Lake Twentytwo was beautiful as always (well, the snow on top of the lake was beautiful at least, I’ve never actually seen it in a melted state), and the trail was full of smiling humans and happy dogs…including one depraved Jack Russell Terrier that humped Wellie with such vigor and gusto that it took four adults to separate them. My poor boy will never be the same.

Fortunately JK is feeling better now, just in time for another sunny weekend – our local news station described the forecast as “spectacular with scattered awesomeness.” Where to go, where to go…

This was my second hike on Sauer’s Mountain outside of Leavenworth, and it has become one of my favorite spring trails. It’s perfect this time of year if you’re like me and the mere sight of snow makes you stabby (or you’ve just returned from ten days in paradise and you’re not emotionally ready for your tan to fade just yet).

The trail starts on private property (in what is presumably Sauer’s backyard) and it’s decorated with all sorts of totem poles and whimsical tree trolls. Past the forest service border, we had to make do with clusters of bright yellow balsamroot flowers and views into the Enchantments. The horror!!

At the top, Tom brought out a bottle of Disaronno so we could take a shot (or three) in honor of our friend Jo who is currently out of hiking commission with a gimpy leg. Get well soon, Josie, we need you to finish the bottle!

Anyhoo, my point is that when JK and our house guests decided to hit up the outlet mall in North Bend for a “quick” (YOU CAN’T FOOL ME!!) shopping session, I decided to drag my arse to the nearest trailhead instead.

Did I mention that I was hung over from our housewarming the night before? And that we had just eaten lunch at the greasy establishment that used to be (sort of) the Double R Diner? Well, these things bubbled and combined to explosively rocket me to the top of Little Si in record time. (Have I stumbled across the secret of TNAB’s afterburners?) A quick phone call to JK confirmed that I still had lots of time to kill, so I relaxed at the summit for a while and then chose a longer route, the Boulder Garden Loop, on the way down.

Little Si has never been a favorite of mine, but it sure as hell beats shopping.

I’ll post more later once I’ve managed to get all the Maui sand out of my hair and, as always, processed photos. Aloha!

Luckily we got an early start for once and were able to enjoy some almost-alone time on the Dome before the hordes arrived. I loved seeing lots of happy, smiling people enjoying themselves outdoors, but once we all congregated on the edge of a cliff, the acrophobic introvert in me decided it was time to hike on.

When we hiked Oyster Dome last year, we started at the regular trailhead along Chuckanut Drive. This time we followed Tom’s recommendation to start at Samish Overlook instead, and it will definitely be our default route from now on since the views from the trailhead are actually better than from the top. It also cuts a whole bunch of the mileage and elevation gain (which isn’t much to begin with), so we decided to visit the neighborhood lakes before heading home.

The side trip paid off – as we were walking along Lily Lake, a sudden, loud squawking scared the bejesus out of us. We saw two huge (so much bigger than Wellie!!) bald eagles two feet off the trail, giving us the stink-eye.

They were not happy about being interrupted in their exploration of the birds and the bees (spread-eagle?), but they decided to a) let us pass and b) not eat Wellie. It was the coolest wildlife sighting of my life so far, better than all the bears and even the marmots we saw making sweet love on Mount Baker.

We looped our way back to the trailhead where we sat down to eat the rest of our lunch and enjoy the sun and views. It’s a good life we lead.

Turns out there was no reason to worry about bringing him to Heather Lake – the first mile or so was dry bare, and once we hit the snow, there was such a hard-packed trench that we didn’t even need snowshoes. However, once we stepped off-trail to find a good lunch spot, we would immediately sink crotch-deep. Looks like it’s going to be another slow melt in the Cascades this summer, so you can look forward to lots of whining on this blog come June. Yay!

Wellie wasn’t the only vertically challenged canine out there that day, he made friends with two absolutely adorable Boston Terriers. See, all the cool dogs wear coats!

There’s not much to say about this hike, really. It was just…great. I had an awesome day. Unhurried hiking, a family nap in the sunshine, sharing stroopwafels while watching avalanches tumbling down from Mount Pilchuck…yeah, it was basically just great.

I think I’m over the mindset of always trying to challenge myself on trail – this season, my only hiking goal will be to enjoy myself. That’s why we’re all out there in the first place, right?

Since I hadn’t hiked in over a month, I was fully prepared to feel awful the whole way up, but I guess my walks on the Powerline Trail have kept me in reasonable shape. The trail was in its usual spring state of delightful muddiness, Rainier was hiding behind a wall of clouds and the sunset consisted of darkening shades of grey, but I was elated to be out on trail with my favorite guys again. An excellent alternative to TNAB, even though we missed out on the Blue Moon recovery beers at the Pour House. *frowny face*

Hopefully we can sell or donate a lot of the stuff we haven’t used in a long time (I’m looking at you, scrapbook stuff and JK’s old textbooks which we both know he will never open again but for some reason he refuses to get rid of).

The living room is almost done, we’re just waiting for our coffee table to arrive and to find a nice chair for the corner. Oh, and we picked up our bed last night – now we can finally stop sleeping on the floor like savages.

I adore our new kitchen. The island gives us so much more room to work with, and this is the first time we’ve tried gas burners. Cooking is fun again!

Bonus: the colors of the floor and the counter tops are both really forgiving. In our old house, every single little errant crumb would show, so ten minutes after I cleaned it, it would look dirty again. Here I can slob with abandon!

As much as I love the kitchen, I have to say that the best part of our new place is the deck. Spending sunny weekends “stuck at home” doesn’t sound so bad anymore now that we have a private space outdoors.

You would think the Wellie’s favorite part would be his new yard where he can happily defend us from rogue squirrels, but no. Nothing can top his unbridled passion for our new rug:

Yup, that’s one strange little nutria.

To shock lazy legs back into action, dust off your multi-day backpack and fill it with Heavy Things. Grab your dog and an mp3 player full of classics. Find the longest, steepest hill close to your house and walk up and down, up and down. (Try not to think about the fact that you look like a bit of a tool.) Tada! Happy, shaky legs.

Sightings: 2 rabbits, 1 bald eagle, 3 furry coyote poops. Be careful, bunnies!!

Fast-forward a couple of years into my hiking career and here I am, hiking Noble Knob, Panorama Point and Skyline Ridge for the 134th time…and loving it. I’ve come to value the tradition of returning to my old favorites. It might be due to realizing that I will never be an adventurous peakbagger, or maybe the comfortable familiarity of my happy places just makes me feel, well, happy. (Most likely, I’m just so lazy that I prefer not having to do any research before hitting the trail.)

Anyhoo, without further ado, here are my favorite hikes of 2011 – lots of repeats, but all of them wonderful.

Washington favorites:

I remember the first half of the year as a blur of rain and repetitive Tiger Mountain jaunts, but once in a while the sun decided to grace us with her presence. Tom’s annual celebration of aging at Kendall Peak Lakes was a success as always, and towards the end of January he was kind enough to humor us common folk with a non-epic snowshoe to Lake Valhalla.

More rain, more Tiger Mountain, even more rain, and then April brought a fantabulous ski/snowshoe to McClure Rock that made me forgive Washington (for the time being). In June we once again spent my birthday weekend on Iron Peak. Booze and cupcakes for all (except for Wellie, who was stuck in the cone of shame [and who probably shouldn't have booze or cupcakes anyway])!

Look, a Tiger Mountain hike made it onto the favorites list! Poo Poo Point was the perfect place to celebrate the summer solstice. The following weekend we returned to the Teanaway to summit Bean Peak and thought summer had arrived for sure.

In July we were pleasantly surprised by the charming Goat Lake trail and took our first alpine lake swim of the season – Wellie too! The most unique sunset of the year happened below us on a night hike of good old Bandera Mountain.

Late July and early August brought so much sadness, and the hikes we went on helped keep me going during that period. The day after the attacks in Oslo, we carried the Norwegian flag to the Thorp Mountain Lookout. After returning from Norway in August, we said our final goodbyes to JK’s dad on Noble Knob.

We kept the hiking therapy going on a relaxing swimming trip to Lake Valhalla and a much-needed night under the stars on Skyline Divide – a new trail for us but one we’re definitely adding to our repeat list.

My favorite hike of the year was my solo backpacking trip on part of the Wonderland Trail in September – it was a great confidence-builder, and I had time for lots of soul-searching about what I hope to achieve and experience in my life. Later that month, Dani and Tom took us on one of their repeat favorites, Hidden Lake Lookout.

In spite of (because of?) all my soul-searching, Josie and Karen had to come dig me out of my little depression hole with the promise of beer and rafting at Snow Lake. Still not feeling quite human, I decided not to join them on the Grand Enchantments Larch Expedition, but I got my own golden tree fix (along with the rest of the Washington hiking population) at Ingalls Lake in October.

In November JK and I took our Norwegian guests to Panorama Point to show off our magic volcano before finishing our hiking year off quite nicely in December with a Christmas cross-country ski trip to Chinook Pass.

Out of state favorites:

Aah, our trip with friends to Hawai’i in February could not have come at a better time. We left Seattle in a snowstorm and spent 12 glorious days on Maui, snorkeling with turtles and drinking mai tais. We had time for some hiking as well, most notably the Sliding Sands Trail on Haleakala and the mystical bamboo forest on the Pipiwai Trail. How did I never blog about this??

In May we flew back to Norway to attend my best friend’s wedding. We added some adventure to the trip by traveling up north to Lofoten to hike and camp. The weather was absolute shite and I was pretty miserable with a sinus infection, but I still have fond memories of sleeping in a tent on Bunes Beach in the howling rain.

Our September trip to Santa Barbara brought more sunshine, and even though it can barely be called a hike, I loved visiting Anacapa Island in Channel Islands National Park. I notice I haven’t blogged about these trips either, because I suck.

After a couple of years away from red rock canyon country, in October Josie and I returned to the southwest for Karen’s epic surprise birthday trip. It’s hard to pick my favorites from this vacation, but I’ll go for the freezing hike through the Zion Narrows and the otherworldly sightseeing in White Pocket. Have I blogged about either of these? No, of course not. I’ll post 17 trip reports of rainy runs in the Issaquah Alps, but nary a word about the most beautiful places I have ever seen. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!

JK’s non-Ingunn favorites:

I know, that’s preposterous, right? While I would like to think that any trip without me would contain only hardship and misery for JK, he claims to have enjoyed his disgustingly sunny ski tour in the Baker backcountry and his solo ascent of Reinebringen in Lofoten. Sure, whatever you say, JK.

There you have it, another year of adventures big and small, old and new. Time to delve into 2012!

Carlos invited me to join him and the little talker for a hike where I could see (well, hear) it for myself. It really is incredible, hearing that seemingly helpless little human tell us exactly what he needs. “Neh” (feed me) and “eh” (burp me) in particular are unmistakable.

As for the hike, I had never been to Wallace Falls before and I was surprised by how lush and pretty the forest was, but this is one of those hikes I’ll remember for the company and the conversation (including all the nehs and ehs), not for the views. Thanks for a most excellent afternoon, Brazilian menfolk!

*Wikipedia article on Dunstan Baby Language

Ok, so it was still crowded, because Paradise on a weekend is always crowded…and for good reason. I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve hiked up there, but we just never get sick of it.

Once again it hit the spot; it was the perfect short hike to loosen up my legs which were still magnificently sore from Friday’s run and Saturday’s cross-country ski trip.

We had a picnic (stroopwafels and a Subway sandwich – I needed a banana pepper fix) on Panorama Point before skiing/glissading back down the hill. JK impressed me by staying upright on the icy crust (while I got borderline frostnipped butt cheeks).

It was nothing new, nothing adventurous, just another beautiful day with my favorite person in one of my happy places.

As we drove back down the winding road, mindful of errant foxes and slick patches of ice, Mount Rainier kept changing color.

We arrived at Longmire just in time to run out of the car and admire the pink alpenglow. The perfect end to the best weekend of 2012 (well, so far anyway). There’s nothing better than feeling exhausted but relaxed and content.

(Yay, I finally learned how to do fun things with our GPS tracks – thank you for the tutorial!)

I’ll post some real photos when we get all our furniture and stuff set up (and when I can find the camera cable which will inevitably be hidden in the last box I open), but for now I’ll post a couple of cell phone snaps and get back to marinating in all this new house love.

It feels like a vacation retreat* for us, and I find myself not wanting to even hike(!) because I’m perfectly content puttering around the neighborhood.

Maybe next week some of the newness will wear off and I can return to the world outside of my little bubble, but for now I will happily call myself a homebody.

*Did I mention the hot tub? Oh heavens yes. I’ve never been in a totally private hot tub before, but man alive are those things more enjoyable when you don’t have to worry about other people catching a glimpse of your billowing blubber amidst the bubbles.

We had our sights set on the classic Mount Catherine Loop, and chose to do it the cheater’s way by hitching a ride on the Silver Fir chairlift. Our official excuses are as follows:

– We wanted to sleep in.

– We had to be back in town early in time for the Ingrid Michaelson show.

– We have season passes, so it would be silly not to take the lift, right?

– I was so. sore. from my run the day before.

…fine, we’re really just lazy.

Avoiding most of the elevation gain by taking the lift up is actually a bad choice for me since I greatly prefer going uphill and, as I have documented before, I should not be allowed to go downhill on cross-country skis. Also, I’ll never know how I managed to get off the chairlift on those twigs without falling in the first place.

We both LOVED this route. Lots of pretty vistas all around, no steep hills (there was only one fall/pole-impalement incident), and two excellent warming huts – not that we needed them. It was a bit breezy, but the sun kept us nice and toasty during our lunch break.

(I refuse to carry the camera when I ski – given my perpetual fight against gravity – so most of these photos are of me posing awkwardly in front of things, none of JK in action. He would have been a much better representation of the Norwegian spirit. Even though he’s technically Polish. Whatever.)

Did I say it was breezy? Ok, so it was windy as all hell, but this actually worked in my favor as my normally disastrous downhill run was slowed significantly by the headwind, giving me a semblance of control. Success!!

Oh, and the Ingrid Michaelson pop-up show that night was fantastic. Very intimate, low-key, and fans-only. It was refreshing to go to a concert where people actually shut up and listen to the music. I’m looking at you, annoying people behind me at Florence and the Machine!! A concert is not the place for you insipid first-date banter.

Anyhoo, back to my run last Friday. There was sunshine. In early February. I wore a t-shirt! I discovered a new (to me) trail system off the Powerline. I experienced an endorphin rush so intense that it made me run much farther than I probably should have given my current physical shape…and I realized that if running is capable of giving me this kind of a buzz, I really need to do it more often. Maybe I really should sign up for a race, something to motivate me to get out on that Powerline Trail even now that the weather is back to its normal, dreary self. The Sun Mountain 25K in May, perhaps?

*well that can’t be a good sign.

JK (and Wellie, who by default won both the canine division and the age 1-5 group) signed up to sweep the course (run behind the last racer and make sure that everyone gets off the course safely) while I was part of the aid station crew on top of Mount Constitution. Sweet!! The view was surprisingly good given the weather (but check out the view from the aid station during the 50K race the following weekend – them bastards stole our sunshine!), and we were kept busy supplying the runners with food, drinks, and electrolytes.

Helping out at the aid station was lots of fun, trying to anticipate what the runners might need (hot soup? blister pads? an excuse to stop and rest for a few minutes?), attempting to make PB&J sandwiches with frozen peanut butter and watching the front of the pack zoom past us even at the top of that monster of a hill.

As I stood there in my humongous puffy jacket trying to keep warm in the hail/snow/murderous ice pellets, I was secretly pleased with myself for not being one of those poor runners out on the course…but when they started pouring into the aid station, looking absolutely elated (well, most of them), I realized they were the lucky ones. I also realized that I really really do want to run a race like this one day.

Between the beautiful course (even in this weather), mellow vibe, excellent post-race meal party with live music and, if I do say so myself, a fabulous aid station, I would love to come back and race this in the future. JK has his sights set on the 50K next year, so it looks like we’ll both have to start training.

(Yes, there’s an infant swaddled safely somewhere inside that grey blob.)

Given all the trail miles he had logged in utero, at ten weeks old it was high time Nathan went on his first snowshoe. Until he can walk on his own (and use these amazing Snowpaw Snowshoes), he’ll get free rides with his parents, marsupial-style.

Carlos and Deborah had the perfect destination in mind – the Grand Junction Warming Hut, part of the Snoqualmie Nordic trail system. We hiked from Silver Fir, past Hyak Lake, over the river and through the woods to the hut.

