After fifteen minutes or so of driving in the dark (stopping on the way to gawk at the outline of the mountains surrounded by stars), we found the Lone Fir Campground and were shocked by how many people were there - we thought we would be the only ones stupid enough to go camping on such a butt-numbingly freezing weekend.

We found a site (right next to the bathrooms, it would make the nocturnal calls of nature easier to bear in the cold) and got a campfire started as fast as possible. Then we lingered in front of said fire for three whole hours, chatting, eating soy dogs and generally enjoying the feeling of warmth.

The night was surprisingly comfortable; in fact I have never slept so well in a tent before. We brought several tons of extra blankets, but in the end, all it took was an extra sleeping bag and a real pillow for me to feel nice and toasty and sleep through the night.

In the morning we spent another four hours in front of the campfire before finally peeling our butts off the camping chairs and heading out on an easy, relaxing and very scenic hike to Blue Lake. Excellent views for minimal effort, and we got a good look at the route Carlos climbed up Liberty Bell in August.

I think this was my favorite weekend of the entire year (so far!). It was great to finally hang out with Carlos again, and to hike with Tom, Tisha and Steve, even though we ended up camping separately. Add a feast of larch trees and a bunch of lakes, and that’s pretty much my recipe for pure happiness. The campfire didn’t hurt either, I am officially a car camping convert. Big thanks to all my fellow larch hunters for making this such a memorable week!

As the weekend came up, the forecast grew colder and colder and colder, warning of a daytime high of 23°F (-5°C) and a nighttime low of 11°F (-12°C). Brr! JK, Carlos and I were scheduled to go backpacking with Tisha, Steve and Tom, but we chickened out at the last minute and decided to dayhike with the group and then car camp instead - that way we could bring as many sleeping pads and blankets as we could possibly stuff in the car, plus have a campfire.

Our destination was Black Peak, sharing part of the trail with the Maple Pass hike I had done earlier in the week. Since we were just dayhiking, we planned to join the backpacking crew to the lake below Black Peak and turn around while they scrambled up (but we all brought our climbing helmets just in case).

The first part of the trail was easy, especially for those of us carrying day packs instead of heavy winter overnight packs. Moahaha. The exhaustingly long talus field over to the first lake was covered in 4-5 inches of snow, which made it even more interesting for the poor bastards carrying heavy loads.

We sat down to rest and have a snack by the beautiful, avocado-colored Lewis Lake. I’ve been wanting to go there all season, so I was all giddy and happy to finally have made it.

The larch porn up there was incredibly arousing, and there was much oohing and aahing and unsightly drooling as we made our way up to Wing Lake.

When we reached Wing Lake, we realized that JK and Carlos would have a shot at reaching the summit of Black Peak (and making it back in time to cross the Talus Field of Doooom before dark) as long as they moved fast.

I volunteered to stay behind at the lake since a) I would slow them down too much to summit, b) I would most likely be terrified by the exposed scramble up there and c) I prefer lakes anyway, especially when they’re turquoise and surrounded by larches. Nom nom nom.

While I bundled up in all my layers and some borrowed camping accessories from Tom and Tisha, the rest of the gang headed up towards the summit. Apparently it was pretty sketchy, especially getting up the summit block and crossing a sphincter-tightening, snow-covered, narrow, hellish piece of rock over to the true summit. Let’s just say I’m glad I didn’t go, and I’m also glad JK prefers roped class 5 climbing to scrambling. Ugh.

Here’s a panorama of Carlos on the summit (I just realized the stitching process severed his hand - sorry Carlos!):

Four cold hours later, JK and Carlos finally made it back to the lake, happy to find me only partially turned into a popsicle. We hurried down from the lake and found ourselves crossing the talus field at dusk, just as the wind was picking up and blasting us from the valley. Brrr. I had the joy of finding a sucker hole in the snow and banging my shins (there is no body part more badly designed than the shin) and bending my hiking poles as I slipped between the rocks. Fun!

It was completely dark by the time we reached the main trail, so we switched on our head lamps - never go hiking without a head lamp, seriously - and covered the last couple of miles in no time. I love hiking in the dark (as long as the trail is good); I get into a sort of trance where all that exists is me, my feet, and stars as far as the eye can see.

35 minutes later we were back at the car, scurrying inside to turn on the heat, and then we drove east to try to find a campground where we could spend the night and warm our frosty behinds.

Tom wrote a very amusing trip report on nwhikers.net if you’re in the mood for lots and lots of photos (there are some great ones of the scramble!) and a chuckle or five.

Washington State isn’t exactly known for its autumn colors, but if you venture into the mountains in the right place at the right time, you will see the prettiest fall pr0n show of them all: the turning of the larch, when these beautiful trees turn a golden yellow before shedding their needles for the winter.

