Trail Review: Gold Creek Valley

Gold Creek Valley - July 7th

8 miles (+ 1.5-2 miles round trip of dirt road)
Negligable
Snoqualmie Pass; I-90 Corridor
Dog Friendly
Difficulty: Very Easy

A little over a year ago Chris, Katie and I tried to hike Gold Creek Valley. We were looking for a good early season hike and it had been recommended. I can’t remember who or what recommended it. It was probably something along the lines of “This hike opens in May” and we thought to ourselves sweet! It’s May 18th (guessing) it’s got to be melted out! We totally don’t need to look at trip reports o WTA or anything...

We drove out there and didn’t even get to the actual trail before things turned slushy. Apparently you used to be able to drive up to the trailhead, now you need to park at Gold Creek Pond and walk about ¾ of a mile to the trailhead. Not a big deal, and the only reason I bring it up is this: there were people getting ready to go cross country skiing on our way from the pond to the trailhead. That should give you a pretty good idea of how snow it was.

I hear you thinking, surely they turned back, they’re not total morons who would try to hike an unfamiliar trail in two feet of snow when one of them was only wearing tennis shoes and jeans. Oh how wrong you are imaginary conversationalist. We are absolutely that dumb. My guess is we went about 2 miles, maybe a little bit less. We lost the trail a couple of times, but what finally made us turn around was we all fell into tree wells up to our hips.

This time was waaaaay better.

There was no snow. It was warm but not outright hot, the trail wasn’t crowded or muddy or anything! It was pretty much perfect. It’s an incredibly easy hike. We ended up turning around where you need to ford Gold Creek to continue on to Mt. Alaska, we’d read reports that things got a bit overgrown and nasty after that and we were looking for an easy recovery hike because of how hard we’d pushed on the the 4th. Not to mention that Chris’ ankle was only just starting to feel better.

It was a gorgeous day. There were tons of wildflowers, including my personal favorite (aside from daffodils or narcissus but they're not indigenous): wild tiger lillies (right). About ¾ of the way through the hike it opened up into the valley where there had obviously been an avalanche or mudslide or something. I find that kind of destruction oddly beautiful. It was one of the most enjoyable, mellow hikes I’ve had so far this season, I highly recommend it if you’re in need of an easy day. Start earlyish though (we started about 10:30), on our way back we passed twice the amount of people going out towards the trail than we’d seen on it all day.

WTA Link for Gold Creek Pond (no entry for the trail itself)

Trail Review: Annette Lake and Trail Etiquette

Annette Lake - June 23rd
7.5 miles
1400 ft Elevation gain
Alpine Lakes Wilderness; I-90 Corridor
Dog Friendly

Difficulty: Easy

God I hate people. You do too? Thought so. I hate people all the time. Person’s, individuals are okay, I like them just fine. The more individuals there are though, the more unhappy I become

For the most part hiking mellows me out, but I think it actually increases my general misanthropy. I get on the trail and if it’s at all crowded I start to get really irritable. I think I just subconsciously pick a group of people to bitch about in my head. The more crowded it is, the more internal bitching.

When Katie and I (Chris’ ankle was hurt) hiked Annette Lake it was one of those wonderful summer days in the Pacific Northwest. Which meant of course, that everybody and their mother was out doing stuff in the nice weather, and apparently we all had the same idea to hike the same trail. We had two dogs with us this time since Katie was dog sitting. His name is Tucker and he’s AMAZING.

The trail itself is pretty easy, or it would have been if it wasn’t so hot. When I say hot I mean 86 degrees with mild-moderate humidity. Judge me as you like I’m pale and there’s a very good reason I moved to the Northwest. The sun and I are frenemies.

The group of people who I decided to berate internally on this particular day was a family of four. Here are the reasons why I chose them:

1. Even though we were hiking faster than them, we took a few breaks to water the dogs during which they would pass us. Afterward we’d catch up to them and as soon as they saw us they would leap up from where they were resting and go. Which meant I had to stare at their backs until we were finally able to pass them. Which brings me nicely to number 2.

2. THEY WALKED SIDE BY SIDE ON A FAIRLY NARROW CROWDED TRAIL. I apologize for the caps, but I can’t begin to express how much this irritates me. I won’t even try. If you do this. Stop. Just stop.

3. The daughter was wearing jean shorts (separate issue) and every time I passed her she had this look on her face like “I totes hate being in nature, especially with my parents! GAWD.” Now, I understand, because her parents are stupid, but I don’t want to see anybody on a trail, especially stupid teenager faces. 

