday wandering for miles around the White Bluffs area of Hanford Reach. It was sunny , very little wind, warm enough to be comfortable in a tank top. It’s a gorgeous area overlooking the Columbia River and Locke Island. There are large sand dunes that are fun to walk around on, and we busted out some yoga up there to finish off a wonderful day 🙂 Can it be summer now????

After countless times heading up to Rainier, I still never EVER get tired of it. I am so blessed to be able to call this place my backyard playground!!  Since we had the wettest, gloomiest October on record, when the sun broke last Friday I headed straight to Paradise for a Washington-style tanning session with my Mountain. Not enough snow yet for snow-shoes, but still an amazing day spent alone away from politics, work, cell phones, Internet, etc.  Mt. Rainier is the best sunny-day attitude adjustment one could hope for 🙂

We got lucky and won the lottery for a Zion Subway permit, so had a quick trip down to Utah and back last week 🙂  This whole national park is incredible, and deserves more than just 2 days, but at least we got to see some of the best of it!

The Subway is a 9.5 mile hike/scramble from the trailhead, down steep canyon walls to get to the river, then up the canyon formed by the Left Fork of North Creek to an amazing area of waterfalls and rock formations. Water gets cold this time of year, but the weather was nice and we ended up not using the dry pants we had rented from an outfitter. Canyoneering boots and neoprene socks do come in very handy here, since your feet are continuously wet from hiking in and out of the river.

It’s a strenuous hike, with miles of rock scrambling and hiking inside the  river itself, but worth every single drop of sweat.  This place is pure magic. A loaded bacon cheeseburger and an ice cold beer are recommended after completing this one!

There is so much magic in this place, it’s impossible to narrow down the photos any more.  Enjoy!

It was a beautiful day for a hike, and I’ve never gone up to Crystal Lakes in Mt. Rainier National Park before.  I’ve hiked to the top of Crystal Peak and looked down on the lakes, so I decided to make it happen today. Up at 5:30 a.m., and on the trail by 7:15 a.m. It’s 2300 feet of elevation up up up in 3 miles. The lower part of the trail is through scrubby forest, not that exciting, but when you get near the top and to the lakes it’s a beautiful subalpine area. I was lucky enough to have the entire Upper Crystal Lake basin to myself for almost an hour before any other hikers showed up. I had my foldy-chair, a book, a thermos of iced tea, and brunch. I found a great rock outcropping to sit on, and I just kicked back and relaxed and enjoyed the amazing view!  Once other hikers started showing up it was time to leave, and I was thankful that I had a nice time of solitude for a while.

Frani and I had an excellent hike up Dog Mountain. It’s 2800 feet up in 3 miles, but the expansive views and fields of wildflowers up top are worth the effort!  There are views east and west along the Columbia River, Wind Mountain, and the tip of Mt. Hood from the summit of Dog Mtn.  Acres of balsamroot are blooming, along with Fritillaria, larkspur, paintbrush, phlox, trilliums, Calypso orchids, and dozens of other flowers all along the trail. And, of course, the ever-present poison oak!!!  We saw a lot of people in shorts, but I’d advise long pants and long-sleeve shirt for this particular trail. This is a great trail any time of year (except for when there’s a lot of snow), but it’s especially beautiful when the balsamroot is in full bloom (and it also means the parking lot and trail are a lot more crowded this time of year.)

I’ve always looked down on Grand Park from the upper trails, Mt. Fremont and Skyscraper Pass, and I hiked out once in a round-about-sort-of-way that was beautiful, but didn’t afford the huge, jaw-dropping views that you get when coming in via Lake Eleanor. Time to fix that, and I’ve been out twice now in the last week.

The trail starts from a Forest Service road, and gently takes you to Lake Eleanor in just under a mile. There is a nice MRNP camp here, and the lake itself is beautiful. From the lake, it’s a fairly easy trail through forest for another 2 miles to the beginning of Grand Park. Once in Grand Park itself, you can wander for several miles through this huge meadow, with amazing views of Mt. Rainier, Mt. Fremont, Skyscraper Mountain, and Willis Wall. Wildflowers up here must be amazing at the right time of year, but with that of course are the mosquitoes and flies, which I’ve heard can be fierce. The only downside of Grand Park is that at this time of year there is no water anywhere near, which means you have to carry in plenty for the trip.

This is the kind of hike where you want to bring a chair or hammock, plan on spending the day wandering the meadow, exploring, taking in the incredible views, and not being in a hurry.

I’ve never been up to Spray Park on the NW side of Rainier during full-on wildflower season. I decided it was high time I corrected that little problem. I was on the trail by 7 a.m. on a week day and had the trail to myself the entire way up to the top of Spray Park. Wildflowers were incredible! And a bonus was that mosquitoes weren’t unbearable like they sometimes are. I spent several hours wandering around the many levels of Spray Mark taking photos and just relaxing and enjoying the amazing views of Rainier and more wildflowers than seem possible.

On the way back down I met 2 wonderful young men who were hiking the Wonderland Trail and we sat and talked for quite a while. It’s so fun to see our beautiful Mountain through other people’s eyes, makes me realize that I can’t ever take this amazing park in my back yard for granted.

Since Summit Lake is one of the best areas to see fields of Erythronium (avalanche lily) in the Rainier area, we decided to check it out yesterday. A couple of little birds told us the flowers were in full bloom, and they were so right!  DH, Elizabeth, and I headed out early in the truck to get up the rather nasty forest service road before it was crowded. The hike up to the lake is a nice forest-y climb, but up at the lake itself is absolutely stellar!

It started out cloudy and breezy, and we thought we wouldn’t get a good view of Rainer today, that the wildflowers would be worth it though. It was a bonus day, because while we were up on the ridge the clouds blew away and Rainier was spectacular, as usual.

There was so much in bloom, it was sensory overload. I’ve never hiked the loop up the ridge that goes all the way around the lake, and that’s where the flowers were. Erythronium by the acre, paintbrush, penstemon, lupine, sedum, aster, the list goes on and on.  It wasn’t too crowded, and there were NO mosquitoes out yet.  An absolutely stellar day 🙂

A lot of photos, because this is one of those places that Mother Nature loves to paint beautiful scenes.

Let’s talk surgery first, then we’ll get into the Skookum Flats hike.  Apparently my name should have been Humpty Dumpty, because I keep falling apart.  I found out less than a month ago that I had grade 4 (a.k.a. bone-on-bone) arthritis of my right shoulder AC joint, so last Tuesday my most-wonderful orthopedic surgeon put Humpty Dumpty back together again.  I had an open distal clavicle excision and acromioplasty. Apparently other body parts were jealous that my knees were getting all the attention, and they decided to very vocally express themselves.  Surgery is done, healing is going freakishly quick, sutures are out, and I feel wonderful now…

So, on to Skookum Flats trail.  I needed a not-so-steep trail since I can’t yet use hiking poles with my right shoulder. Skookum Flats was a perfect post-op hike, mostly flat, beautiful deep forest, and of course I hit my favorite wildflowers at their peak.  Everywhere I looked there were trillium, calypso orchids, mahonia, skunk cabbage in full bloom. I hiked a wonderful, flat 6 miles on a gorgeous sunny day, and only saw 3 other people the whole time.  Skookum Falls still had a decent amount of water, which was nice considering how unseasonably warm it is and our lack of snow pack this winter.

Nature therapy is the best rehab out there, I got to check another trail off my list, and I got to see some of my favorite native wildflowers.