Due to bad planning and general malaise, we missed out on last year’s larch season…and I have felt unreasonably bitter about it. This year I decided I was going to go larch hunting no matter what, so for months I had been planning to go backpacking the second weekend in October. As it turned out, I got to sneak in a bonus larch hike last Wednesday when Gabi planned a trip to Maple Pass in the North Cascades.

I have never driven that far for a dayhike before (three hours each way from Redmond - at least we were carpooling!), but man alive was it worth it. After some short switchbacks through the forest, we ascended a beautiful ridge with stunning views all around.

I had never been to this part of the state before, but I immediately fell in love with the peaks adorned with a light dusting of snow and the drier landscape we could see to the east.

Best of all? The larches. Oh yes, I finally got to see my precious trees. They did not disappoint - I don’t know whether it’s endearing or just plain sad that I can get this excited about plant life.

We strolled around the cirque above Lake Ann, taking pictures and breathing in the fresh mountain air, before reluctantly heading back to civilization and reality.

This is a trail I would definitely recommend to anyone - it will have to be next year though; it will be snowing up there all week - it’s an easy hike with huge payoffs (the trailhead is at 4800 feet, so you’re basically cheating your way into the high country), the trail is excellently maintained, and if you have any sort of soul, it will make you fall in love with the mountains forever. It’s also a loop hike, which makes it more interesting than the usual out-and-backs. The trail info can be found here.

Alrightyroo, before I say anything else, I (ok, we - thank you nerdy husband!) just changed the design on the blog, so if anything looks weird, please let me know. I wanted something simple and uncluttered for the new season.

Speaking of the new season, last weekend we drove up to the Mount Baker Wilderness to see some autumn colors before the actual autumn weather set in. We chose Yellow Aster Butte, an easy and very scenic hike up to a gorgeous string of tarns. It’s very popular, but has enough campsites so it doesn’t feel crowded.

Even though the weather looked summery, it’s definitely starting to get colder out there. I bundled up in all sorts of clothes once we made it to camp, brrr.

We were planning to hike up some little knobs and peaks once we got there, but I’ve been feeling so lethargic lately (methinks it’s more mental than physical) that we settled for a nap and an afternoon walk instead.

We had dinner while watching a beautiful sunset, but when sunrise came, we weren’t motivated to do anything more than open up the tent flap and watch it from the comfort of our sleeping bags (henceforth to be known as our snooze-pods).

I’m assuming this will be the dogs’ last backpacking trip until next summer; their combination of minimal fur and even less body fat is not a good one for Pacific Northwest winters. They may not enjoy the alpine views as much as we do, but between all the walking, sniffing, peeing and chewing on sticks, I think they’re almost as excited about hiking as we are.

Luckily we ran into some people we know from nwhikers.net (I know, we’re geeks) so they could take this cute photo of our whole little family together - we’ll have to get better at asking random strangers to take photos of us in the future, we don’t have enough family portraits!

Anyway, I am so glad we went; I’ve been so tired lately that I was *this* close to staying home and sleeping instead. Note to self: tent trumps bed, every time.

So we seem to have had a bit of a curse on our hiking life this month, which unfortunately coincided with what was to be my big 100 mile effort for the Hike-a-thon. First I was sick for a week, then I hurt my back (I still have no idea what I did and it’s still painful - I must be getting old), then JK got sick for over a week and here we are and the calendar says it’s September. I didn’t come anywhere close to reaching my goal, but I did pretty well considering all the setbacks.

Ok, so two weekends ago we were all set to go on a backpacking trip to Ptarmigan Ridge with a group of friends. I was concerned about my back, but the doctor said I could go if it was an easy trip (check), if I brought drugs (check check) and if I carried a light pack (check check check and huzzah) - so JK was my pack mule and carried all of the heavy stuff. I could get used to this kind of backpacking!

Unfortunately, one of our friends had hurt her foot the night before, so they were out. The curse struck again! JK and I set out alone with our two little trail pups and meandered around in the fog until we found a suitable campsite above the lake.

Even though the weather was less than stellar, we had a great time. It’s gorgeous up there even in the fog, my back felt pretty good and I was happy to be out and about with my little family again after being sick.

Bobby and Wellie were hard at work patrolling our campsite for rogue marmots and mountain goats:

The sun started burning through the clouds the next morning and made the lake look even prettier:

…and as we were hiking back to the car, the clouds lifted to reveal all the views we had missed the night before. So beautiful!!