Perfect destination indeed. The hut was heated by a wood-burning stove which allowed Nathan to escape from his snuggly cocoon for all his feeding and changing needs.

This was at the tail end of the Snowpocalypse, but the little nugget slept through the whole trek though the snowstorm. At the hut, he wasn’t fussy at all – but then again he is the most laid-back baby of all time. He just sat there wide-eyed and cooing while JK and I perfected our baby-sniffing technique.

Once Nathan was bundled back up in his adorable snowsuit, we ventured out into the deep powder (I know, deep powder in the Cascades…whaaaa?) and retraced our steps back to the Silver Fir parking lot. An excellent outing for children big and small!

My friend Andrea asked me to write a tiny little piece for The Wilderness Society‘s My North Cascades Story, so I decided to share one of my happiest and most meaningful hiking moments yet. You can check it out here.

(If you want more North Cascades larch pr0n, here’s my original blog post from Wing Lake plus Tom’s far superior trip report on nwhikers.net.)

I love not having to drive to the mountains for a wildernessish experience. What’s the point of fighting traffic on slick roads when good old Nike Park has transformed into a winter wonderland?

Ironically our Wednesday evening ski class was cancelled due to the snow, so we satisfied our adrenaline cravings by sledding in Meadow Park with Carlos and Deborah and our respective offspring.

The highlight of the week was our Cross-Country Ski Tour de Redmonde. We’ve skied in our little town before, but that was before we knew about the wonderful Powerline Trail about a mile from our house. I’ve been wanting to ski that sucker for YEARS, and it did not disappoint. I only fell once!

All in all we’ve covered about 30 miles of walking and skiing so far this week, which I’m hoping will make up for the elevated levels of baking brought on by the snow. Damn you, snickerdoodles!!

Maybe Wellie will be able to find his ball before the next Snowpocalypse hits.

*a doozy for a region that owns something like five snowplows total.

I didn’t bring any water since I’m trying to train myself to drink less during short distances, so near the end when I started feeling parched, I resorted to swallowing little slurps of post-nasal drip. I kid, I kid! (Sort of.) By Monday my cold was gone and I felt human again.

1) Write more trip reports | A gloriously unquantifiable resolution. I’ll just say I failed, mostly.

2) Not freak out if I miss out on trips | I actually worked hard on this one and have become much more comfortable spending weekends in the city or on lowland trails. Or maybe I just lost my sense of adventure.

3) Lose weight | I happily ignored this one until I came home from Utah in late October and saw video footage of myself. Gadzooks! I’m starting 2012 20 lbs lighter than 2011, so I would call this a success…but it obviously still needs work.

So to keep working on all of these resolutions, I plan to dust off my blog and post all our adventures, big and small. It’s ok if I only have crappy cell phone photos (see below) and it’s just a quick run in the Watershed or the Issaquah Alps. Anything goes.

Last Saturday was actually my first time out of the house in days; I had spent most of the week hibernating with a stubborn cold. Everything from the neck up was still stuffy and runny and generally charming, but my body and mind were getting restless. JK and I decided a short run on Cougar Mountain was in order to clear our sinuses.

It was my first real workout since our pre-Christmas xc ski to Tipsoo Lake, so it was shocking that my body even remembered how to move. JK’s body seemed to remember it a little bit better than mine (and he’s training for a trail race), so he ran the hills and doubled back to me for extra elevation gain while I slowly shuffled along, feeling like I was going to die. In a good way, though. Sort of.

Hiker in training | I have no words for how cute Carlos and Deborah’s brand new tiny human is, and he’s already been on his first hike. Maybe I’ll finally have a trail partner I can keep up with!

Mike’s birthday weekend in Whistler | I’ve never skied with views this beautiful or runs this long. My legs felt like they were going to fall off, but a huge smile was stuck to my face all weekend.

Winter Warmth Concert | The Head and the Heart and Florence and the Machine in one night? Oh yes, yes indeed.

Annual Skyline Ridge snowshoe | We were hoping for a repeat of last year’s gloriousness, but got skunked on the weather. Meh, who needs views when you have a picnic of gingerbread cookies and hot toddy with your beloved!

Winter Solstice TNAB | Snowshoeing to Hyak Lake in the dark to celebrate the Turning by consuming copious amounts of gløgg (and some sort of sinister blue liquid) with a group of lunatics. A holiday favorite!

Christmas Cabin | We have spent many a happy weekend at Tom and Dani’s cabin this past year, culminating in a Yuletime feast of shcnow schnow, white elephant gifts (we scored a Go Girl and a dancing gopher) and general happyfuntime with some of my favorite people.

Cross-country skiing to Tipsoo Lake | 11 miles round trip on Highway 410 (on day two of a migraine, no less). I confirmed once again that I love skiing uphill while going back down is absolutely terrifying. Will put in an official request for a) skis with metal edges and b) a sizable pair of cojones.

Christmas with the family | After spending our last three Christmaseseses alone, JK and I (and Wellie!) loved celebrating with my parents again! Unfortunately we all contracted some sort of plague and spent most of our time sniffling on the couch, but at least it’s better to sniffle together than alone.

The Hunger Games | The only good thing about the plague was that it gave me an excellent excuse to obsessively plow through the entire Hunger Games trilogy in three days. I know I must be the last person in the world to discover these, but holy mackerel, what a story!

The Hangover NWHikers Style from sKareCrowe Films on Vimeo.

I really need to stay behind the camera.

Once in a while the weather cooperates and we can pretend that we don’t live in the American version of Bergen. Other times the monsoon will be out in full force and the poor out-of-towners can stay here for weeks on end without catching as much as a glimpse of our beautiful mountains. To this day, my brother thinks Mount Rainier is a figment of my imagination.

Luckily Marthe and Olle timed their visit perfectly with a stretch of unseasonably clear autumn weather, so in addition to touring Discovery Park, the Space Needle, and Pike Place Market, JK and I lured them down to Mount Rainier National Park for a hike, buttering them up (literally) with donuts along the way.

Actually, if you stay at our house you are contractually obligated to go hiking with us. Consider it rent.

Rent in the form of amazing views…

…and wildlife encounters. Foxes!

Black Bears!!

Cascade Mountain Gorillas!!!

We hiked through the fresh snow up to Panorama Point. JK and I have been there, oh, about 756 times before, but we still love it. Especially when we get to share this piece of our new life with people from our old life.

My brother needs to come back and see that we’re not making this stuff up.

Curried White Bean Stew:

1) Heat (medium) 1 tablespoon or so of olive oil. Stir in 1 tablespoon curry powder (I use Simply Organic Curry Powder)
2) Stir in 1 chopped onion, 3 cloves finely chopped garlic, 1 tablespoon grated ginger and your preferred amount/type of chili pepper (I like this stew spicy!)
3) When onion is softened, add 1 can diced tomatoes, 1 cup vegetable broth, 1 chopped red bell pepper and 2 cans rinsed white beans
4) Stir and let simmer until reduced to your preferred stew thickness. I like to add 1-2 cups of chopped fresh spinach towards the end, then smash things up a little bit with a potato masher
5) Salt and pepper to taste!

Garlicky Mushrooms and Kale:

Follow the recipe from Appetite for Reduction (change amount depending on how much kale you want). The recipe is also available here.

I usually reheat some stew in the microwave, then top with 1 tablespoon ground flax seeds (for healthy fatz) and stir in the kale mix. Very chewy, flavorful, filling, warming and perfect for cold November days.

Well that’s a lie, as I have definitely not been neglecting the internet, but I have neglected this blog.

I only seem to post trip reports here these days, and lately not even that (this is related to my impressive procrastination skillz when it comes to processing photos). I’m having trouble deciding what to share on this blog, how personal to make it. My favorite bloggers share a lot of themselves and that’s what makes their writing interesting, at least to me…but then I get self-conscious, knowing that so many people from my non-interwebs life read this. You know, all the people who, unlike you, don’t live inside my computer.

On a totally unrelated note, I’ve been thinking a lot about Everest lately, namely trekking to Everest Base Camp. I’ve wanted to do this ever since I read Into Thin Air (though I realize that any sane person would be motivated to stay as far away from Everest as possible after reading that book) back in ’07, but I assumed it would never happen since JK shows no interest in spending his hard-earned vacation time freezing, hypoxic, and riddled with food poisoning. Then it occurred to me, why not just go on my own? Join a guided tour and meet some like-minded mountain lovers while sharing a bowl of dal bhat by the cozy heat of burning yak dung?

I’m turning 30* next year, so methinks it’s time for one last hurrah before I qualify for Medicare.

*holy crap!

We hiked through freezing water and endured the traumatizing smell of wet rental neoprene booties…

…drove down an absolutely mental “road” of deep sand and sharp rocks to see some of the most beautiful rock formations in the world…

…slithered (some more gracefully than others) through muddy slot canyons…

…and backpacked in the desert with only one minor quicksand incident.

I’ll write an installment of trip reports when I get all my photos up, but for now I just want to thank mah ladeez for one of the best vacations I’ve ever been on.

I’m still smiling.

This has led to many a missed adventure, especially this summer. Fortunately my friends are patient, forgiving, and incredibly kind. And, magically, they are able to turn a somewhat mundane hike along I90 into one of the best afternoons I have had in a long time.

Thanks, friends, for not letting me sink.

Hidden Lake Lookout is her favorite trail, and after years of talking about hiking there together, we finally did it this weekend.

The trail wends through flowering meadows (in late September – this is a strange year), lingering snow (strange year indeed) and big piles of rocks before reaching the old fire lookout, perched atop the somewhat sinister-looking peak that Dani refers to as the Eye of Sauron:

There’s also a lake, hence the name Hidden Lake Lookout. Unfortunately (or fortunately, since it would have meant extra elevation gain) we couldn’t go swimming since the lake itself is inside the national park boundary where dogs aren’t allowed.

Luckily pooches are permitted all the way up to the lookout, so Wellie and Jasper could enjoy the spectacular views of the North Cascades.

Wellie and Jasper are usually excellent friends until a) Wellie decides that Jasper is too close to his food or b) Jasper’s herding instinct takes over. Good thing Wellie is much faster than that stout bastard.

Summit! (Please don’t fall.)

The views from the lookout were incredible – the next time we go here, it will hopefully be to spend the night. Sleeping in the Park Butte Lookout stands out as one of my favorite hiking experiences, so I don’t know why we haven’t made the effort to snooze in more of these fantastic shacks.

The number one (or number two, depending on your needs) reason to visit Hidden Lake Lookout? The most glorious toilet experience you will ever have. Now that’s what I call poo with a view.

After eating, relaxing and gawking at the peaks in every direction, we moseyed back down towards the car.

The weather had been perfectly summery all day, but on the way out a big, grey cloud started moving in and we even felt some raindrops. I guess it really was the first hike of autumn, even though the trail was lined with wildflowers instead of huckleberries (seriously, it’s been a strange year).

Back in August, Dani and I were somehow suckered into accompanying JK on what he assured us was one of his favorite hikes from last year, a partly off-trail loop connecting some lakes in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.

The talus field up to Island Lake doesn’t look that long, but it seemed to go on for miles and miles and miles and miles. The heat, the bugs, and the exhausting effort of raising and lowering my corpulent self up and over several million* boulders compounded to make an even grumpier Ingunn than usual.

I don’t mind bushwhacking or talus-hopping – to a certain degree, mind you – since it usually gets you to beautiful places that aren’t often visited. But this? This brought us to Island and Rainbow Lakes, two wooded bodies of water easily reached by the smooth, well-maintained trail we hiked on the way back. Who on earth wants to bushwhack through devil’s club and stumble over boulders for miles on end for no apparent reason? More importantly, who on earth is stupid enough to go along when their husband suggests doing just that??

Oh well, at least the swimming was good.

See that steep part on the map below Island Lake? That’s where we crawled straight up, using veggie belays (which we soon learned were not to be trusted) and digging our fingers into the loose dirt for traction, some of us (ok, just me) hyperventilating with sheer panic, only to reach an unspectacular lake inhabited by several relaxed hikers who had moseyed in on the actual trail.

JK doesn’t get to pick hikes anymore.

*srsly.

In the meantime, I don’t have enough space on my laptop to process our new RAW files…so here are my cell-phone photos from the trip.

JK spent last week in Anaheim at a conference (his talk is available here in case you’re nerdily inclined), and I flew down to meet him on Thursday. I amused myself by the pool while he finished up his conference duties, and on Friday afternoon we drove up to Santa Barbara. We spent ’04/’05 at UCSB, and this would be my first trip back to the place we used to call home.

Our old friend Justin let us stay at his place AND he took us hiking. Good man. He even made sure to take us to the drier, sunnier wine country so we would escape the dreaded marine layer which appeared to have followed us from Seattle. Luckily it had cleared up by the end of the day, so we were able to stockpile lots of vitamin D for winter.

We also took a boat out to Anacapa Island, part of Channel Islands National Park. Why did we never go here when we lived so close?? It was so pretty that I want to go back for kayaking in spite of all the great white sharks. Maybe.

An inordinate amount of time was spent eating as we visited several of our favorite vegetarian restaurants in Santa Barbara and Santa Monica. I usually lose weight when I’m on vacation, but it quickly became evident that this was not to happen this time around.

The gorging continued on our flight home since we flew jetBlue. That means BLUE CHIPS, which we can never find in the store anymore (probably a good thing) and which taste even better when you’re cruising above Yosemite during sunset. The perfect ending to an excellent trip.

I randomly chose the Northern Loop Trail from my guidebook, and scored walk-in permits for the exact two camps I wanted.

I started out nervous. I’ve backpacked solo before, but only for one night…and on a trail I already knew. This trip would cover all sorts of new ground for me.

JK accompanied me as far as Skyscraper Mountain, then released me into the wild on my own. I loved it. Going at my own pace, stopping wherever I wanted, strolling past flowers and glaciers and marmots and, oh, that big volcano.

I moseyed on up to my first camp by Mystic Lake and had dinner (ugh, those Mountain House meals are way too big for one person) and a swim before snuggling up with my Kindle in the tent. Bliss.

Right before dawn, I woke up to the sound of bugling elk (I didn’t know this until I asked the ranger “What’s the animal that sounds like a cross between a coyote and an elephant?”) and the oh so familiar nauseating pounding of a migraine – the aura must have occurred while I was sleeping, so it was too late for my medication to be effective. Ugh.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to make the climb up to Yellowstone Cliffs that day (or the 16-mile hike out the next day), so I spent some time looking at my maps to find a bailout option. In the end I decided on a very easy downhill day to Carbon River Camp, then keep following the Wonderland Trail out to Mowich Lake the next day – via Spray Park or Ipsut, depending on how I felt.

Luckily the ranger patrol cabin by Mystic Lake was manned (and handsomely so). The ranger radioed in to change my permit and to get someone to contact JK to tell him to drive to Mowich instead of Sunrise. Thank you, ranger man!

Now I just had to stagger down to my next camp. I lazed around with the myriad marmots (and mosquitoes) along the way, but spent most of the miles worrying about crossing the Carbon River on the evil suspension bridge. I had seen photos of the Tahoma Creek suspension bridge before, and assumed that this one would be just as horrifying.

Fortunately I needn’t have worried; the bridge was fun, even for a weenie like me. Huzzah!

I made it to camp at 1 PM, no other humans in sight. I collapsed in my tent and spent the rest of the day reading, sleeping, drinking as much water as possible and trying to eat something.

The next morning I woke up feeling so much better. I felt hung over from the migraine (or maybe it was from all the drugs), but good enough to chose the high route over Spray Park.

The day started off with over 3000 feet of elevation gain, so I decided to wear my Merrell Pace Gloves – I had brought them to use as camp shoes – to lighten the load on my feet. This worked brilliantly; even in my sickly state I felt great during the climb. I think I can thank those shoes for making me feel so light on my last TNAB, too.

Soon enough I made it to Spray Park and was greeted by bug swarms of biblical proportions – I finally got to show off my fashionable new headwear – and lots of dayhikers. Clearly I was getting closer to civilization and the end of my journey.

I tried to freshen up and wash off the trail grime by swimming in Mowich Lake, but when JK arrived to pick me up he assured me that I smelled as if I had hiked the entire Wonderland Trail. And I really do wish I had. I loved the trail, bugs and migraine and all. Next year, perchance?

My friend just posted this on Facebook and I found it fitting, given the title of my post and all:

‎”Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

I also restrained myself from getting physically violent when he showed up almost 40 minutes late for our Thursday Night Afterburners hike, although the following exchange may have occurred in the car:

JK: “Remember, breathe, relax and Be Here Now…”
Ingunn: “Well, maybe next week you could Be Here on Time.”