There was one other person who irritated me.
We stopped to let this old couple come down a rocky section they had started, even though we had the right of way. While we were stopped this guy walked around us and plowed right through old people. Who the hell does that?!

Anyway aside from all the stupid people the hike was really nice. There were some really beautiful views of the mountains on the way up. The lake itself was gorgeous, and I got to play in it with a really big puppy.

WTA Link

Note: A few of these photos were taken by Katie, not me.

Trail Review: Pratt Lake and Temporal Shenanigans

Pratt Lake - June 23rd

8 miles

2300 ft Elevation gain

Alpine Lakes Wilderness; I-90 Corridor

Dog Friendly

Difficulty: Moderate

Hikers beware! Pratt Lake has a temporal distortion on the trail! Wait, I’m getting a little ahead of myself, let me go back...

You start your hike up to Pratt Lake, in the same way as most hikes in the Alpine lakes wilderness. It’s a nice walk through an Evergreen forest with a mild-moderate incline. The highlight of the hike for me was the view from a ridge above Talapus Lake. I think if it had been a bit clearer we would have been able to see Rainier very prettily situated.

You continue up, there are some super cute bridges that you cross over, and if you did the hike early in the season (like we did) you’ll be walking through some snow. There was some crazy mist that was hanging out over the snow that I’m a little sad I did not take pictures of.

Till now everything proceeds as it ought to. Time does nothing out of the ordinary and you are just happy hikers!

You hit the saddle and start descending into Pratt Lake basin, we had to do some scary-ish skirting over snow/ice fields on an incline (not recommended without ice axes, we’re just idiots). Pass over some rocky/boulder fields. You walk through a little bit of forrest and you’re at the lake.

And it takes a fucking year to do all that. No really, it looks like a long descent and it is. Until you start to go back up.

The lake itself is pretty ho-hum (so ho-hum our whole group forgot to take pictures), or at least it was for us on this particular day. I think if it had not been so very cloudy and overcast that would not have been the case since I’ve seen pictures of the lake on sunny days, and the color and clarity of the water look pretty stunning.

Then you start ascending up out of the basin and it takes like 15-20 minutes. What in the holy hell is going on here? It took us an hour to go down and 20 minutes to go up. While the terrain was not the smoothest, I have never in my life had this happen. I have some knee issues so I’m a little slow going down but it never takes less time.

The only conclusion I can come up with is that there is a temporal distortion. If this happens to you, keep calm, call the Doctor.

WTA Link

Trail Review: Boulder River

Boulder River - May 27th

8 Miles
500ft Elevation Gain
North Cascades (near Darrington)
Good for Dogs
NW Forest Pass
Rating: Easy

Our hike on Boulder River started off pretty dramatically and ended... nicely, though it was a bit anticlimactic. Chris was ill so I ended up hiking with our friend Katie. The drive to the trailhead was quite lovely. I always love driving out to the North Cascades, I think they are the pretties mountains I've ever seen. People always gush about the peninsula. Feh. Give me the North Cascades any day of the week. See (below)? That's just barely getting towards them, they get so much better!

However, when we got to the trail head there were at least 10 Search and Rescue vehicles. The drive isn’t a short one from Seattle (about 1 hour 15 minutes), so we were super worried that we wouldn’t be able to hike.

As we got closer to the trail a woman informed us to please make sure we yielded to search and rescue, since they should be on their way back and carrying equipment. She then walked over to their FOOD TRUCK to get a breakfast burrito.

I will let that sink in. 

Search and Rescue has a food truck. With breakfast burritos! This sparked an entire conversation between Katie and I about how we would love to join Search and Rescue, except we don’t have climbing skills, helicopter piloting experience, or a desire to possibly have to get out of bed before 7am. We concluded we could not join Search and Rescue, but that breakfast burritos are delicious.

After that things were pretty much routine. We ran into aforementioned Search and Rescue personnel and they informed us they’d been out since 2am helping some stranded hikers. Further proof that Katie and I could not get breakfast burritos.

The hike was nice. There are a couple of nice waterfalls along the way and you never stray too far from the river itself, which I also find keeps me relaxed. I will say the trail conditions were not ideal, the trail was VERY muddy. Not “oh dear I might get some mud on my boots muddy,” more like Never Ending Story “ARRRTEX!!!” muddy. The grade is fairly level and we didn't need to take breaks at all going in or coming out. Though there was some route planning involved on how to avoid the majority of the mud.