Our original plan was to go on another backpacking trip that night, but JK had a fever and wasn’t feeling good and we had to drive back home with a measly 8 miles added to our Hike-a-thon mileage. At this point I realized I didn’t have a shot in hell at making my goal of 100 miles in August and was doing my best not to be stressed out about it.

After taking some deep breaths, I took in the view of Mount Shuksan in front of me and felt the taste of fresh huckleberries still on my tongue and realized how lucky I was to just be out there in the mountains. I’m disappointed about missing out on several of the big hikes and climbing trips we had planned for this summer, but I am not making the situation any better by being annoyed. Just because we’ve been “stuck” doing short and easy hikes, it doesn’t mean they’re worth less than the big trips. We’ve seen some very purdy scenery on those easy hikes!

I think a big part of my problem is that I feel like I wasted so many years being seriously depressed, and now I want to experience as much as I possibly can to catch up…so when I miss out on a planned trip, it feels devastating to me. I need to find a balance between being excited and being laid-back, between perfectionism and failure, between attachment and detachment. And most of all I need to just breathe and realize that we’ve only just begun.

(…and now I have The Carpenters stuck in my head.)

Ever since we moved to Washington, we’ve had a thing for volcanoes (as you might have noticed) and ever since we spent a fantabulous night in a fire lookout last summer, we’ve had a thing for Mount Baker. Seriously, who wouldn’t - just look at it:

When we signed up for the mountaineering class this winter, we were excited to learn that Baker would be our “graduation” climb. Unfortunately I didn’t get that far since I am a recovering wuss, but JK and the gang have been preparing all spring. I was happy to learn that I would at least be able to join them in camp on Mount Baker for their climb.

I was really dragging ass on the hike in to camp on Saturday since I had spent the whole week withering away on the couch, eating nothing but mashed potatoes and chocolate pudding to appease my throbbing jaws after the wisdom teeth extraction. I was also carrying ten pounds more than my regular overnight pack weight - I brought my climbing gear in case we were going to do some crevasse rescue practice. We didn’t, so it was all in vain - but lord knows I needed some extra training.

After a week of absolutely insane warmth and sun, the weather unfortunately decided to go all Pacific Northwest on us as we started hiking, effectively removing any motivating views along the way. At least we got our first marmot sighting of the year, which pleased me to no end - they are my absolute favorite animals (apart from Bobbys and Wellingtons) and I feel a strong kinship with them (they’re fat, they eat plants, and they hibernate - sounds familiar).

We set up camp at 6,400 feet and enjoyed sporadic views of the mountain and our surroundings as the cloud cover came and went.

We went to bed at six in an attempt to get some snooze time; the climbers were scheduled to start moving up the mountain at 1AM.

I popped out of the tent to see them off, then went back to have the best alpine sleep of my life (I used JK’s stuff to make a double Thermarest-and-sleeping bag fort) while the poor suckers roped up and slogged on up the mountain in the dark.

I guess it’s not so bad when you get views like these along the way:

Finally they reached the summit of Mount Baker, 10,781 feet (3,286 m) - huzzah!

As the sun came up, I lazily rolled out of tent to watch the climbers making their way back down the mountain:

On the way down they could see all the beautiful (but slightly unnerving) crevasses they had passed by in the dark on the way up.

Now, of course, I really want to go on a big climb myself - hopefully I’ll get my chance later this year or next summer. I try to tell myself that the mountains aren’t going anywhere, but then I remember our hike to the crater rim of Mount St. Helens and realize that this might not be true…

Right, I should update this more frequently even when I don’t have any scrap-type things to talk about (going through a bit of a dry spell there at the moment).

Last week a weather inversion left the lowlands shrouded in gloomy, freezing, absolutely depressing fog, but the mountains were clearer than I have ever seen them before. We felt the weather permitted longer drives than we usually do, so first we went to Skyline Peak by the Stevens Pass ski area. We were planning on getting to the top of the rocky area and possibly traversing the ridge to the true summit, but there was just not enough snow (and too much ice!) to get up there. We’ll have to come back so we can finish what we started, it’s a beautiful area!

We ended up having lunch in the little saddle next to the “summit”, enjoying the sun, soup, Kvikk Lunsj, and excellent views of Glacier Peak, the Stuarts, Mounts Daniel and Hinman, and of backcountry skiers dressing up as vikings and praying to Ullr for more snow.

The next day we headed up to Mount Baker with Carlos. It’s a three hour drive, but man alive was it worth it - it was crystal clear as we hiked up to Huntoon Point and so warm that people were walking around in shorts and tank tops.

This weekend we attempted to follow the fair weather again, but we failed miserably. We went to Paradise and ended up tromping around in a total whiteout. Oh well, Paradise is still Paradise even if you can’t see the Mountain.