Oh well, in spite of not getting my usual head start, I felt better on that hike than I have ever felt on a TNAB before. Come to think of it, I felt better than I have on trail all summer. For some reason I could finally keep a sustained high heart rate without feeling like an exertion migraine was right around the corner. I was obviously still the last person to make it to the summit, but who cares – I felt like I was flying.

*mostly.

I moved here in 2006, severely depressed. In 2007 I discovered hiking, and it sparked a new interest in, well, living.

Since then, my life has pretty much revolved around being outside in the mountains. I spend the whole year planning for the summer. I spend the whole week waiting for the weekend.

The problem with this is that I am devastated when those plans don’t work out.

When it’s raining, I spend the day stewing over lost hiking opportunities instead of going into Seattle to spend time with long-neglected friends.

When I’m injured, I obsess about missing out on the more challenging trips on my To-Do List instead of fully enjoying the easier, gimp-safe trail I’m on.

I want to truly enjoy my life and be here now without constantly wondering if there’s something better out there that I could be doing.

I want to make my everyday life feel fulfilling even though I am still not allowed to get a job or an education in this country. *mumble grumble*

I want to find the motivation for midweek endorphin boosts that don’t require a drive to the mountains.

I want a home (and a life) that’s inviting enough that I don’t feel like I have to get away from it every weekend.

I want a balanced life, both in and outside of the mountains.

I want to find smiles like these every day.

News started ticking in about an explosion in Oslo. Live tweets from desperate teenagers trapped on an island with a gunman. 77 innocent people killed in my beautiful, tiny country.

Then, two days later, a heartbreaking phone call from home. JK’s dad had passed away. Peacefully so, but still much, much too soon.

We boarded the next plane to Norway to spend time with our family and say our goodbyes.

I’ve had this drained, empty, hollow feeling inside of me ever since that Friday, and I’m having a hard time coming to terms with everything that’s happened.

Fearing a relapse into can’t-get-out-of-bed depression, JK and I decided to get out this weekend to clear our heads.

I don’t believe in a god, but when I’m outside, surrounded by towering peaks, blooming meadows, romping marmots and crystal-clear lakes, I feel so close to whatever life force it is that keeps this world turning.

I don’t know if this force is in nature or in the ether or inside of all of us, but I do know that whenever I connect with it, the world finally starts making sense again.

We hiked, we swam, we breathed, we talked, we were quiet together. We’re both saddened by the fact that JK’s dad never got to visit us in Washington. I could picture him sitting right there with us on Noble Knob, painting the beautiful scene in front of us.

After sunset we lit candles under the full moon. Suddenly we saw a shooting star, impossibly clear, right above Mount Rainier. Maybe he was there with us after all.

Big thanks to our friend who volunteered to take Wellie on such short notice, and to all the others that reached out to us over the last couple of weeks. It helps to know that we have friends like you.

For someone who struggles with depression and whose only* source of sustained joy is to be active in the outdoors, this has been a miserable year. Last week it seemed like summer (make that “spring”) had finally arrived, so when the freezing wetness returned (and is forecast to hang around until the end of July), I just broke down and haven’t moved from the couch in almost two days. My blind love affair with the Evergreen State is officially over.

Unfortunately, my attempts at convincing JK that we need to move to California have been fruitless. He loves his job. That’s not something you can let go of in the current economic climate, so I guess we’ll be staying here in the Pacific Northwest climate.

Adding insult to injury, the chilly weather has put our snow melt at least a month behind schedule. Sick of postholing, soggy shoes and rotten snow bridges, last weekend (before the sun defected) I was desperate for a trail, any trail, that was snow-free. JK and I decided on Goat Lake, a typical early season (as in May, not July) hike.

I had really low expectations of this hike, so I was surprised to find a beautiful river trail ending at a big, green, inviting alpine lake. I couldn’t resist the clear water and jumped in for a swim, followed by JK and Wellie.

Aah, we were so naïve, thinking our alpine swimming meant that summer had arrived. Wellie even ate watermelon to celebrate the changing of the seasons.

Hopefully the sun will come back, more lakes will melt, and this won’t be the only summery trip report I write this year. In the meantime I’ll try to roll off the couch and motivate myself to make the best of what I’ve got. The honeymoon period may be over, but apparently Washington and I are in it for the long term.

*ok, so JK counts too, but he doesn’t get to be on the list since he’s standing in the way of my relocation plans.

Last weekend (not the holiday weekend – I’m behind on photos as usual), JK, Wellie and I camped in the Teanaway and got our first real taste of Summer 2011…and an even better taste of a Norwegian campfire classic, stick bread. I’ll blog about it later so y’all can partake.

On Sunday we rolled out of camp at the crack of noon to hike up Bean Peak. Mmm, beans…I’m thinking of making a Favorite Foods Peak List, but so far I only know of Bean Peak and the Chocolate Glacier. Hopefully there’s an Avocado Ridge out there somewhere.

Anyhoo, we hiked up to the basin and scrambled up the southeast ridge. There were two moves that really got my heart pumping, but then again I am a certified weenie. I’m always anxiously picturing the worst possible outcome of any given situation.

Thankfully the rock was nice and grippy, and I know that every time I push myself like this, I’ll be just that little bit stronger and braver next time.

After a snack and some oohing and aahing over the views, Wellie and I had ourselves a good, old-fashioned summit snooze. Pure bliss.

We spent over an hour on the summit, then decided to descend the easier southwest gully. Unfortunately it ended up being much harder than the way up due to melting moats and very steep snow.

It didn’t help that we, being dumbasses, had left our hiking poles at the base of the southeast ridge and our ice axes stashed safely in the car. I got to do my first ever face-in downclimb with nothin’ but my bitten-down talons for purchase on the snow. I wish I had a photo of it, but I snapped angrily at JK when he tried to pull the camera out mid-climb.

As terrifying (I told you, I’m a weenie) as that downclimb was, it didn’t take long before I longed to go back and do it again. When we were snailing along in I90 vacation traffic on the way back to civilization, there was nothing I wanted more than to (grab my ice axe and) run for the hills.

He was cleared for hiking just in time for the summer solstice, so we headed up our standard after-work trail to Poo Poo Point. This was my sixth hike to Poo Poo so far this year, which seems a bit silly, but there’s just nothing else that beats the close to home/short trail/great views combo.

The north launch point was packed with paragliders and solstice picnicers, so we joined in and devoured our dinner of quinoa with lots of broccoli and Mmmm Sauce (Wellie got to lick the bowl, he’s a great dishwasher) and strawberries.

We digested for a bit before walking back down to the south launch point to catch the amazing alpenglow on Mount Rainier…

…and then back up to the north point for sunset proper. Ooh, aah!

We descended by headlamp as usual and were accompanied by millions* of mosquitoes. I guess that makes it official – summer has arrived!

*approximately

Unfortunately (for everyone except fungus-phobic Tom) there wasn’t a morel to be found on the trail, and we could confirm, yet again, that summer will come late to the mountains this year. %#$@!!

Oh well, who needs morels when you can lounge on top of Iron Peak for hours, eating cupcakes, drinking wine, burning your scalp to a crisp (I’ll wear a hat next time), all while taking in a gorgeous panoramic view of the Teanaway!

Even Josie, who had forgotten her boots and was sporting soggy trainers (with cardboard inserts!) from the Cle Elum Farm & Home Store, couldn’t keep a smile off her face.

Thank you, friends (and Jasper), for such a wonderful birthday party. Maybe this whole growing old business isn’t such a bad thing after all.

Last year JK organized a surprise hike to Poo Poo Point (along with said gang of geriatrics) on my birthday, and I loved celebrating by hiking. This year there was no sneaky planning needed; my aging would occur on a Thursday and TNAB was headed for Pratt Mountain.

I felt sprightly and fabulous all the way to Talapus Lake, but then we started actually hiking uphill instead of strolling along on mellow switchbacks. Suddenly all those old folks were miles ahead of me as I wheezed and moaned my way up the ridge.

At long last I reached the summit and was rewarded with views of the vast nothingness. At least the others took pity on me and waited to make sure I made it into the group shot (and got me tipsy at the Pour House afterwards).

Did I say that I still feel young? Maybe not so much after this hike.

(My birthday present was one o’ them fancy GPS gizmos! It looks like I’ll actually have to read the manual for this thing since that straight line you see in the track extends all the way to Taiwan – presumably the home of the Garmin factory. 18,000 feet of elevation gain? That’s one hell of a TNAB!)

After spending much of this spring (officially the worst spring of all time, I might add) on the couch due to illness and/or weather-related malaise, I returned from Norway all pumped up and ready to get back in mountain shape and strengthen my clearly inadequate immune system.

Wellie had other plans. The morning after we returned, we had to take him to the vet for surgery to treat an anal gland abscess. I’ll spare you the details, but I can assure you that it’s just as pleasant as it sounds. We had to stay close to home the first five days post-surgery, foiling my Teanaway camping plans. Dumb dog!!

Sensing an impending meltdown, JK volunteered to take over all nursing duties on Saturday so that I could bask in the sunshine with Amy on a short hike to Talapus Lake. It was like chicken soup for the soul. Or phở for the soul, since I don’t eat chicken (but am somewhat obsessed with phở).

On Sunday JK and I went for a trail run (well, a walk/fast shuffle for me) in the Redmond Watershed Preserve. By the time we came back, Wellie had managed to wriggle out of his cone and pull the drainage tube out of his butt. Dumb dog!!

Luckily there was no lasting damage, so the tube remnants were removed on Monday. Wellie has to keep wearing the Cone of Shame for a week and a half, but now it’s tightened and we can at least leave him alone and get out of the house. That’s exactly what we did, hurrying up to Poo Poo Point to catch the last rays of sunshine before the rain returned.

Unfortunately, all I could think about on the trail was how much more fun it is to hike when you’re with your dumb dog.

Get well soon, Conehead!

These are from our deliciously self-indulgent layover in Iceland. We spent the entire day soaking our jetlagged bodies in the Blue Lagoon.

Since it was a long vacation and our friends and families were busy working on weekdays, we flew up north to Lofoten for five days of hiking and camping.

This didn’t exactly turn out as planned, but more on that later (2019).

So yes, check back in 2020 for the full documentation of our trip. Or 2021 at the latest.

I thought my crafty days were over, but once in a while I’ll get hit with the urge to make something. It’s good to have a rainy day hobby when you live in Washington, right?

This morning, inspired by some old videos I found of Bobby, I dug a tunnel into the Room o’ Paper (and Assorted Homeless Items) and put together this simple page about our farewell hike to Noble Knob last summer. It’s pretty much just a paper version of the blog post I wrote back then, but it’s nice to have a real, tactile version of our favorite memories.

I also found (among the Hoarders-style stacks of junk) this old dog-themed album and decided it’s time to make the pups their very own album. This is exactly the kind of mental thing that only the very bored and childless would do.

I’m sure Wellie will love having his very own scrapbook he can cherish forever and, as Tom said, “show his grandkids photos of the fat white and black dog he used to hike with.”

You see, the weather here in the Pacific Northwest tends to be a little bit wet. You’d think that we would be used to it by now, but two months straight of rain can drive even the most hardened Washingtonian mental.

So why do we still live here? Well, once in a blue moon the raindrops stop dripping, the sun starts shining, and Washington becomes the most beautiful place the world has ever seen. Everyone promptly forgets about the preceding weeks of hell and flock outside to revive their vitamin D deficient bodies.

JK and I spent our day in Paradise smiling, relaxing, laughing, snoozing in the sun and taking in the views. JK was on skis while I trudged along on my slowshoes, but I think the luge run off Panorama Point is just as fun on ass as on skis.

Washington sure knows how to put on a show when she puts her mind to it.

*sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Clammy.

Soggy.

Muddy.

That is all.

My parents tend to visit us during official Norwegian holidays like Christmas and Easter, smack dab in the middle of monsoon season. So when the asked if they could come in early fall, I was excited to show them the Pacific Northwest at its finest. Unlike their previous visits, they got to see Washington in full color instead of grey – and look!! Ginormous volcanoes all around us!

The most ginormoustest of them all, Mount Rainier, couldn’t possibly have provided us with better conditions for our hike to Panorama Point.

It was my first day back on trail since I pulled a muscle in the Enchantments, so I was in full-on giddy mountain mode; my dad got to stalk marmots and deer with his new, fancy camera; my mom was absolutely enthralled by the mountain (see, I told you it’s magic!); and JK kept bursting into evil laughter every time he thought about his coworkers who were stuck in the office. Moahahaa!

My parents turned around at Glacier Vista to mosey on down the meadows and check out the Paradise Visitor Center while JK and I hoofed it up to Pan Point.

This was our first time hiking around Paradise sans snow. Everything looked the same, but somehow…different. At least now I could wear shorts, which is always a plus.

We looped back down to Paradise and found my parents waiting in the waning sunlight, then decided to drive the long way home around the mountain.

Another highlight of my parents’ visit was our weekend road trip to Portland. There were outdoor markets and big bookstores and good eats, but since I apparently never take photos in urban settings, here are photos from day two, when we went on a waterfall tour and drove out to the coast (wow, that was a lot of commas…and I’m sure none of them were used correctly).

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Wellie happier than when he was playing fetch on Cannon Beach. Those little feet were made to run in the sand.

Unfortunately my mom was coming down with the Flu of Doom (it got all of us before the month was over), but I think she enjoyed herself anyway. Not so sure what she thought about the weird little hippie cafe we took them to though. ;^)

Sunset somewhere along the way home. Sometimes you just have to pull over.

After the roaring success of taking JK’s mom to the Space Needle in the summer (hey, I never blogged about that, either. I suck at this!), we hit the jackpot again with a gorgeous sunset dinner. And lavender beer. Mmm.

This was my favorite parental visit yet. Hopefully they’ll come back to visit their grandson (don’t get excited – I’m talking about Wellie!) again soon, and, if we’re lucky, maybe the weather and views will treat us just as well as they did this time around (there I go with the commas again [and with the parentheses]).

Now I think my parents finally understand why we love it here in Washington and why we never want to leave…but that certainly doesn’t mean we don’t miss all of you guys back home.

JK spent the day at climbing instructor training in the Washington Alpine Club’s cabin on Alpental Road, so he dropped me off at the Kendall Peak Lakes trailhead and left me to my own devices. I had forgotten how much I love hiking by myself. I get all calm and happy and zen and junk, and the miles fly by effortlessly. I actually hike faster when I’m alone, because I go at my own pace and don’t have to keep stopping to gasp for air. JK says it probably helps that I’m not “wasting energy on worrying about what other people think”, which sounds about right.

The only downside to hiking by myself was having to use the self-timer on my camera – next time I’ll try to remember my mini tripod and, uhm, some skillz.

I hiked to the two lower lakes, hit some extra bumps on the ridge, then headed over to Kendall Knob and back to the trailhead. I still had lots of time to kill, so I walked up to Hyak and took the ski shuttle to Summit West. I wandered around Commonwealth Basin for a bit before walking to the WAC cabin where my chauffeur husband was finishing up his training.

Now that spring has sprung and the days are getting longer, it’s easier to motivate JK to go for post-work hikes. We’ve also made a deal that instead of rejoining the gym, we’re going to make an effort to get up in them thar hills more often. On Tuesday we revisited an old (and close to home) favorite, Poo Poo Point, to take advantage of the sun(!) and the natural stairmaster that is the Chirico Trail.

The sunset didn’t let us down, and I got a better cardio session than I ever would in a gym. Apparently I need it, because after I had huffed and puffed and wheezed and moaned my way to the top, JK let me know that he didn’t even break a sweat. Great.

Every year I promise myself that I am going to get in shape for TNAB, and every year I fail to do anything of the sort. The season started last night with a mercifully gentle jaunt to Dirty Harry’s Balcony. Unfortunately this was the only (in my eyes) easy hike on the TNAB schedule this year, so you can start placing bets on how long it’ll take before I hurl on a hike again.

My husband and best friend and adventure partner turns old and grey and thirty today. Happy birthday, JK – it’s all downhill from here, so just strap on those skis and go!

Jeg elsker deg, Gapo!

As we were making our way up US2 under blue skies, I expressed my concern that my laziness and general ineptitude was keeping us from bagging some majestic peak on such a beautiful day, but Tom assured me that “If I wanted epic I would have gone by myself and left two hours ago.” Shut up, Tom.

Turns out our destination wasn’t too shabby after all, but then again anything would have looked fantastic in that glorious sunshine.

