North Cascades, Olympic, Rainier: Washington's national parks are situated in a way that suggest a road trip tour of all three making a big loop around northwest Washington. After a bit of planning we set off to do just that on the last day of July. After a drive through the hot, dry, baked brown, eastern portion of Washington we arrived in the foothills of the North Cascades and set up a base camp near…
This trip started with a whoosh. Well, actually it started with a long slow drive up a rocky road, leading to that whoosh. The whoosh was the air rushing out of our right rear tire at record speed after being punctured by a rock. There’s nothing quite like spending the day working your way into a remote site in the forest to spend a few days, only to come up a mile or so short of your goal, and then feeling the need to go get a tire fixed. We passed the three options of camps we intended to stay at. They looked very nice. Maybe next time.
We spent the remainder of the day, and most of the next one driving out for a tire repair and then back to the St. Joe. Along the way out we picked up another flat tire. I guess the rocks are sharp on the St. Joe. Or they had a message for us. I’m going with the first option.
(more…)National "Take a Hike Day" was yesterday 11.17.24). We hit the Johns Creek trail for a couple miles on an overcast fall day. The colors were exquisite brought out by the recent rain: golds, rusty browns, reds on the twigs of dogwoods, white on the bark of birch, contrasted with the shiny green conifers, and massive ponderosa pines towering overhead, 80 feet up to their first branch. The chickadees were foraging and the squirrels were…