Deception Pass State Park Redux

Location: Whidbey and Fidalgo Island
Difficulty: Easy to Easy-Medium (couple of short steep sections)
Dogs Allowed: Yes
Mileage: Variable
Passes: Discovery Pass for Day Use,
Season: Year round, but I recommend off-season

So we went back out to Whidbey Island and this time we brought friends. We had such a nice time camping out there last year and were so ready to have our first camping trip of the season it seemed like a great fit. The weather was not as cooperative this year, but we still had fun. I won't go over all the stuff we did, since we did a pretty similar set of hikes. In fact: here's a link to our original post. So read that if you want.

Mostly what I'm going to talk about are the differences, and some things unique to this trip.

1st: big difference Jaxx did not run away in the middle of the night. So thank goodness for that. He did fake that he was completely paralyzed when I put his coat on in the morning and proceeded to walk in backwards circles, which I really ought to take a video of cause it's HILARIOUS. He had everybody in camp just cracking up.

Instead of the Lower Loop campground (near Cranberry Lake), we camped at Bowman Bay. UPGRADE. This campground is way awesome. The views are gorgeous. You're a quick walk out to the point, and an even quicker walk to Bowman Beach. There are great views of Bowman Bay, whereas the Lower Loop your best chance for a view is looking into the forest and you're much more likely to have a view of somebody else's camp. The map is a little misleading cause it makes it look like the sites themselves are much more spaced out, they're not, don't believe it. The campground is much more open as well, which allows for views but don't expect a ton of privacy.

As I mentioned earlier, the weather was not entirely cooperative. It sprinkled off and on during the day and was pretty wet and rainy in the evening. Because the weather was kind of nasty we sort of invaded this little picnic shelter place. Technically this place is by reservation only, but since it's the off-season and we were pretty quiet nobody told us to leave, and we were there from maybe 4-5pm till about 10:30. We made pie-iron pizzas and s'mores, the pie-irons were awesome! And 3 people out of our group (who weren't raised in America and are consequently not huge fatties) had never had s'mores so that was pretty exciting. There are two keys to good s'mores: HoneyMaid graham crackers, off brand is not acceptable, they don't taste right. Good chocolate, my personal favorite is to get the Ghirardelli dark chocolate and caramel dudes cause that's just a delicious combination. Nick played guitar and we sang some songs and told ghost stories.

Around 9:45 a very nice gentleman came down to let us know we were not supposed to be there, but since there was no demand and we hadn't been making a ruckus he just asked that we be out and have the place straightened up by 11 pm.

The only not so good thing that happened on the trip was that Jaxx got kind of sick at the very end of the the hike on Sunday. Hey kept on throwing up, I carried him for a bit, but I ended up sitting with him while the others walked the last mile or so to get the car.

Overall it was a very good weekend. I love doing stuff like this and I especially enjoy it when it's combined with hanging out with awesome people. The whole weekend was perfectly capped off by getting some really god-damned delicious burger. On the way north on Hwy 2 there's this little shack with a sign advertising oysters and other sea food. It's right across a small road from a fire station and holy god is it delicious. I got a crab burger and Chris got the Big Kahuna Burger (beef patty, fried spam, pineapple and an onion ring). Everything was awesome. I'm a little bummed I didn't get the chance to try their milkshakes. Next time!

St. Edward State Park

St. Edward State Park - April 9th, 2014

Multiple Trails, Combined Mileage: 3.5 miles

Elevation Gain: 400 feet

Kirkland, WA

Dog Friendly

Difficulty: Easy

Pass Required: WA Discover Pass

Saint Edward Seminary

Saint Edward State Park is a 316-acre park on the Northeast bank of Lake Washington.  It stratles the the cities of Kenmore and Kirkland and is only a 20 minute drive from Seattle making it the closest state park to the city.  There are around 10 different trails that can be connected with a resulting total distance of around 6 miles.  Katie, Koko, Catherine and I decided to do a combination of trails that make a circle around the perimeter of the park for a total of 3.5 miles.  It was a very easy training hike compared to the one Katie and I have been doing most recently.

Saint Edward is a really beautiful park full of lush ferns, banking the multiple streams that run through the park, a pretty sizable canopy and pretty beach on Lake Washington.  The perimeter trail also has a sizable amount of elevation loss and gain which is somewhat unexpected just because of the short length of the trail.  The park also encloses Bastyr University, which is a fully functional 4 year university.  There is also some really cool architecture.  The above picture is of the coolest building in the park, Saint Edward Seminary, which was recently added to the national historic register.  

Overall the hike was uneventful and short, but it was still good to get out, get some exercise, hang with friends and spend some time in nature.

Mt. Si

Mt. Si - March 30th, 2014

Mileage: 8 miles

Elevation Gain: 3150 feet

Snoqualmie Pass - North Bend Area

Dog Friendly

Difficulty: Intermediate
Pass Required: WA Discover Pass

The WTA entry from Mt. Si reads as follows, "Mount Si should be experienced at least once by every hiker. In fact, a significant number of Puget Sound residents do just one hike per year, and these annual hikers almost invariably turn to Mount Si every time."  The author is definitely correct in this statement, and there is a really good reason why this is the case.  Well the hike up to the summit of Mt. Si isn't for the faint of heart or the out of shape, the payoff is an absolutely unforgettable view which includes the Upper Snoqualmie Valley, the Puget Sound basin, Downtown Seattle and Bellevue.  