When we visited Lake Valhalla back in August, we could drive up the Smithbrook Road to the trailhead, but this time it had to be hiked. I didn’t mind, because I’ve started enjoying road walks. A road can only be so steep, so it’s one of the few places a hiker of my heft can really get into the zone.

Soon enough, we reached the actual trailhead and started angling upwards. At one point I somehow ended up at the front of the pack. The only upside to always being the slowest hiker in the group is that I am never relegated to trailbreaking duty. This time I lasted all of ten feet before going into cardiac arrest and sending the menfolk up to the front where they belong.

Josie and I moseyed on behind them, swooning over Justin Bieber and having pillow fights. Or whatever girls are supposed to do these days.

By now the sunshine was really breaking through, and we were all getting high on Vitamin D. I don’t think I’ve laughed that much on a hike before. It wasn’t all malicious laughter, either.

We made it to the Valhalla overlook below Lichtenberg Mountain and spent a heavenly lunch break eating (mmm, grilled portobello sandwiches), playing in the snow, falling over and just basking in the sun.

Thanks to my homiez for yet another wonderful day in the mountains. It wouldn’t be the same without you.

*or at least a perfectly normal rat.

This birthday celebration is how we first met Tom back in 2009 (though it was actually just a ploy for us to meet Tom’s stout canine companion, Jasper), and the trip was repeated in 2010. At this point we figure we’ll have to keep it going while we still can; Tom’s bones are growing more brittle by the minute and it’s only a matter of time before he falls and breaks a hip.

Ironically, Scott and I were the ones using our walkers (well, feet) while the old man (and JK) donned skis.

This was my first time visiting the lakes in under clear skies, and I finally realized why it’s such a popular snowshoe destination. Even the road walk portion was pleasant (why yes I did just write those words – the sun must have made me delirious).

All in all, it was the perfect trip for a festively plump (*cough*) hiker trying to get back in shape, especially with Jasper around to confiscate our food when he thought we were eating too much.

I don’t know if skiing down the forest road was quite as exciting as Tom had hoped, but at least he made it back to the car with all his delicate joints intact. I guess there’s hope that this tradition will live to see another year.

Unfortunately I rang in the New Year with a bottle of vintage Nyquil for my cold, but by January 2 I was ready to play outside again. Tom suggested a hike to the Eaglet, based on Carla’s trip report from earlier in the week. I was happy to hear that Dani would be joining the group this time. She usually eschews hiking during snow season, so we had to show her a dang blasted good time to convince her that walking is far superior to skiing.

We followed the as-good-as-flat Heather Lake trail before going off-trail up the not-flat-at-all ridge towards the Eaglet. I could keep up ok through the forest (just because everyone’s slow when they’re climbing over deadfall and doing branch pull-ups), but once we hit the more open slopes I could really feel the inordinate amount of weight I amassed this fall. Last summer I complained about carrying around a whole multi-day pack’s worth of blubber, and then I go and gain another one.

Eventually we made it up the summit ridge. The sun was out, the smiles were on, and I had hot toddy to drink. All was well, even when we were blinded by the sunlight reflecting off Tom’s bare chest. Dani mentioned something about winter hiking being “kind of fun”, so it must have been a pretty good day.

After we were done lounging on the summit, came the inevitable slip n’ slide back down to the car. I learned that my extraneous flab is good for one thing – padding my body as I bounce from tree to tree like a pinball.

*followed by Don’t Freak Out When You Miss Out on Trips and Lose Weight, which have also been sorely neglected.

December 23 is called Lille Julaften in Norway, Little Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve Eve? Whatever you choose to call it, that’s when my family would decorate the tree (with the shrill tones of Hanne Krogh’s Christmas carols as our soundtrack) before eating risengrynsgrøt and settling down in front of the tv together to watch Dinner for One and that most wonderful of all holiday movies, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

Last year we spent Little Christmas Eve on Skyline Ridge, where we met Tom and Jasper. Doing it once makes it a tradition, right? Why yes, yes it does! So this year we shuffled back up to Skyline Ridge, accompanied not only by those two stout beasts, but also the welcome additions of John, Scott, Josie and the yellow dogs.

‘Twas cold (as a Christmas hike should be) and we didn’t really have any views, but when we reached the ridge we decided to keep on going anyway. Tom led the way down the backside of the ridge and then up again, steeply, until we reached the Sky. Sky Mountain that is. Unfortunately we still couldn’t see anything, and the wind was giving us all Rudolph noses. We retreated until we found a sheltered spot for cookie consumption, snowball fights and mocking of antlered dogs.

It’s not quite the same as being back home, but this is a tradition I have already grown to love. While we don’t have family around for the holidays, we do have good friends…and we have the Griswolds on DVD.

Washington Favorites:

The winter months of 2010 were particularly lazy for me, at least when it came to hiking. The weather was great on the weekdays so I did quite a lot of running (the first time in my life that I could enjoy that particular endeavor, thanks to my Vibram Five Fingers), but I seem to remember the weekends being crappy. Or maybe I just lacked motivation. Anyhoo, the big group cabin trip to Table Mountain takes first place in January, followed closely by a midweek jaunt up Mailbox Peak with my friend Ellie.

In February we took a backcountry travel class through the Washington Alpine Club so we could get some avalanche training. That took up most of our time, but we did get to sneak in a hike up Bandera Mountain, taking advantage of the lack of snow that season.

We spent the first weekend of March out with the WAC class, camping on Smithbrook Road and summiting Union Peak. This was to be our last hike of the month – our handsome little pup, Bobby, passed away and left us too sad to do anything at all. I miss that little guy so much.

In April I went on a last-minute trip to Norway to visit my parents. When I came back, JK and I decided to test the validity of my Norwegian genes by cross-country skiing up Amabilis Mountain. The results were questionable, but the weather was amazing. And then we went to Kaua’i. Mmm.

May was a great month. Still surfing the Hawaiian wave of sunshine and happiness, we went on a lot of dayhikes and I felt more clear-headed and energetic than I have in years. Huzzah! My favorite has to be Sauer’s Mountain with Dani and Josie. Gorgeous viewage and even greater girls!

My mojo was still going strong into June, so this is a hard month to pick a favorite. Hem, haw. I think I’ll go with the trip JK, Wellie and I took to the Teanaway to car camp and hike up Iron Peak. Runner up: Mary’s and Judy’s Peaks. And my surprise Poo Poo Point birthday party. Mmm, cupcakes. And the misty hike with Carlos up Mount Dickerman. Sometimes the company is more important than the views.

July was a busy month; I came home from a trip to California, JK’s mom came to visit, we went to a friend’s wedding on Vancouver Island, and then I was off to the Canadian Rockies. We did have time to play with Karen’s backpacking rafts at Blanca Lake, and to visit High Rock Lookout with JK’s mom.

Alta Mountain was fantastic, but my favorite (and so bittersweet) WA hike of August was taking Bobby’s ashes to his favorite little mountain, Noble Knob. It was a beautiful goodbye, and definitely a day I will never forget.

September was strange. Usually it’s the perfect time for hiking and backpacking in Washington, but I was fighting depression and the weather was total crap. Still, I can’t really complain about the beautiful sunset on Silver Peak and the gorgeous four-day trip to the Enchantments.

My parents came to see us in October, and for once we had amazing weather for their visit. We hiked with them in Paradise to Panorama Point and it was absolutely perfect. Then they went back to Norway, and I got the flu and a bad case of cabin fever.

By November I was feeling flabby and out of shape (and this was before the holidays – yikes!), but I managed to bully Jo into going on a beautiful (and life-affirming) midweek hike to Mount Pilchuck. That place is popular for a reason!

I had big plans for skiing and snowshoeing in December, but we spent most of the month eating Christmas cookies and playing Kinect. Oh well, we still had that beautiful day on Skyline Ridge. And Sky Mountain must have burned at least two of those cookies.

Out-of-State Favorites:

Even though I wimped out before we got to the most scenic part, the Kalalau Trail on Kaua’i was a wonderful experience. I forgot how nice it was to go backpacking but still be really warm.

Not exactly warm but definitely scenic, Panorama Ridge was my favorite hike of the whole year. Canada does not suck.

California ain’t too bad either. Even though the late snow kept us from hiking our planned lakebagger’s loop, the High Sierra scenery was to die for. Big Pine Lakes and Thousand Island Lake were both gorgeous hikes that I wouldn’t hesitate to repeat.

Even biblical swarms of mosquitoes and a mild case of food poisoning can’t keep me from mentioning the Canadian Rockies. Karen took me to one of her old favorites, Lake of the Hanging Glacier, and now that the swelling has gone down I am able to fully appreciate how beautiful it was. My other favorite was the short walk to Parker Ridge – you really don’t have to leave the highway to get good views in Banff!

JK’s Wife-Free Favorites:

I guess it’s only fair that JK got to go on some hikes without the ol’ ball and chain while I was off gallivanting around the world. He’s wanted to climb Mount Rainier since we moved here, and he finally got the chance while I was in California. John, one of his partners in climb (heehee), wrote a trip report here if you’re interested.

Three Fingers was another mountain that had been on JK’s list since before the dawn of time. I’m not quite ready to haul my acrophobic self up the ladders to that old fire lookout yet, so I was ok staying home with the flu for that one. Ok, so not really, but I’m glad he had a good time. See, I’m a good wife.

(He also must have really liked the Island Lake Loop he did with Scott while I was in the Rockies since he put together this adorable little video from it.)

Favorite TNAB’s:

Man alive, this is getting long. This is the last category, I promise! I can’t leave TNAB hikes out of this list, they’re just too much fun. Everything (well, maybe not the death-by-cardio part) about them feels like a bonus since you’re merely investing a couple of evening hours instead of a whole day. Plus there’s booze. And sunsets. And excellent people. Bandera Mountain (wow, Bandera made it onto the list twice?) had all of this in addition to feeling like summer in May.

You know a hike must have been good if I puked while ascending but still list it as one of my favorites. Oh yes, Rampart Ridge was gorgeous enough to make up for the fact that I got to taste my green smoothie twice.

Mount Margaret took me by surprise; we had been there with TNAB in June but didn’t really have any views. In September we could see far into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, and we enjoyed one of the best sunsets of the year.

Last (phew!) but not least, the Winter Solstice TNAB at Hyak Lake – this one was all smiles from beginning to end. This might have been caused by our gløgg intake, but it still counts.

Writing this whole thing proved to be more exhausting than actually hiking, so I’ll just finish it up by saying thank you to all my hiking partners. Without you, 2010 would have sucked donkey balls. Onwards and upwards to 2011!

Unfortunately this was also the day we had to stay home in the morning for a fire inspection, so after noon we got in the car and drove to our favorite short snowshoe destination, Skyline Ridge.

I think this was my fourth visit to the Ridge and the cool rock garden, and this was the best trip yet. Blue skies, sunshine, fresh snow on the trees…I was in heaven.

Since we got such a late start and the days are agonizingly short this time of year, we had planned on staying up on the ridge for sunset…

…but unfortunately the clear skies and impressive gusts of wind made this the coldest hike I’ve ever been on. Brrr!

We had a quick lunch, then decided that getting back to the car (and the butt heaters!) was more tempting than alpenglow.

We hurried down just as the mountain gods started painting the sky with pastel colors, and were treated to a surprising splash of hot pink on the way back to the parking lot.

These three miles equaled at least three months of therapy.

This was my first totally dark TNAB. When we set out from the parking lot at six, the sun had already set hours ago…luckily we were there to celebrate the Solstice, so the sunny days and evenings will return all in due time. Huzzah!

This was also my first TNAB on snowshoes. And the first TNAB where I was actually able to keep up with the main group, since the guys in the front had to break trail. Huzzah!

Sadly, this was our first TNAB without Wellie. It was too cold for his little fur-less, fat-free body…and it would have been cold for us, too, if it weren’t for all the gløgg and champagne. Huzzah!

Lastly, it was my first TNAB hiking under the influence. I don’t think I’ve ever fallen down quite so many times on a hike before, but the miles just flew by. Huzzah!

Here’s to lighter days and brighter moods and festive holidays and tasty cookies and a brand new year. Huzzah!

Josie, Wellie and I took advantage of the weather window and hiked to Mount Pilchuck. I had been there once before, but we couldn’t really see much that time. Since it’s one of the most popular trails in the state, I figured it would be worth going back on a clearer day. I was right! (I’m never right!)

I distinctly remember thinking that this hike was really easy last year, so it was rather disheartening (though not totally shocking, given my activity level this past month and a half) to spend the whole hike up huffing and puffing like I was trying to blow the lookout down. I guess it’s hard for your blood to supply oxygen to your muscles when it’s 73% chocolate.*

Other than my lagging lardiness, the only problem we faced was getting Wellie up the ladder to the lookout. Last year JK took care of the pups, as evidenced in video – oh, how I miss Bobby! – but this time I got to carry Wellie up there myself. It might not look very difficult, but it definitely made this acrophobic’s heart beat a little faster.

Speaking of acrophobia, I want to brag about scrambling out on the boulders behind the lookout for this photo op. Even more shocking than the fact that I would even consider doing such a thing, was the realization that it didn’t really make me nervous. Success!

(Photo of Daredevil Ingunn and the following photo of Wellie licking my face courtesy of Josie.)

We ended up staying at the lookout for hours since the views were just too good to leave. It’s a pretty amazing payoff for such a short hike (and for being so close to civilization**). The crowds were thin by Pilchuckian standards, but still pretty impressive for a Thursday in November.

As the sun started to set, we reluctantly climbed back down the ladder and hiked out, motivated by the veggie fajitas that awaited us in Granite Falls. Good night, Mount Pilchuck! I’m sure we’ll meet again.

Big thanks to Josie and Wellie for lightening my mood with this moste excellente outing.

*I am drinking a green juice as we speak to rectify the situation.
**Depending on how you define Granite Falls.***
***Just kidding.

Between my Enchantments injury and getting the flu, I had a long period of couch-bound inertia. The subsequent bout of depression sufficiently proved, in a roundabout way, that GOYA works is absolutely necessary.

The good news is that I am picking myself up, piece by piece, and things are slowly but surely starting to look brighter. I’m still on a high from the fantastic Gorillaz concert last night; a mysterious, shining orb, not normally seen in these parts in November, is present in the skies above Seattle; and hopefully I’ll be back in the mountains for some therapy soon enough.

Day one: Colchuck Lake. Drizzle. Heavy packs, but not heavy enough to have remembered all our tent poles. D’oh! Scott retrieves tent poles from North Bend while Jo and Ingunn get comfortable(?) with Tom in his two-man tent.

Day two: Aasgard Pass. 2200 feet of elevation gain in less than one mile. Ingunn fears legs will fall off, curses pack weight and excess blubbery poundage. Views in Upper Enchantments shut her up. Group finds excellent campsite on cliffs above Crystal Lake.

Camouflage. Ur doin it right.

Goats. More goats.

The larches are turning! Girls enjoy spacious sleeping quarters while guys marinate in their own flatulence.

Day three: Sunrise.

Brr.

Menfolk leave to conquer Cannon while wimmins explore Lower Enchantments.

Gnome Tarn. No gnomes. Goats.

Goats.

Group reunites, ascends Little Annapurna, 8440 feet.

Blown away by views. Happy.

Day four: Wake up to a dusting of snow. Ridiculous sunrise.

Goats.

Pack up, hike out. Rain. Slick boulders. Ingunn pulls muscle, fears leg actually will fall off this time. Limp to trailhead. Codeine. Aah.

Since I’m now at the halfway point of the GOYA challenge, I decided to compile a list of things I’ve learned so far:

- The harder the workout, the happier I get (but pushing myself is still a huge challenge).

- When I can’t find the motivation for a hard workout, getting out for a brisk walk is surprisingly effective.

- So far, the happiness effect only lasts through the day of the activity…

-…so it’s much better for me to exercise early in the day (but this clashes with my procrastination).

- Doing strength training again feels amazing for my noodly appendages, but it doesn’t give as much of a happiness boost as running or hiking.

My laziness may have prevented me from updating my blog, but it hasn’t foiled GOYA! For more on days 8-13, click on the photos above.

Day 11 deserves special attention since it was all sorts of awesome. After several days of migraine and general malaise, I suddenly woke up clear-headed and happy as a clam.

To celebrate my newfound willingness to leave the house, JK and I met up with Josie to gorge ourselves on free samples at the PCC Healthy Living Fair in Issaquah, then drove up to Snoqualmie Pass for a TNAB-style ascent of Silver Peak.

Good views, excellent company, crisp autumn air and a beautiful sunset made this the best GOYA yet.