The hike itself ends sort of weirdly. There’s no real conclusion, no this-is-the-place moment. It just sort of stops and you get to sit by the river have some snacks and turn around a slog it back. If you’re lucky there will be some crazy ass mist that is just hanging out over the river though. Which is pretty cool.

WTA Link

Trail Review: Baker Lake

Baker Lake East Bank - May 18th

14 miles ONE WAY

500ft Elevation Gain

Mt. Baker Snoqualmie National Forest

Good for Dogs

NW Forest Pass 

Rating: Very Easy (except for distance)

Oh Baker Lake. You had me so goddamned confused.

This hike is a perfect example of why it is important to carry topo maps with scales on them. I had just neglected to get one, because in order to get the entirety of Baker Lake from USGS topo maps I would have needed to download and stitch together 3 different maps. I was feeling lazy and just decided not to. Obviously a poor choice.

On WTA’s site there are two hikes listed for Baker Lake, the hike to Maple Grove and “East Bank” which supposedly terminates at Noisy Creek Campground. Maple grove is 8 miles round trip, and the East Bank is 9. It looked like each of the WTA’s hikes started out at a different trail head, Maple Grove at the southern trail head and East Bank at the north. I figured we could at the very least do one hike one day and the next day do the second. Then my hiking book says that Baker Lake East Bank is 14 miles. I assumed there was just some wonkiness going on with the mileage, especially since Noisy Creek Campground is on the northwest bank. I just figured WTA had a seizure when writing that post.

Now normally my hiking book lists hikes with round trip mileage, very seldom does it list mileage one way. I had looked at both posts on WTA, and just skimmed the entry in my book, and didn’t think it was necessary to carry the book with me. Well, you can see where this is headed.

The east bank of Baker Lake is 14 miles one way. We got 7 miles before we started to get a bit suspicious. However, as previously stated, we’re a bit stubborn. We decided we’d go a bit farther. We went about 10 miles total and came to an important conclusion. We were 4 miles from the North end of the lake, but were not completely sure where there would be a campground, and if we did go all the way, we would have to hike 14 miles back the next day. We decided it was a little too early in the season to be thinking about 28 miles in two days and turned around, hiking 5 miles back to Maple Grove campground. I can tell you, 15 miles with an overnight pack is about my limit.

Aside from our issues with not reading this properly and a lack of maps. It was a very lovely day. Cool and cloudy for most of the day, which was nice it actually made the lake look a bit mysterious. Then it started to open up in the late afternoon and evening (top two pictures). I seriously wish we had remembered to take photos of the sun going down over the west bank. It was really gorgeous, we sat on a log jutting into the lake and watched it go down. Not to mention the huge quantities of wildflowers that were everywhere.

We made camp near the lake, in an established site. There were some other people around us but it wasn't terribly crowded, thanks probably to the weather. I fell asleep really early and the next day we had my favorite backpacking breakfast: instant cream of wheat with dried cherries and almonds. We dragged our poor tired butts the 5 miles back to the car in the morning. On the whole I would say this was a pretty good hike, would be great for beginners, as long as they weren't planning on doing the full East Bank. If you had two vehicles it might be a pretty nice key swap or shuttle option.

Trail Review Greenwater and Echo Lakes

Greenwater and Echo Lakes May 4th and 5th

14 miles (including Echo Lake)

1600ft Elevation Gain

Mt. Baker Snoqualmie National Forest, near Enumclaw

Good for Dogs

NW Forest Pass 

Rating: Easy

We did this hike back on May 4th and 5th, but then got really busy with my birthday and a bunch of other stuff and I got distracted. Chris, our friend Katie and myself left Seattle around 8:45 and drove out the Greenwater Lake trail head. This was our first real overnight of the season, and unfortunately Chris and been having really bad acid reflux, so we were moving pretty slow. The hike out was lovely, it was warm but not hot, and while there were quite a few people on the trail it didn’t ever feel crowded.

We got to the end of the second of the two Greenwater Lakes, and a man with a struggling campfire told us he had tried to get to Echo lake and had been unable to go the entire way due to snow. Being the stubborn, independent types we are we decided we needed to see it for ourselves. After all, this man had a tea-cup sized dog, so obviously he was insane, not to mention he had shorts on so maybe the “snow” was just slush that was 100 yards long and we’d be able to cross it easily.