I hosted the event through our online hiking group called Allison Pushes People Up Mountains (APPUM).  We had a strong turnout with 7 of the 30 members showing up for the hike.  We were initially planning to summit Mt. Si via Teneriffe Road Trail which is the longer/less steep cousin of Mt. Si Trail. It apparently has a much better view combined with much fewer people.  Well the later ended up being true, the much fewer people part was not true.  We got to the Teneriffe Road parking lot only to find it completely full.  

The parking lots for both Teneriffe and Mt. Si's trail have no overflow parking and tow away zones extend for several miles each way on the road by their parking lots.  So, we decided to turn around and drive to the Mt. Si trailhead and summit the mountain via this route.  I had promised the party that we would be summiting via Teneriffe because it was an easy hike and I didn't want to scare people off from attending future hikes because of the difficulty of Mt. Si trail.  So, several of my hikers were a bit apprehensive when they learned that we were in fact going to do Mt. Si trail afterall.

The really difficult part of the trail is the first half mile.  The trail immediately starts uphill and continues relentlessly until you reach the top of the mountain.  The reason the first half mile is hard is because you've just gotten out of the car after sitting for about an hour to commute out to the hike and your cold muscles are not exactly thrilled to go from still to a good percentage of their maximum capacity.  So, we slowly trudged through the first half mile with many rest breaks.  We ended up losing Amber around the first half mile to do hip trouble.  She had to have a hip replacement a couple of years ago, and going uphill isn't always doable.  After we got warmed up, our pace quickened and we began taking fewer breaks.  We ended up making it up to the summit in 3.5 hrs, which is a pretty good clip for that sort of elevation gain, especially considering our slow start.

Three of the seven hikers that were with us for this hike are originally from countries other than the United States.  Daniel and his brother Jaime are originally from Mexico and live and work in the US and the third, Koko, is a foreign exchange student from the Netherlands.  The three of them go on many of our outdoor adventures and it is really fun to be able to share the amazing natural beauty of our country with people from other countries, and Mt. Si did not let us down.  It was a bit overcast all day, but we were able to see about half of the view for about a minute or two when we arrived at the summit and before it was completely obscured by clouds.  The last quarter mile of the hike was covered in snow.  We were able to navigate it with only a few minor slips, but I could have really used a set of micro spikes (sets of small spikes which are worn over normal tennis shoes or boots), which I'll be purchasing next season.  After getting to the summit, we took some more pictures, had a bite to eat and then quickly got uncomfortably cold because of the wind chill and headed back down the mountain.  

Katie and David decided it would be a good idea to feed some of the wildlife.  I'm completely against this as it leads to a slew of problems, which I won't go on a tirade about that here.  Having said that, it was still cool to see birds fly up and sit in their hands while they ate the trail mix they were offering.

The hike back down the mountain took another two hours.  Our buddy Nick serenaded us with his ukulele while we descended the mountain.  We all had rubbery legs by the end of the hike.  Overall, it was a great day spent with great friends.  

Golden Gardens to Carkeek Park Beach Hike

April 3rd, 2014
Mileage: 4 miles
Elevation Gain: 0 feet
Seattle
Not Dog Friendly (Although there are often dogs)
Difficulty: Easy

A few weeks back, Katie and I decided it would be a good idea to start doing a weekday hike once a week to stretch our legs and get in better overall shape both for our health and so we could comfortably do more strenuous hikes on the weekend.  We have mostly been doing Poo Poo Point (hehe) for our weekday hikes but decided to change it up on the 3rd and do a nice beach hike from Golden Gardens city park to Carkeek city park.  Both of these are beach parks located 2 miles away from each other on the same stretch of beach on the Puget Sound in Seattle.

You have to do this hike during low tide or you will either have to swim instead of walk or climb up to the train tracks in the picture above and walk along those, which is trespassing on railroad property, which is illegal.  Koko, our friend from Amsterdam was able to join Katie and I for the hike.

We arrived at Golden gardens about half way between low and high tide with the tide coming in.  Part of the reason we wanted to do the beach hike is because of the usually beautiful view of the Olympic mountain range on the other side of the Puget Sound.  Unfortunately, it was overcast and raining, and for most of the hike the mountains were completely obscured.  We walked along the beach and Katie and Koko helped me play the pretty stuff game which involves collecting pretty shells, rocks and glass to ad to the cool fountain Allison and I built to help us get better quality of sleep by providing some ambient noise.

By the time we got near Carkeek Park the tide had come in far enough to where we had climb over boulders instead of walk on the beach.  This did not bode well for the trip back, but we pushed onward knowing that we could always scramble up to the train tracks if we felt things were getting unsafe with the tide coming in.

We spent a minute at Carkeek Park and decided that we didn't want to scramble on the boulders a second time on the way back and decided to climb up to the train tracks.  Luckily, we only had to go a few hundred feet on the tracks to bypass the boulders and no trains came, so we didn't get in trouble!  About 15 minutes after we got off the track, a long cargo train came zooming by.  We got some cool pictures and the conductor was nice enough to humor me by blowing the whistle when I did the hand motion!  As we neared Golden Gardens, the tide had come in far enough that the beach was totally gone, so we had to walk another half mile on the train tracks and then scramble down a really steep 30 ft tall hill to get back down to the park.  Even though we had to push our luck with the railroad, the hike went well and no one besides us was privy to our trespassing!