Since I am the only one of her friends without a job, a life, or an ounce of sense, Karen talked me into (ok, it wasn’t that hard) joining her on a last-minute road trip and hiking excursion to the Canadian Rockies.

We started with a backpacking trip to Lake of the Swarming Mosquitoes. Sorry, Lake of the Hanging Glacier. This must be one of the prettiest lakes in the universe, but OHMYGOD, the evil, bloodsucking mozzies just wouldn’t leave me alone. Graahk! We bushwhacked/scrambled up to a ledge about 1000 feet above the lake in hopes of escaping the little bastards, but no such luck.

We stayed there one night and then went back to civilization, also known as Radium Hot Springs. Mmmm. Karen thought they wouldn’t let me in since the mosquito bites made me look like a leper, but they took pity on me and I was allowed to soak my bumpy body for an hour or so before we drove north into the Rockies. Even the views from the car were amazing.

After spending a night in the Waterfowl Lake campground, we hit some of the touristy spots. My favorites were Parker Ridge in Banff National Park…

…and the Edith Cavell trail in Jasper National Park.

After spending another night by Waterfowl Lake, I woke up the next day not feeling quite right…and then ended up spending the whole day running between my tent and the campground bathrooms. Do yourself a favor and stay away from the food at the Icefields Parkway Visitor Centre, even the little veggie burger that you think can’t possibly do any harm. *mumble grumble*

After a day of “rest” in the Lake Louise campground (complete with grizzly-proof electric fences!), I was ready-ish to hike again, so we donned our helmets and ice axes and set out for Caldron Peak.

The trail starts at the Peyto Lake viewpoint, so obviously the views are redonkulus right from the beginning. We dropped down to the lake shore, followed the river up to a primitive log bridge, hiked up the moraine, then made our way to the steep scree traverse towards Caldron Lake (you can see it in the photo below, to the left above the waterfall).

Karen coaxed me partway across the slope, but then I just froze and had to sit down. I hate this kind of terrain; there was no trail due to frequent rock slides (that’s always comforting), so you had to make you own steps on the hard dirt covered with rolling scree. When I looked down and realized that a slip would equal certain doooom, I had to call it quits.

While Karen sped ahead to attempt Caldron Peak, I moseyed around on the plateau, exploring the Peyto Glacier hut, making good use of their facilities (blast that veggie burger!) and trying not to beat myself up for wimping out on our climb. As thunder and hail started rolling in, I found a spot below the moraine where I could wait for Karen. After a while I realized I was sitting right next to three steaming piles of bear poo, and was mildly perturbed when I discovered that I had left my bear spray in the car.

Luckily Karen wasn’t hit by lightning and I wasn’t mauled by a bear, so, reunited at last, all we had to do was hike the 1300 feet of counter-elevation to get back to the car. Hnngh.

After a well-deserved meal in Banff, a good night’s sleep at the Two Jack campground and a heavenly soak in Banff Hot Springs, we jumped in Karen’s truck and drove home (stopping for Timbits and Hickory Sticks along the way).

Big thanks to Karen for a Moste Excellente Adventure, I’m already looking forward to my next trip to the Rockies…this time it’s going to be a fall trip when the larches have turned and all the %&$@ing mosquitoes are DEAD.

Most of this route is on the Powerline Trail, which is chockablock with blackberries at the moment. We grabbed an extra produce bag at PCC and filled it up with two pounds of deliciousness on the way home – even Wellie ate a couple of berries straight of the bush! We arrived home soaked to the core, but happy. Hear that? Happy. GOYA for the win!!

JK’s words of wisdom for the day: “Focus on what you are doing, not on what you think you should be doing”. (Yes, everything I need to learn about life always essentially boils down to “Be here now”.) I decided to try to take his advice, and suddenly I was able to run again and get lost in conversation.

Side note: we saw two piles of bear scat in the Watershed. It still amazes me that there are bears and cougars running around here.

I kept that mindset going throughout the weekend when we both realized that we just didn’t feel like hiking. Instead of feeling guilty about not being out in the mountains on a weekend in September (the best hiking month in Washington), we made some good food and enjoyed curling up at home with our books. This also gave me a chance to come up with some good cross-training activities since I’m trying to ease back into running.

First up, yoga. Omgz, GOYA is an anagram of yoga – surely that must be a sign! JK and I both used to love Ashtanga Yoga, but we just stopped practicing after we left California. Dusting off my mat felt amazing, and I can’t even remember the last time I was this sore. Since I was already feeling all New Age and junk, I tortured myself for fifteen minutes on my Shakti Mat to really get the blood flowing.

Sunday was a day of epic laziness, but we took our bikes out for a ride on the East Lake Sammamish Trail and stopped by Marymoor Park on the way home so JK could boulder for a bit. We only biked 16 miles since my butt hasn’t touched a bike seat since the dawn of time (between that and the Ashtanga, tomorrow should be a hoot), so I felt like I didn’t get a good workout in. It would help if there were more hills; all the elevation gain is from the one evil monster of a hill that leads back up to our house. Now that part just about killed me.

I’ve come to the conclusion that if this project is going to work, I need to push myself harder (bigger rush of endorphins and sense of accomplishment) and do so earlier in the day (so I can really benefit from the rush).

Anyhoo, let’s move on to day two and the other acronym – TNAB! We joined the Thursday Night Afterburners on a hike to Mount Margaret tonight. We had already mounted Margaret (hah) with TNAB in early June when it was still snow-covered, but it’s definitely worth a trip in late summer when the huckleberries are out and the views are clear.

For some reason the hike seemed harder today than it did in the snow, but maybe we’re just walking faster now that the days are getting shorter. At least I had ample opportunities to stop and rest my legs while munching on berries. All thoughts of sluggish muscles were forgotten at the summit anyway; the views were fantabulous and the sunset spectacular. Even I don’t have to force myself off the couch for a hike like this one.

I came home feeling fantastic (Wellie was pretty happy too), but then I suddenly crashed with a pounding headache. Maybe it was too strenuous for my body after being couch-bound for so long? Hopefully it’s nothing a little caffeine, a shower and a wee nap can’t fix.

Running songs of the day: Jimi Hendrix – Fire and Florence + The Machine – Cosmic Love (her whole album is perfect for running…but I might be biased since it takes me right back to the beaches of Kaua’i…)

For me, depression comes and goes in waves. This happens to be one of the really low points, and I can’t really see the surf going up anytime soon. I’ve been looking back over the last couple of years to try to make sense of the ebb and flow of it all, and it seems to really be connected to physical activity. I can honestly say that hiking changed (and quite possibly saved) my life.

I just posted some photos of our recent trip to the Space Needle on Flickr, and I was struck by the difference in my appearance now and the last time we went. It was in the spring of 2007, one of the most difficult periods of my life. I remember how uncomfortable I felt in my body and in my life. I had migraines almost every day. I would always stay home while JK went out with our friends. I had no energy. I was deeply unhappy. Apart from the weight loss (it’s not even about the weight loss), I can see how much more confident, content and relaxed I am now. Hiking gave me exercise, sunshine, endorphins, fresh air, a sense of accomplishment, confidence in learning new skills, and a sense of purpose. So I’ve come a long way, but not far enough.

The last time I felt really energetic, confident and carefree over an extended period of time was in late May and June…which also just happens to coincide with a period where I was doing lots of hiking and, more importantly, lots of running on the non-hiking days. I really think this is key – hiking once or twice a week isn’t enough; I have to keep the endorphins going throughout the week.

For the month of September, I will be doing a little (well, for me it’s pretty big) experiment: I will exercise every single day to see how it affects my mental health. I’m trying to disregard the vague notion I have that this whole experiment is embarrassing to talk about, so I’ll be posting updates on the blog. I’ll try to keep the whining at a minimum, but considering the fact that I had to argue with myself for over an hour this morning to get out of bed, there’s bound to be some bitching and moaning when I try to force my carcass off the couch to go running in the rain.

So there you have it. 30 days of exercise, strenuous enough to get that magical rush of endorphins. There are so many changes I want to make in my life, but I think this first little step is the key to unlocking the rest of them. One foot in front of the other.

Sandy it was! In fact, if you ignored the goosebumps, it was almost like being back in Hawai’i! We found a suitably pale Norse god lounging on the beach.

Being part of the wrong mythology didn’t keep Zeus and Athena from enjoying Lake Valhalla, and Wellie did his best to attempt to play with the big dogs (poor Jasper was, yet again, involved in an involuntary swimming situation).

I was the only two-legger brave enough* to face the icy waters of Valhalla…then I spent the rest of the lunch break shivering in my puffy jacket. It is with mixed emotions that I must announce that autumn has arrived in Washington.

*ok, so I was the only one with enough insulating body fat to go swimming.

This week, we went back to Noble Knob to spread Bobby’s ashes and say our farewells on his favorite mountain.

It was such a bittersweet trip; the weather was perfect and the hike was as beautiful as ever (…and Wellie was running around like crazy, tongue flapping every which way – apparently this is one of his favorite trails too!) but saying goodbye to Bobby felt so sad and so final.

I’m not going to write much since I’m tearing up just thinking about all of this, but it was a beautiful last hike for Bobby and I am so glad we did it. Now we’ll always have a place to go to visit our little Scabbers.

A friend sent me this quote today that made my eyes well up all over again:

Who are these characters who come and go from our lives, leaving behind hair on the sofa and more than a few footnotes in our personal history? Who sends them to us, and who takes them away? Does it matter? They are gifts. We can only embrace, enjoy and let go when we must. Even if it always seems way too soon.

I’m also going to try to keep this one in mind (thank you Dr. Seuss):

Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.

To all of you out there who are lucky enough to have animal companions, give your little (or not so little) friends an extra hug today. You will never regret it.

Anyhoo, this time we were invited to join Scott and Josie on a backpacking trip for their anniversary (they must think our incessant whistling and fake British accents are terribly romantic). In order to break up the drive, we stopped at Josie’s parents’ on the way and played with their new puppy (OMG) and swam in their pool. Well-rested and finally in vacation mode, we crossed the border and drove up to Garibaldi Provincial Park.

We carried our packs 5.5 miles into the backcountry campground (a strange concept, but the cooking shelters were appreciated once the mosquitoes came out), set up camp, ate, talked, relaxed, slept, and woke up to surprisingly clear skies. W00t!

‘Twas time to make our way up to Panorama Ridge. The trail started off with steep switchbacks, just like the day before, but they were over sooner than we expected…and from then on it was all meadows, flowers and freaking gorgeous views all around. I could actually hear Josie singing a certain song from The Sound of Music as she skipped along ahead of me.

There was an ominous-looking layer of clouds covering the peaks in the distance, so we hauled arse to get to the summit before it got socked in. And man alive, was it worth it. The clouds made for difficult photo conditions for a layperson like myself, but that just means I have an excuse to go back on a clear day – this is definitely one of my top five hikes of all time. The view of Garibaldi Lake from the ridge is stunning; the color is so intense it looks Photoshopped in real life (this seems to be an ongoing theme in my Canadian hikes).

We chilled (literally – it was so cold we put on puffy jackets and gloves) on the summit for a while before heading back down. Hiking back was like being on Mount Si, we must have met at least 50 people on the trail…which is understandable since this area is pretty much heaven on earth.

A little while after we came back to the campground, the weather decided to live up to the forecast and it started raining (but with the rain came rainbows, huzzah). We retreated to our respective snooze pods and waited to hike out until the morning, the promise of lunch at Black’s in Whistler motivating our every step. Best weekend of the year so far!

The full trip report on nwhikers.net is here (photos on page 1, 2 and 3 but there’s more to come – apparently we are very inefficient housewives, teehee).

We have a favorite dog-friendly hike right outside of the park, Noble Knob, but since our fellow hung-over hikers had already been there, we decided to go to Sourdough Gap and Sheep Lake instead. The trailhead is literally seconds away from the park entrance at Chinook Pass.

Since we had to forgo the classic National Park hikes because of the little bastard, here’s a bunch of photos of Wellie on the trail. Seeing how deliriously happy it makes him to hike makes it worth a little bit of sacrifice.

We were in the middle of the heatwave, so even Wellie seemed to enjoy cooling off in Sheep Lake. He jumped in over and over again (to save us, I guess), so he must at least hate the water a little less than before. He’s also slightly less awkward when he swims. Progress!

I’ve always wanted to love running, but actually hated it. Blubber and panting aside, I could never even run a mile without shin pain, knee pain, ankle pain, lower back pain, or, since I really messed them up playing handball when I was growing up, rolling my ankles. With the Five Fingers, I can run pain-free (except for the exploding heart and burning lungs, of course); it’s basically like running barefoot, the way evolution intended.

It seems counterintuitive when you’ve been conditioned to think that the more padding, the better, but the second I tried them on, I was in heaven. I don’t want to wear any other kind of shoe; I even bought a second pair in black to wear when I’m not exercising. I haz munkeh feetz and I’m proud of it!

My favorite part is being able to run without the threat of twisting my ankle – this highly scientific illustration should tell you all you need to know:

The only problem, which should be pretty obvious, is that the thin soles don’t really work for real hiking. I love using them for trail running and smooth hiking trails like Rattlesnake or the Issaquah Alps, but last week we tried the VFFs on our TNAB Lite hike to Snow Lake. The hike itself is very easy, but I forgot how rocky the trail was. I felt like I spent way too much time and energy staring at my feet to make sure I didn’t step on any of the really evil, jagged rocks and not enough time enjoying the hike. JK did much better than I did, so maybe I just lack confidence (as usual) in my steps.

Now I’m on a mission to find some sort of trail running shoe that’s minimalistic enough (but with a little more protection than the VFFs) that I can wear it hiking without twisting my ankle.

This hike had it all; Sound of Music-type meadows, glittering alpine lakes, hot hot hot (for the most part) sunshine, fantabulous views, excellent conversation, and, compared to my recent experiences in the Rockies (more on that later), not that many mosquitoes.

I had thought the ridge walk would bother me (given my ridiculous fear of heights), but I was completely comfortable the whole way. Success! I had also heard rumors of hundreds of false summits on the way to Alta, so when the (absolutely enormous) summit cairn suddenly popped into view, it was a happy surprise – especially since it meant we could finally partake of Yet’s famous summit brownies.

The only thing missing was JK. We haven’t been able to get out together much this summer since I’ve been gallivanting all over the place while he’s been stuck working way too hard on a project, so I might have to do a re-peak of Alta with him this fall when the berries are out. *munch munch munch*

*I officially can’t say the words “lovely ladies” without breaking into song.

I’ve been fighting the dreary doldrums lately (ok, so it seems like I always am), but Josie shook me out of my marmot-like state of hibernation and got me out on my first TNAB hike in two months. Ach, my burning lungs and quivering loins!

Our destination was Rampart Ridge, a short but oh so steep hike to an area so gorgeous it’s hard to believe it’s right next to the freeway. I had been feeling iffy all week (possibly a lingering something-or-other from a bout of food poisoning the week before), so I got the privilege of feeding the heather on our ascent. This was the first and, hopefully, the last time I have ever vomited on a hike.

Even though I got to taste my lunch twice, I was so happy I went. Great group of people, a beautiful, hazy sunset, a fun trail…it was enough to jolt me out of my malaise for an hour or two.

Karen (who also took me to Tank Lakes last year) invited Tisha, Josie and yours truly to the Sierra Nevada for a grand lakebagging adventure in June/July. Unfortunately the unusually high snowpack forced us to change our plans a little bit, but I think we managed to make the most of what we had.

First stop*, Yosemite! We hiked the Mist Trail, did the whole touron thing, were blown away by the granite awesomeness of the whole place, and, on the way out, saw one of the famous Roadside Bears o’ Yosemite. (I have yet to see a bear in Washington, but I saw six(!) of them in Whistler the week before we went to California.)

After camping at Tioga Pass (man alive, what a gorgeous drive!), we made our way east of the mountains to Mono Lake where we marveled at the tufas and took a well-deserved dip to escape the heat. It has such a high saline content that you just float on top without any effort at all (I usually float well due to my high blubber content anyway, so it was a double win for me). Definitely the coolest swimming hole I have ever found.

Next we drove south to the Bishop area to go backpacking up by Big Pine Lakes. The lakes were melted (huzzah!), gorgeous, and I broke my previous altitude record when we hiked up to 11,000 feet. I was surprised that I didn’t get a headache or feel nauseated when we were camped so high, but I was wheezing like crazy for every step I took. Luckily the scenery allowed for lots of “photo breaks” where I could rest my hyperventilating lungs.