We could not.

We went another 1.5 miles before we hit the snow. It started out manageable enough, the trail was easily spotted, but after about ¾ of a mile of increasingly deep, often slushy snow, we were done and decided to turn around.

Luckily just after we had passed the guy who said there was snow ahead Chris spotted a campsite that he said looked amazing. I couldn’t see it through the brush, but after we turned back we decided to head for that spot. The campsite ended up being on an island where two forks of the greenwater river converged and dumped into the lake. We had to scramble across some fallen trees, but oh man. BEST. CAMPSITE. EVER.

We spent the night drinking wine we had packed in, and playing camp Disney trivia (that’s where we bring some Disney trivia cards but not the whole board game). Then as we went to bed we listened to an audio book of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and recordings of Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone reading selections from Edgar Allen Poe. In all a pretty awesome evening. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful.

WTA Link: http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/greenwater-lakes

Trail Review: Anti-Aircraft Ridge

Location: Issaquah Alps

Difficulty: Easy (~600 ft of elevation gain)
Dogs Allowed: Yes
Mileage: 6-7, but lots of opportunities for shorter hikes as well
Fees/Passes: None
Season: November - April

It’s always tricky in Western Washington to figure out good hikes in March that isn't going to be snowed in. You’re options are either to go out to the peninsula, the San Juans or some places in the Southern Cascades. The Peninsula is tricky if you have a dog, since so much of it is National Park, in addition both it and the San Juans have the added complication and cost of ferry rides. Going down to The Gorge or Southern Cascades isn't ideal either, it’s a long drive and areas may still be snowed in. If you don’t have time to do an overnight or multiday hike, this means you’re in for an extremely long day.

Which is why early in the season a lot of people, especially in the Seattle area end up settling for hiking/walking in some of the more expansive urban parks in Seattle (Discovery Park, Carkeek Park, etc.) and parts of the Issaquah Alps. A nice bonus for these hikes is that none of them require passes or have day use fees.

Chris, Jaxx and I have done a few of these, and this was probably one of the prettier ones. There are tons of trails in Cougar Mountain Park so you have a lot of options in terms of length. There isn't a lot of variation in difficulty since there isn't much elevation gain or loss for any of the hikes. Some have short bursts of slightly steeper terrain, but they are typically short. There are some nice views if you can find places without trees. You can see the lake in the valley below and we did get a nice peak at Mt. Baker in the distance. My favorite section that we hiked was Klondike Swamp. While it doesn't have majestic views it has definite swamp(ish) charm, lots of gnarled trees covered in moss etc.

WTA recommends this hike November through May, mostly to avoid mosquitoes I probably won’t hike here after April because of crowds. On an overcast (not rainy) day we saw probably 10 people or more, which doesn't sound like much when I write it down, but I like more solitary hikes. I imagine this place gets packed by mid-late spring.

Sorry about the lack of photos, cam-jam was dead.

WTA Hike Link (including directions)

Inaugural Post

ME.
I am Allison.I love the outdoors. I was raised in a really rural area of northern California and spent most of my life playing in tide pools, wandering around redwood forests, running around the local reservation and just generally being a crazy kid. About two years ago I started hiking again on a regular basis. I hike with my boyfriend Chris and our dog Jaxxson.

Chris and I are really great compliments to each other in terms of our outdoor style and experience. He's a former boy scout and is very much into preparation and planning. I'm a little bit more impulsive, but the knowledge I've gained of edible and medicinal plants, mushrooms, sea-life (and how to eat it) just based on where I live means I have some pretty good knowledge when it comes to being outside.

Jaxxson, well he's just himself.

WHY.
There are a few reasons why I want to start this blog. The primary reason is to help hikers, particularly people who are just starting and people who hike with dogs. I also want to help people learn about different types of edible plants, mushrooms, traps, survival stuff etc. Of course to tell stories, I really enjoy writing, and to show off some photography. My last reason for starting this blog is I think that one of the best things we can hope for in a capitalist society is getting paid for something you love. So I'm hoping that I can make a little money off the site.

CONTENT
My plan is to do several types of entries. Trail reviews, Product/Gear Reviews and Recommendations, Backpacking/Camp Food Recipes, Book Reviews, Tips and Techniques (including some primitive/survival stuff), and hopefully some guest content occasionally and anything else I think is fun or relevant (look out for an upcoming post on making a tiny freshwater tackle box).