The main part of our trip was a three-day backpack to Thousand Island Lake. Our original plan was to spend four days on/near the John Muir Trail, hiking a loop that would get us to all sorts of gorgeous lakes, but since most of those lakes were still frozen, we camped by Thousand Island and were content with rafting among the icebergs in the lake, doing a short dayhike to Garnet Lake, chatting up lots of Pacific Crest Trail thruhikers and photographing marmots.

Some marmots were more interested than others – this one came right up to the camera when Karen was trying to take our photo!

I absolutely loved this trip; the High Sierra is like miles and miles (and miles and miles) of the Enchantments, and I already want to go back. I’ve been wanting to hike all 211 miles of the John Muir Trail ever since I started hiking, so maybe I can convince JK that we need to do that next summer.

*ok, technically our first stop was a six-hour layover at a sketchy gas station where our rental car broke down and we were approached by an assortment of hillbillies and tweakers who wanted our candy. But let’s try to forget that part of the vacation.

Anyhoo, we decided on the island of Kaua’i since it’s known as the adventurous isle, and definitely the best island for hiking…but we didn’t end up doing much hiking at all. We quickly decided that it would be foolish to not spend as much of our time as possible fully submerged under water, snorkeling with all sorts of non-shark ocean dwellers.

We did manage to sneak in one backpacking trip between all the strenuous beach trips; the (in)famous Kalalau Trail.

The first time I read about this hike was in an article in Backpacker Magazine entitled America’s 10 Most Dangerous Hikes. You would think that would give me, an incorrigible exposure wuss, pause, but I am used to reading guidebooks from Washington, where any minor trail inconvenience is described with a sense of impending doom. The Kalalau Trail goes up and down and up and down, hugging the cliffs along the majestic Na Pali coast. Pssht, I thought. How bad could it be?

Luckily I came to my senses when I found photos like this on the intertubes a couple of weeks before our vacation. I realized this would be no place for me to freak out/freeze up/stagger around like a nervous drunk, so we (I) decided that we would only hike to Hanakoa, a mile before the sketchy stuff starts, and camp there.

In the end, I was relieved when we made it to Hanakoa and could relax. The trail itself is not that challenging, but the heat and humidity were really getting to me. Since my body pretty much consists of a series of tubes filled with Norwegian blood and enveloped in copious amounts of insulating blubber, it’s clear that all my time on a tropical island should be spent in the water or in the shade of a coconut tree. Anyway, it was heavenly to take a bath in creek and hike up to beautiful Hanakoa Falls.

The next day, we packed up our things and headed back towards civilization – but we weren’t ready to leave quite yet. We still had a night left on our permit, so we decided to camp on Hanakapi’ai Beach, a mere two miles from the trailhead. The weather didn’t feel as oppressive on the hike out, so we spent more time admiring the gorgeous views of blue, blue water, green, green plants and red, red flowers.

We set up our tent in the purdiest campsite we’ve ever seen, then set about sunbathing, cooling off in the creek, playing with the beach cats and generally just loving life.

Sunset and sunrise? Magnificent.

On the third morning, we packed up and made quick work of the remaining two miles. Our immediate reward was a cleansing swim on Ke’e Beach and a strawberry smoothie from the roadside stand. All trailheads should have access to tropical beaches and fruit snacks.

All in all a great trip – in an ideal world I would be less of a nervous idiot and actually make it all the way to Kalalau Beach, but alas, even the slightly eroded section on the way to Hanakoa made me all shaky and stumbly.

Along the trail, we ran into several of the year-round beach dwellers (real live hippies!) heading out on resupply trips. Barefoot and carrying nothing but tiny rucksacks with some water, they all looked so peaceful on their journey. I’m sure the fact that they were all stoned out of their minds had nothing at all to do with their blissful existence, but still, it felt kind of poetic when I was lumbering along with my huge pack, struggling with my emotional baggage and my actual baggage. We could all be more island-like.

Our first post-Hawaiʻi (yes, Hawaiʻi! More about that later when I get my photos up…) TNAB destination was Rattlesnake Mountain East Peak. We’ve been to Rattlesnake Ledge a dozen times or so, but this was the first time we ventured beyond the ledges. Since we got a late start, we summited after the main group had already started descending, but we all reconvened at the Pour House in North Bend for Blue Moons afterwards.

Next up was Bandera Mountain. This was my third time up this trail since September, and I am growing rather fond of it. I’ll have to go back some time in July when the beargrass is out.

Anyhoo, the sun was shining and I was wearing shorts for the entire hike, which made me happy enough to almost forget about my racing heart and seizing muscles. Once we hit the snow line, JK raced ahead while I followed at a more leisurely pace. It was still 30 minutes faster than when we went in February, so I’ll count it as progress!

The sunsets are what really make TNAB hikes stand out, and we were treated to quite a doozy as we started hiking back to our cars. The combination of great views, strenuous exercise, sunshine, beer, fresh air and great people = natural Prozac. Mission accomplished, at least for a couple of days. :o)

I was also totally unprepared for how deliciously warm it would be. It was amazing! I rolled my pants up (and cursed myself for wearing my black ninja clothes instead of a t-shirt) and went on to stockpile enough vitamin D to last me all week.

After optimistically putting our skis on and dejectedly having to take them off again about seven times due to the random whims of the pathetic snow cover, we got annoyed and decided to forge ahead, snow or no snow:

Once we hit continuous snow, the rest of the trip was a breeze. This little mountain has a lot of views for minimal effort. We soaked up some more sun at the top while eating cowboy cookies and taking in the scenery.

Skiing back down was like trying to push myself forward through some sort thick, gloopy paste, but (miraculously!) we made it back to the car without a single fall.

This was a great little cross-country ski tour even for a novice (I fear I am forever entrenched in this category); it’s a gentle uphill all the way, which fortunately also means it’s a gentle downhill on the way back. According to my GPS, our loop was 11 miles with 2,500 feet of elevation gain.

Park at the Cabin Creek Sno Park (you need a groomed trails pass in the winter when there is actually snow that can be groomed). North of the freeway, ski (in our case, walk) Forest Service Road 4826 until you get to the sign for Amabilis Mountain/FS 4822. After two miles or so, you get to a junction; both roads lead to the top.

As if the day wasn’t good enough already, we stopped and had phở on the way home. Aah, Washington, how I have missed you.

It is rather sobering (especially for someone living in an area studded with volcanoes like, say, Washington) to consider all the earthquakes and volcanic activity we’ve seen around the world lately. The gods are angry.

In less eruptive news, I spent a very nice and relaxing Easter back in Norway. I think I really needed some rest (mentally); I spent most of my time reading, going for walks – my parents live in a beautiful place – and just enjoying the company of my family. Oh, and EATING WAY TOO MUCH, but that’s what you’re supposed to do when you visit your parents, right? Right??

Since volcanoes are all the rage right now, here’s a scrapbook page I made a while ago of our “climb” (ok, snow slog) of Mt. St. Helens last year. It’s been sitting on my desk for months, but apparently I am never going to get around to finding any embellishments for it…so here it is in all its naked glory. (I used a sketch by Becky Higgins.)

It’s been a very tough week for us; the house feels so empty and we haven’t had much energy to do anything at all. It gets better with time, I guess. I’m heading home to Norway on a somewhat last-minute trip to visit my parents tomorrow, so that will definitely help.

I haven’t been scrapbooking much lately either, but I put together this one (using Karla’s products) last week – I’m thinking I should start making something like this for every season (or month?) so I can at least capture all the major goings-on in our life even when my scrapbooking mojo is nowhere to be found.

That tiny, fuzzy rat grew into a very handsome boy named Bobby, and I fell in love with him and JK at the same time (some might say that JK lured me into his arms using Bobby as bait).

After we stole him from JK’s parents, Bobby became our furry (well, not that furry) son. He even came to our wedding:

Bobby was a perfectly healthy, happy dog until last year when he got very sick with meningitis. He somehow managed to pull through, and for these last two months he was like a young dog again. JK and I were amazed by how energetic he was, so it came as a complete shock to us when he suddenly collapsed and had a seizure in the dog park last Friday. We drove as fast as we could to the vet, but it wasn’t fast enough. Our beautiful little boy passed away in my arms.

I am so glad that both JK and I were there, that Bobs was so happy, and that he was in a place he loved so much, the dog park. Even so, I am absolutely devastated. Bobby was my constant companion through so many years, and I miss him so much.

Thank you for keeping us warm at night, and for keeping me company through some very tough and lonely times. Thank you for going on walks with us, even though some of them were very long. Thank you for being so patient when there was suddenly a little brother in the house. Thank you for being the best little dog in the whole wide world.

I’ll miss your weird little growl and how good your ears smelled, and that cute sound you made when you yawned. You were the most loyal friend anyone could ever have. I love you.

The steep boulder/bear grass hillside was covered with a slushy, slippery layer of snow, so I was happy to have my hiking poles and Yaktrax – we met several traction-less hikers who had turned around due to slippage. Wellie made good use of his K9 crampons.

‘Twas a Moste Excellente Sundaye Outinge, especially since the sun decided to grace us with her presence. And because JK brought summit chocolate. And because it felt fantastic to go out and make my hindquarters sore after three weeks of injury-induced sofa sloth. Huzzah!

Anyhoo, the objective of the weekend was to learn about avalanche rescue (and, more importantly, avalanche avoidance) and snow shelters as part of the WAC’s Winter Backcountry Travel class. It was a very fun, informative, and inspiring (as in I will do anything I possibly can to avoid having to dig my friends’ lifeless (most likely) bodies out of the snow) weekend. I’m glad I’m taking an avalanche class this early in my snow travel career, before I’ve had time to do anything really stupid.

Other noteworthy happenings this weekend: the sun was out. We needed sunglasses. And sunscreen. Hells yeah!

We didn’t walk around much this weekend, which suited my gimpy foot perfectly. All the resting seemed to have helped, so on Monday I decided to join JK for our regular three-mile dog walk around the neighborhood. My foot cooperated nicely until mile 1.5, when all hell broke lose. At that point I didn’t really have much choice but to finish the loop (in hindsight I should have ignored my overzealous, cabin fever-ridden soul and chosen a shorter route to begin with), so I grumpily limped back home.

Two more days of rest and icing later, and it’s feeling better again. I’ve also made a conscious decision to be less pissy about the situation since that’s not going to help me, my foot, or the poor fools I interact with on a daily basis. I’ll also take the grumpiness as a good sign, since it means I actually want to be active – a big improvement on the couch-loving Ingunn of yesteryear.

Instead I am stuck on the couch playing Farmville and watching NBC’s craptastic “coverage” of the Olympics (you would think that living a hop and a skip from Vancouver would ensure the ability to watch the games live, but noooo).

Anyhoo, the top of my foot started hurting last weekend while I was snowshoeing, but I didn’t really think much about it until I went out for a run the next day. It got worse and worse with each step, stabbing pain every time I pushed off with the balls of my foot (which, as I learned afterwards, I shouldn’t be doing when I’m running anyway). Apparently I sprained something in the metatarsal region of my left foot and I’m just going to have to ice and rest (and curse the gods and everyone around me) until it gets better.

Of course (since I am both stubborn and, let’s be honest, rather lacking in the brainal department), I went hiking this weekend. In my defense, a friend from Norway was in town and we started planning this trip in October. It was just a short hike up to High Hut to spend the night, an equally short hike back to the car the next day, and then a very short snowshoeing excursion to Paradise so the boys could go skiing and snowboarding.

Sadly, the spectacular views we had been hoping for were replaced with rain, clouds, fog, blizzards and general shittiness – nothing like our last trip to High Hut. Still, it was better than staying home and playing Farmville…even though it probably prolonged my recovery time. Damnit.

Please excuse the whining nature of this post; I am currently deficient in endorphins, vitamin D and serotonin (and have spent an inordinate amount of time harvesting virtual asparagus), and I am clearly feeling the effects.

A couple of weeks ago, our group of intrepid hikers (including one snowmobiler and a flock of four-leggers) migrated east of the crest to spend a long weekend at the Table Mountain A-Frame Cabin. Faced with a harrowing 7.5-mile road walk to reach our destination, those of us who weren’t burdened with overloaded pulks chose the shortcut over Diamond Head (cutting 2.5 miles while only adding 300 feet of additional elevation gain).

The lardier of us (no offense, Jasper!) huffed and puffed up the steep slopes feeling every ounce of our overnight packs (tents had been replaced with wine and fresh produce for this glamping experience). The summit itself was treed and offered no dazzling views, but as we made our way down the ridge, Tahoma and a very pointy Mount Stuart dominated the horizon.

I choose neither to recount nor remember the remaining road walk up to the cabin.

Safely ensconced in the a-frame, food was eaten, games were played, drinks were drunk and dogs were used as pillows. At some point during the first night, we realized We Were Not Alone. For some reason I still cannot fathom, I leaned over and shined my headlamp into the vault toilet. I was surprised to see two mice scurrying about in our waste (feasting on undigested pieces of corn, no doubt), but a perusal of the guest book told us that our smelly new pets were known as the Pooperine and his sidekick, Poopacabra.

The next day we set out on a never-ending snowshoe to Mount Lillian. Most of us gave up and returned to the cabin to drink, but a handful of travelers made it to the summit. They’ll have to write about that themselves.

More food was eaten, more drinks were drunk, more games were played, and more offerings were made to the Pooperine.

On the last morning, our group split once more – the peak baggers set out to conquer each and every bump in the vicinity of the cabin, while the rest of us enjoyed excellent sledding and mini skiing down a nearby hill.

I choose neither to recount nor remember the 7.5-mile road walk back to the trailhead.

Special thanks to Andrea, Tisha (and their respective menfolk) for arranging this fabulous trip, and to Steve for risking everything in order to safely transport our beer to the cabin…and to everyone else for making it such a great weekend.

For information on how you can book a night in this Moste Excellente of Mountain Dwellings, look here.

(Check out those retro BasicGrey letter stickers! I know the title looks cramped and borderline illegible, but I dug those stickers out from the deepest, darkest depths of my stash and I love ‘em.)

Even though I’m taking an (involuntary) break from scrapbooking, I feel like I should at the very least be documenting our favorite trips so I’ll have something to look at when I am old and grey and decrepit. It’s also a good way to start dreaming about future destinations now that the days are getting longer (hallelujah!) and it looks like summer just might come around again this year.

*November, approximately.

Looking back at my first hike of Mount Si, it’s clear that I was once very enthusiastic about it in an adorably naive way…so it was nice to go back there last weekend with two Si virgins and see the mountain through their eyes.

It didn’t hurt that the weather turned from grey with snow flurries to clear and sunny. It also didn’t hurt that the hike was followed by curry at Square Lotus. What did hurt was realizing that I hiked faster last year carrying a 40-pound pack than I did this weekend with a normal daypack. It’s officially time to hit the trails again – then heading back to Si for a rematch.

So since this is January and I am presumably not the only one who is trying to shed some lard, I thought I would share one of my favorite recipes. It’s very easy, very tasty, very healthy.

Red Lentil Dhal:

1 yellow onion

1 can diced tomatoes

400 grams (yes, I’m European) red lentils

8 dl water

2 cubes vegetable stock (I use powdered stock, so I just throw in whatever amount seems reasonable)

1 tbs grated fresh ginger (I quadruple this amount, but then again I have a disturbingly passionate love of ginger)

2 tbs fresh cilantro (coriander) (I add more of this, too)

1 tbs red curry paste

a wee bit of oil for sauteeing

salt and pepper to taste

Heat the onion in a smidge of oil in a pot. Add the tomatoes and let them simmer for a couple of minutes, then add the rest of the ingredients. Stir, cover with a lid and let it simmer for 20 minutes.

We usually eat this with brown rice (or quinoa) and lots of broccoli or greens. Nom nom nom. The best part is having leftovers the next day; I usually mix the dhal and the rice/quinoa, add a little bit of chickpea flour so that everything will stick together, and voilà: lentil burgers!

A couple of days after Christmas, JK and I decided to move our porky behinds (I’m speaking for myself) off the couch, away from the Christmas cookies, and up a hill – Microwave Hill to be exact. A snowmobile-infested radio tower seems an unlikely destination for a wilderness experience, but we had heard tales of surprisingly splendid views along Keechelus Ridge.

Despite a late start and realizing that we had left our map at home, we soldiered on, figuring that we couldn’t get lost if we just followed the forest road. Well, it turns out that there are approximately 572 different forest roads leading up to Keechelus Ridge, all with fresh snowmobile tracks.

Yes, I’m wearing a chullo. It looks heinous but it keeps me warm.

Anyway, we made it to the top and found a nice spot away from the snowmobile congregation (frequently asked snowmobiler question: “You walked up here??”) where we could have lunch. Please ignore the red noses in the photo, it was coooold up there on the windy ridge! The views more than made up for the chattering teeth; we got quite the panorama of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.

Once we dropped down from the ridge and away from the wind, the temperature was perfect for hiking. Unfortunately we somehow* ended up on the wrong forest road on the way down. Yup. Thus we had the privilege of seeing the sunset over Mount Rainier, hiking in the moonlight (we had headlamps but the moon was so bright that we didn’t need them), and turning a six-mile hike into a ten-miler. From now on I will always double-check that I packed my topo map, even if I’m in a hurry.

Miles: 10 (normally around 6)
Elevation gain: 2,500 feet
Getting “lost” in the moonlight with the man you love: more romantic (and slightly embarrassing) than scary

*By being mapless doofuses**, that’s how.
**Doofi?

Last summer we got one of those tiny little camcorder things with the idea that we were going to put together little videos of our backpacking trips, but of course that didn’t happen. Today we decided to rectify the situation by putting together a video of our alpine lake dips from 2009. If you’re really bored or just have 8 minutes to kill, here it is:

It’s also available in HD if for some reason you need to see my ample bottom more clearly.

2009 was the best year I have had in a very, very long time (well, minus the whole Bobby thing). I feel like I’m finally putting my life back together after the Great Depression, and I’ve had enough energy to really experience things. We’ve met a whole bunch of great new people, rekindled some old friendships, and made a conscious decision to surround ourselves with positive people.

What made 2009 so great for me was all the hiking we got to do, so, without further ado, here are my favorite trips from the year, sorted by month. (I think it’s about time I took a refresher course in comma usage.) (The same goes for parentheses.)

January The year started off strong when a weather inversion let us drive up through the freezing clouds and enjoy an amazingly warm and beautiful snowshoeing trip to Artist Point and Huntoon Point by Mount Baker.

February JK and Carlos carried skis up to McClure Rock on Mount Rainier while I led on foot. It was nice for me to not carry 243 gajillion pounds of ski gear on the way up, but they certainly had more fun on the way down.

March The weather was iffy in March, so we took advantage of a sunny Thursday and skied up to High Hut. This was my first real cross-country skiing trip in five years or so, and it left me doubting the validity of my Norwegian passport. It sure was purdy up there though!

April We finally hiked (well, snowshoed) up to Camp Muir like we had been talking about for ages. 10,188 feet is the highest I have ever been, and I loved it, thin air and all.

May My first time snow camping and our first volcano summit, Mount St. Helens. The weather and the views were spectacular.

June I got to hike in and stay in camp while JK and the rest of the mountaineering class summited Mount Baker. I wish I could have joined them all the way, but I’ll have time for that later.

July The swimming and views more than made up for the horrendous mosquitoes on our backpacking trip to Spectacle Lake (but from now on I think we’ll save lakeside overnighters for September/October to avoid the little buggers).

August I joined two great ladies from nwhikers.net on a three-day ramble around Tank Lakes. This was my first backpacking trip without JK, but the scenery was so freaking gorgeous that I forgot all about him. ;)

September My favorite hiking month in Washington; the mosquitoes are gone but the lakes are still warm enough for swimming. The sunrise over Robin Lake was the prettiest one of the whole year, it was so hot that we simply had to swim, and JK and I had a wonderful time together on this trip.

October Aah, larch month. Our trip to Black Peak (well, just Wing Lake for me) was my 2009 favorite – golden larches, gorgeous lakes and great company, followed by car camping and the best campfire the world has ever known. (I could do without the snowy boulder field of doom though.)

November We spent most of November at home with Bobby since he was sick, but we managed to sneak in an excellent snowshoe outing to Mount Rainier where we climbed above the clouds to finally see some sun.

December Our trip to Skyline Ridge last week wins December since it was where I finally found the Christmas spirit I had been looking for all month. We also stumbled upon a rather plump white and black dog, which is always a plus.

Other highlights In April/May we went to Utah and Nevada to escape the snow and stock up on vitamin D. It was a week of absolute bliss; nothing but love and red rocks. Aaah. I never got around to writing a trip report here on my blog, but there’s one on nwhikers.net.

I also went on my first solo hiking trip and my first solo backpacking trip this year – there will definitely be more of those.

I have high hopes for 2010 – I want to get over my ridiculous fear of heights for long enough to try an (easy) alpine climb, and hopefully we’ll be heading back to Norway at some point to explore the mountains of home. Wherever we end up going, if it’s half as pretty as what I saw in 2009, I’ll be happy.

For us, Christmas begins on the 23rd, Little Christmas Eve. Since we knew we wouldn’t be getting a white Christmas in Redmond this year, JK took the day off so we could find some snow in the mountains instead. Out of sheer laziness, we went back to Skyline Ridge. I was there just a couple of weeks ago, but it’s short, easy, doesn’t require any planning, and it seemed like the perfect place for JK to try his new randonnée skis. I followed him on snowshoes.

We had been promised sun, but skies kept changing from blue to grey to white to yellow and pink, which made for some eerie light but unfortunately blocked our views to the north. As we climbed above the Stevens Pass ski area, we got some excellent views into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.

The local views weren’t bad either – after listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks in the car on the way up, the snowy trees were all it took to finally get my into the Christmas spirit. Bliss!

(If anyone has any tips on taking photos of snow on overcast days, please share – mine always come out dull, grey and flat, even if I overexpose the shot.)

Mount Daniel was looking particularly handsome and dramatic:

As we rounded the lake, I spotted a familiar white and black dog in the forest. It was Jasper and his dad, Tom, on the way back from a peakbagging adventure on the other side of the ridge. They joined us for the rest of our trip (even though it meant they had to go back up to the rock garden), which was good for me so I could have some company on the way down while JK skied.

JK made it all the way back to the car without falling (or so he claims), and then we headed home to get started on the nut loaf and risengrynsgrøt…and the donning of gay apparel.

Speaking of miracles, I have fallen in love…with a vegetable. I’ve had an aversion to spinach ever since a regrettable episode four years ago involving me, a salad, and some slightly soggy spinach that had been in our fridge just a tad too long. Did you know that when spinach is past its prime, it tastes like fish? Nas-tay.

Well, after reading about green smoothies all over Bloglandia for about a year now, I decided it was time for me to grow up, get over my gag reflex and give the Wonder Green a chance. That’s right – I’m putting spinach in my smoothies! I’ve adopted Angela‘s term for the concoctions, Green Monsters. The most shocking thing is that they taste good, and after having them for breakfast a couple of days, I actually started craving them. I usually only crave chocolate and potatoes (in various shapes and forms), so this was a welcome surprise.

My basic recipe is:

Green Monster

2 tbs frozen berries (you can add more, but it will make your smoothie look very…brown)

1/2 banana

1 cup hemp milk (or soy/rice milk)

4 cups spinach and/or kale

1 scoop Amazing Grass (hippie superfood stuff)

a couple of ice cubes

a dash of cinnamon

In order to mix it up once in a while, I use different greens, add some extra stuff like parsley or cucumber, and I also made a very good holiday themed Green Monster where I used pumpkin instead of berries and added cloves and ginger. Mmm. I’ll have to make that one again for Christmas. For your first couple of smoothies you can use more berries and less spinach so you can get used to the taste.

I’ve been drinking these for breakfast for about a month now, and it feels great to know that I’ve consumed about 326 servings (ballpark figure) of veggies before the day has even begun. I’ve also had much fewer headaches and migraines even though I’ve been fairly stressed out these last few weeks, which makes sense since I am finally getting some nutrients into my body.

Even Bobby likes Green Smoothies – when he was at his worst and wouldn’t eat any of the tasty things we tried to give him, I caught him licking the leftover smoothie in my glass. After some quick googling (sorry honey, “binging”), I found these pet safe green smoothie recipes and started making him a mini Green Monster every day. Whenever I used the blender, he would come up to me and wag his tail! It was pretty much the only thing he would eat before he got his medicines and his regular appetite back.

Hopefully eating all this spinach is going to make both of us as strong as Popeye (but without the unfortunate medical problems):

He actually started doing significantly better within 24 hours of his first dose (and after three days I caught him trying to hump Wellie – must be the ‘roid rage)! It’s so good to have our old Bobby back – and it’s such a relief to see him eating again. As you can see, we definitely need to fatten him up after a month and a half of being sick.

Part of Operation Lard Dog was to make our annual batch of holiday gingerbones for the dogs. Bobby and Wellie (and certain other stout friends of theirs) love these, especially the ones shaped like Italian Greyhounds. If you want to make them for your pups, you can find the recipe here (it’s from an old issue of The Bark magazine).

Here’s a totally gratuitous photo of us from JK’s office party on Saturday. It has nothing to do with the rest of the post, but I wanted to show it since we’re not wearing sweaty, grubby hiking clothes. And because JK wore his snazzy hat. Sadly, our evening was cut short because I had a major shoe fail. Yes, that’s blood. Ouch.

(I look so tired in photos lately – it certainly doesn’t help that I haven’t been sleeping well this fall. Aargh. If anyone has an under eye, anti-puff cream that actually works, please share. Or maybe something that could make me sleep that’s not some sort of evil pharmaceutical product.)

Anyway, we did manage to get out of the house a couple of times this week in spite of the cold. Before the holiday party, JK and I went for a quick run on Cougar Mountain (must get LONG running pants, brr!), and on Sunday we hiked up to good old Rattlesnake Ledge (the bump behind us in the photo up there) with Andre and Ellie.

On Wednesday, Ellie, Suz and I braved the forecast (-7°F* with the wind chill – luckily that wind never showed up and the sun was out in full force to keep us warm) and drove up to Stevens Pass for some snowshoeing.

The thing about hiking in the cold is that as long as you keep moving, you stay nice and toasty…but if something happens and you’re stuck up there waiting for help, you’re a wee bit screwed. So even though I was hiking in nothing but my thermal underwear and a soft shell layer, my pack was stuffed to the brim with all sorts of warm and puffy layers. I also heated up my water at home before I put it in my pack so it wouldn’t freeze.

Anyway, we snowshoed up to Skyline Ridge, a short and sweet hike with a great payoff. According to my GPS it’s only 3 miles with 1300 feet of elevation gain, and we got views of Mount Stuart and Daniel behind the Stevens Pass ski area and Glacier Peak and the Mountain Loop peaks to the north. Nom nom nom. I took more photos when JK and I went there in January (because my fingers weren’t as cold that day).

Supposedly the temperature is going to rise a little bit over the weekend, which might bring a bit of lowland snow – that would do wonders for my hitherto non-existent Christmas spirit. I think I have to go into some sort of holiday boot camp mode this weekend to see if I can get in the mood. Maybe I’ll have to bring out the big guns and watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation two weeks early. *gasp*

*that’s -21°C for my fellow Celsiites

Item number one on the agenda is to let you all know that Bobby is ok – a lethargic tiny lump of skin and bones, but ok. The vets have taken approximately 34,204 tests, but no one has been able to figure out what’s wrong with the little guy. Last week he was eating a little bit and seemed to have some energy, but over the last couple of days he’s been slowing down again. It’s so frustrating to see him so skinny and uncomfortable when I have no idea what I can do to help him.

We haven’t been hiking much on the weekends lately (we replaced it with a wholesome activity known as eating), but on Sunday we had an unseasonably amazing day on Rainier. Our friends Andre and Ellie had never seen the Mountain from Paradise (despite several attempts), so we decided we would go snowshoeing and prove to them once and for all that there is, in fact, a rather large volcano there.

Unfortunately the weather didn’t seem to be cooperating when we arrived, but we held strong in hope that we could climb our way above the clouds.

At around 7300 feet, we could see hints of blue skies, sun, and – could it be?? – Mount Rainier! Many huzzahs were heard and there was much clicking of cameras. Andre and Ellie’s curse had finally been broken!

We synthesized as much vitamin D as possible, then headed back down since the days are disgustingly short this time of year in Washington.

The hike back down was spectacular; all the clouds and fog lifted, we could feel the warm sun on our faces, and the glissade down from Panorama Point was the most fun I’ve had in weeks. As a bonus, the falling temperature had formed an evil death crust on top of the snow – the faceplanting skiers provided us with much amusement.

Wending our way down to the parking lot, we ran into another couple of friends – Tom and Amy!

Of course no trip to Paradise is complete without a fox sighting. This handsome fella (or gorgeous gal, what do I know) was skulking around the parking lot looking for handouts. I guess people are still feeding them even after what happened to Pickles the Fox – the foxes have started walking into the road when they see cars approaching, which cannot possibly end well.

Not too shabby for a hike this time of year! November in Washington is a notoriously (well, among hiker folks, not normal people) bad hiking month since the weather tends to be utterly craptastic and there’s usually not enough snow cover for skiing, but this was certainly one of my favorite trips this year (yes, I know I always say that).

At least I’m getting to spend a lot of quality couch time with him – that’s always been our thing, being all snoozy and lazy together. The very first time we met, he curled up behind my legs on the couch and immediately stole my heart. It was love at first spoon.

(Thanks to my digital Library of Memories, it was incredibly easy to find pictures of the two of us together. These photos span 2002-2009, but they were all in one folder, ready to use.)

Bobby is doing better, but is still very lethargic and generally not himself – but he’s still enough of a gentleman to tell me to say thank you for all the well wishes!

Anyway, it was becoming increasingly clear that I needed some outdoor time, especially when the weather on Sunday defied the forecast and provided both sun and blue skies. We couldn’t leave poor Bobs alone at home all day and go for a real hike, so we drove to Tiger Mountain for a quick trail run with Wellie.

Once again we proved that the combination of sun/fresh air/endorphins is absolutely magical and beats any sort of drug, and once again I proved that I am in absolutely horrendous shape. Still, I loved it so much that we went running on Monday too, in the Redmond Watershed Preserve which is relatively close to our house. So much nicer than running on asphalt. Or a treadmill.

We didn’t want to carry our big, heavy lump of an SLR while running, so we decided to try our new compact camera, a Panasonic Lumix TS1 (yes it really is that orange).

I’ve been wanting a compact camera so I can take more photos when we’re out with friends and I don’t feel like bringing a suitcase-sized purse for my camera, so we figured we should go for a waterproof (good for photos of Wellie swimming) and shockproof (good for downhill skiing where we will inevitably take quite a few splendid spills) version. I’m underwhelmed by the results so far, but I guess I should at least attempt to read the manual and not base my judgment solely on photos from a dark forest before I talk smack about the camera. Either way I have to stop expecting SLR-type results from the tiny little thing.

In April we went for a hike in Eastern Washington and he came home with a mysterious and rather evil-looking bite on the inside of his leg. The vet had no idea what it could be (it showed up too soon to be a tick bite, and the tick-borne disease tests the vet took later all came back negative), but sent him home with a bunch of antibiotics just in case.

Ten days later, he developed a high fever, diarrhea and vomiting, so we took him back to the vet. He had to stay overnight because of the fever and dehydration, but they had no idea what had caused it.

In June, he slipped off a log into Annette Lake and came up very grimy and green, and a couple of days later he was sick again. Same symptoms, another overnight vet trip, countless tests and no results.

After this he was healthy all summer (except for some random days when he seemed lethargic and warm), and then suddenly last week he got a high fever and a very enlarged lymph node on his neck. This time he had to stay at the vet’s for two nights, they ran all sorts of tests and x-rays and poked and prodded him all over the place, but they still have no idea what is causing all of this.

He’s back at home now (on two different antibiotics and a painkiller) and is slowly getting better, but I feel so sorry for him. I just want to find out what’s wrong so it won’t keep happening every other month. Before this year, he never had any health problems at all, but now it seems like his immune system has been compromised and any little thing (like falling into the lake) will set him off. We’ve decided to retire him from hiking, at least until we figure out what’s wrong.

I have known and loved Bobby for eight and a half years now (the little nose bear stole my heart the first time I met him, which was also the first time I met JK), and I don’t even want to think about not having him in my life.

Being in the U.S. makes it hard *not* to appreciate the changing of the seasons though…ok, so it’s slightly annoying that the stores put out their Christmas displays in September, but I love all the seasonal foodstuffs (of course I do) like cider and pumpkin spice anything and the general excitement about fall. Corn mazes, pumpkin patches, insane Halloween decorations, I love it. Wellie gives the season four paws up too:

I finally started working out again, so that might be part of the reason why I feel so disgustingly content these days too. Ok, so I’ve been hiking throughout the summer, but going for a walk once a week really isn’t enough to shift lard from this bucket or maintain a somewhat consistent influx of endorphins. It feels great even though any positive effects I may have garnered so far must have been negated by my alcohol intake over the last week (as it turns out, happy autumn time = beer) – after a particularly festive the night before, I felt like I was sweating pure hops yesterday at the gym. Ugh.

Anyway, I don’t really know what the point of this post was except to say that I like autumn and that I have a very cute dog who seems to agree.

Mount Pilchuck fit the bill for a short, easy, and hopefully-blister-free hike – plus there’s a lookout at the top, so it’s an interesting destination even if you don’t have any views…which we didn’t. Still, it was a great day out with our friends; the fresh snow made everything look all Christmasy and gorgeous, and we got quite a bit of sunshine even though the clouds obscured most of our views. Best of all? I came home with toasty, dry feet (impressive considering the trail was basically a stream on Saturday) and not a single blister. Huzzah!

(By the way, I hereby officially declare that Washingtonians are NOT allowed to complain about the weather right now after the amazing spring and summer we’ve had. Rain is both expected and necessary in October/November, and if I catch anyone whining about it from now on I will smack them upside the head with a get-some-perspective stick. If you can’t handle the one really over-exaggerated cliché about this area, then move somewhere else and stop dragging us all down with your negativity. Harumph!)

Part of the process was to go through my old scrapbook pages to see whether my “storytelling” was up to snuff. While doing that, I pulled out these pages to put in the Yesterday & Today album. They’re all strangely coordinated – maybe I should keep the green/brown/beige thing going throughout the album? Meh, that might get boring.

Good things I found when going through my pages:

- lots of journaling, whether short or long. I especially liked the ones where I wrote like I talk and it felt like my personality (as annoying as it may be) came through.

- layouts with multiple photos, simple design – keeping embellishments as accents and focusing on the words and the photos.

- white space! The layouts that had some breathing room were my favorites.

Not-so-good things I found:

- most of my earliest pages didn’t have any journaling, not even a little note about the time, place or people in the photos. I used to think I would always remember those things, but now I can’t even recall the names of the people I went to high school with. How sad is that, by the way?

- a whole bunch of “purposeless” layouts that were more about using a photo I thought was cool than actually documenting what was going on in our lives.

- I want to make more mini albums, more pages about our families, more pages about everyday life – not just about hiking…

- I love enlarging my photos, but sometimes they’re just too big. It’s better to have some white space around a smaller photo and let it breathe.

- chipboard letters that have fallen off since I made the layout. This drives me nuts – don’t market it as self-adhesive if it can’t even stick to a piece of paper for a year!!

- writing the full journaling in my handwriting (little snippets are ok) – it’s not just ugly, it’s totally illegible. A couple of days ago we were (privately) making fun of a car salesman’s handwriting (because he was a loathsome, lying swine of a human being who deserves to be mocked), and I realized I am not in any position to make fun of other people’s scribbles. But at least my handwriting doesn’t look like a second grader’s. Unless it’s a really, really drunk second grader.

- layouts with paint, inking and various other attempts at being “artsy”, which clearly I am not. I’ll stick to my simple style.

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!

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.

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.

I love fonts, they’re so pretty (well, some of them). Unfortunately I tend to hoard them, so my font list in Photoshop is getting unmanageably long (does anyone know of a way to make my favorite/most used fonts stick to the top of the list in Photoshop like they do in Word?) – yet I keep going back to the same ones over and over again:

One of my favorite things to do is mix fonts in my title – especially when I sneak a handwritten font in there (apparently I also have a penchant for bad puns):

I love printing the title directly on a photo, but sometimes I’ll make it overlap (I’ll make the design in Photoshop, print half of the title on the photo and the rest on cardstock, then piece them back together) so it looks like I used letter stickers:

Sometimes I’ll just use the outline of the font to mix it up a little. In Photoshop, set the Layer style > Stroke to whatever color and thickness you want, then change the main color of the font to your background color.

Of course one of the best things about using computer fonts is that you never run out of characters (unless you run out of ink, which tends to happen at the most inopportune times) – it’s perfect for mini albums where you’re using the same style on every page. I can add extra pages to my Southwest album two years from now and not have to worry about finding matching stickers. Huzzah!

(click the photos to embiggen)

For all my talk about what a lazy scrapbooker I am, it’s not actually so much about the laziness after all. It’s all a way to make scrapbooking easy and quick enough for me to continue with it as a hobby.

The honeymoon period between me and scrapbooking is definitely over; I no longer swoon over patterned paper or pay any sort of attention to new releases (when was the last time I even bought anything new?), and I have lost my creative drive to come up with fancy, new layouts every time I sit down to make a page…but I still love this hobby and what it stands for, and I love doing something with the bazillion photos JK and I take and the memories we make – and being lazy (oh, let’s just call it efficient!) allows me to keep doing that.

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.

I try to cull my photos at several stages in the camera-to-scrapbook process (actually, the eye-to-scrapbook process – I’m becoming more and more critical of what I choose to photograph. With a digital camera it’s way too easy to just snap away like mad, creating more work for when you get back to the computer. Bah!):

1) Looking through my photos in Lightroom, I delete the obvious losers (blurry, grainy beyond salvation, major exposure failage etc.) altogether, and then flag the ones I want to upload to flickr. Our flickr account is where we share our photos with friends and family, and I like to think of it as a backup in case all our hard drives crash or the house goes up in flames or something. I only edit the flagged photos.

2) Now comes the hard part – choosing which photos to scrapbook. I make an effort to include photos of us and our hiking partners on every page even if it means dropping a nature photo I love, because I think they will be more interesting to us in the future. I think I’m going to make a simple album with my favorite nature photos so I won’t have to worry about forgetting them.

I also save some photos to use for non-event, non-chronological scrapbook pages – instead of including this photo of JK and the pups on the Tuck and Robin layout, I’m going to save it for something else. Maybe a page about my favorite things? Or summer memories? Or how freaking cute my boys are? I store multiple usage photos like that one in a digital Library of Memories system.

3) Now for the actual scrapbooking part – I like to choose one or two photos to emphasize what I want to remember about the trip (these tend to be nature photos), then squeeze in the rest as supporting actors.

Since I am generally too lazy to come up with new, exciting designs all the time, my layouts tend to look very similar to each other. Case in point – the Tuck and Robin page looks a lot like the Mount Baker page I just made, and the Tank Lakes layout is based on a design from Cathy Zielske‘s Design Your Life class that I have already used on another page…and quite frankly the two layouts in this post look almost the same. I don’t care; I’m just happy to be scrapbooking and getting these memories down on paper.

The first couple of times we went hiking, I ended up making several scrapbook pages from each trip – if I had kept this up, my shelves would be full of not-very-interesting albums. I definitely prefer this more succinct (if I can use that word about photos) style of memory keeping, especially since I don’t really have room for many albums in our house to begin with. Maybe we should just build more shelves :o)

I wanted to go somewhere I had been before (with a short hike in in case I freaked out and wanted to run back home), so I decided on Gem Lake by Snoqualmie Pass – it’s a very popular hike, but I figured it wouldn’t be too crowded on a Tuesday night.

It did not in any way feel like the autumnal equinox when I started hiking, the sun was out in full force and hot enough (80′s!) to make me appreciate the shady bits of the trail. I passed a bunch of dayhikers (but no backpackers) and made it to Gem in exactly 2.5 hours, which is pretty good for me with a full pack – the pumpkin spice bread carbo load the night before must have worked its magic.

It was windy as all hell by the lake, which made it really difficult to set my tent up; various bits and pieces kept trying to blow away and the poles were bending all over the place. I ended up trying a couple different campsites before finding one that was sheltered enough for me to erect my lovely abode without major failage.

I spent the afternoon swimming, hiking up Wright Mountain, lazing around by the lake, reading and watching a colorless sunset. Another person had arrived and was camped on the opposite side of the lake, but I was far enough away to feel like I was all alone. The night was uneventful except for a fat little mouse running straight into my tent – I didn’t get a photo but drew a very lifelike (and most excellent if I do say so myself) sketch of the incident in my journal so JK could see it.

I thought I would be nervous sleeping out there alone, but I guess I’m so used to backpacking at this point that it just feels like home. Huzzah!

After more swimming and reading the next day, I reluctantly had to head back to civilization. At some point during the journey the middle seam of my shorts had ripped, so I had to hike the whole way back with my butt hanging out – my apologies to anyone walking behind me that day.

The hike up there seemed harder than the stats implied – I’m going to go ahead and blame it on the heat since even JK was exhausted – and the trail is a schizophrenic mix of flat and wide, steep and narrow and downright scrambly, but man alive was it worth it.

We knew that this place is popular, but it was still surprising to see tents dotting every available surface around the lake. The really weird thing was that most people didn’t get up to see the sunrise – they must not have realized what they were missing…

I’m becoming more comfortable taking photos now (the trip to Tank Lakes was good practice) instead of just handing JK the camera. Just one little step on the road to learning that I don’t necessarily suck at everything.

I took about 200 shots of the sunrise (seriously) before we snuck back into the tent to get some more sleep.

We had planned to scramble up Granite Mountain and check out some of the other lakes in the area, but instead we escaped the heat by napping and swimming. I loved just hanging around the lake, being lazy and talking to JK. I’ve been feeling tired and down in the dumps lately, so the endorphins, sunlight and good conversation did me a world of good. Our personal camp goat (we named him Aberforth) made it even better.

In the early afternoon we reluctantly packed our stuff and headed back down, stopping to swim in some of the lakes on the way. It was one of those perfect days I wish I could just bottle up and relive whenever things seem hopeless.

Since I have no original ideas these days (and that’s ok!), I stole Karla Dudley’s design (the digital pattern paper is also from Karla Dudley, but it’s a paper layout – I printed the background on cardstock before adding the photos) for Das Toof. I love JK’s photos from that climb!

I made On Top of Old Smokey to participate in Erin’s challenge over at Write.Click.Scrapbook. last week; I used one of my blog posts for the journaling. Easy and lazy, that’s how I like my scrapbooking!

The trail is as good as flat for the first five miles, then heads steeply up up up for a couple of miles until you reach the first lakes of the Necklace Valley. To be honest, the valley itself was a bit disappointing – I had pictured an Enchantments-like granite landscape dappled with lakes, but it was all below the timberline and not very impressive compared to the lakes I’ve become accustomed to seeing (I know, I’m spoiled). It’s still very pretty, but in my opinion not really worth it considering the b*tch of a hike in. The gorgeous stuff that makes it worth it is off-trail, up above the valley.

We hiked up on boulders and pretty granite to get to our destination, the ridiculously purdy Lower Tank Lake. By this point I had started gaining a new appreciation for my husband – this was my first backpacking trip without him and I’m used to him carrying all the heavy stuff!

All thoughts of sore legs and aching backs were forgotten when we reached the lake. This place is too pretty for its own good:

After a beautiful sunset and a huge dinner (I forgot that JK and I usually split a bag of those freeze dried meals – I had to force myself to eat a whole one so I wouldn’t have to carry all that weight back out. Ugh!), we settled down for the night and I had an excellent night’s sleep. While husbands are good for use as pack mules and general amusement, it’s definitely easier to sleep when they’re not snoring right next to you!

We spent the next day getting acquainted with the area, exploring the numerous lakes and tarns on the plateau. The girls convinced me to scramble up and along Otter Ridge, which looked terrifying to me from afar but turned out to be pure fun and with excellent views – it felt great to challenge my fear of heights just a little bit.

We moseyed on back to camp and spent a lazy afternoon swimming (ok, jumping in and immediately clawing our way back out, brrr!) in Lower Tank Lake, taking pictures and walking around on the plateau before turning in for the night.

My back was not happy about all the rock hopping I had done, so it kept me awake most of the night – I’m glad I brought a book and my Zune (and some codeine, ahem)!

The hike out on the third day felt like a bit of a death march – the sun was baking us to a crisp and the elusive woodland gnomes had been hard at work both elongating the trail and adding more ups and downs than we had on the way in. Stupid gnomes.

The hike was made easier by keeping this image in my head:

After 173 miles (or so it seemed), we finally reached the trailhead – I don’t think I have ever been so happy to see a car before! After a stop to replenish our bodies (mmm, potatoes), I went home to find poor JK still sick. He was impressed by all my badass-looking cuts and bruises (the joys of off-trail hiking!) and my mosquito bites.

I had hoped, rather naively, that the mosquitoes would have died by now, but the evil little buggers came out in full force on the second night. I HATE THEM SO MUCH. Oh well, at least I’ll have a multitude of sexy scars (it is physically impossible for me not to scratch a bite) to remind me of this trip for years to come.

Despite the death march, the heavy pack, the bloodsucking vampires, my disapproving back and some gnarly blisters, I think this was my favorite trip of the summer. We went to a beautiful place, I had great company, and I got to challenge myself by inching my way out of the protective little box where I usually live my life. I want more of that.

The official trip report is here – Karen and Anne’s photos are far superior to mine, so I recommend taking a peek!

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.)

Just to show that we do in fact participate in non-hiking activities once in a while (although I do tend to stay attached to the couch for most of the day, cough cough), here are some photos from Tuesday afternoon.

We’re lucky enough to have a great friend who just happens to be a member of a sailing club so he can whisk melting Norwegians out on the lake during heatwaves. Thank you, Cap’n Andreas!

Yeah, that’s right – another heatwave. Luckily this one is not as hot and not as short as the absolutely brutal, suffocating scorcher we had in July, but I say it’s still a good excuse to get out on the water. Sailing is fantastic, especially when my only jobs on the boat are to relax and to duck when big beams come flying directly at me (that’s what she said).

Back pain update – I’m feeling so much better after taking some codeine (left over from the wisdom tooth extraction), stretching and going for a swim. I think the painkillers let my back muscles relax enough to loosen up whatever it was that was hurting so much. I went to the doctor today and he gave me permission to go backpacking (huzzah!) as long as I bring drugs (huzzah!) and don’t carry too much weight (huzzah huzzah huzzah!) – he thinks the back pain will subside within a couple of days, so I hope that’s true.

I really need to start doing some sort of core-strengthening program so this won’t happen again. Maybe it’s time to get back on the yoga mat.

Luckily I was feeling good enough on Sunday to go for a dayhike, but between two missed backpacking trips and one missed midweek hike, It will be a reach for my to hit 100 miles before the end of August.

I refuse to get stressed out about the mileage and ruin my favorite hobby, so we enjoyed our mellow hike to Upper Palisade and Hidden Lakes in Mount Rainier National Park. It was a free entrance weekend so we expected to see hordes of hikers, but we were mostly alone once we got past the first lake. This was a six-lake day for us in total, but I didn’t get to swim since I had just been sick. Boo! JK jumped in two of them while I soaked up the sun, smelled the flowers, and watched the pikas (and a fox!) – I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love Washington!

The GPS said we hiked 9 miles for a total of 37 so far this month. Do you think I’ll make it to 100..?

I had a lot of fun making this one, it was refreshing to not just follow my same old structure. I think I am going to keep this up for all my hiking layouts from this year to make a little 8×8 album, I fell in love with that size when I made my desert scrapbook this spring.

Digital was definitely the way to go for this one as I could do it all while my sick self was planted firmly on the couch. Luckily, said sickness seems to be disappearing very quickly; the fever is gone and my throat is almost back to normal. This is very good news for our weekend plans, so now I am just crossing all crossable limbs in the hope that the weather will cooperate – I am very excited about this trip!

Ok, this is driving me crazy – I couldn’t decide whether to put “making lemons into lemonade” or “turning lemons into lemonade”. Hrmf. If you feel strongly either way (the rest of The Intertubes seems to be undecided), let me know so I can change it before printing. Aah, the joys of digital scrapbooking!

I dragged JK away from his FIFA game and we drove up to Snoqualmie Pass to revisit one of my favorite places, Melakwa Lake. JK had never been to the upper lake before, so I figured it would be a good place for us to go swimming.

The weather looked rather ominous as we hiked up to the lakes, but we were spared the predicted torrential downpour (Mother Nature was nice enough to save that for today) and even caught some glimpses of that big, glowing orb in the sky.

Since we started late (2 PM) we met hordes of people going down as we were hiking up, but by the time we made it up to the upper lake a little under two hours later, we had it all to ourselves. JK, Wellie and I jumped into the upper lake while Bobby hid under our backpacks, and then we ran to the lower lake so we could swim in that one too. Brrr!

We enjoyed a marvelously healthy lunch of JK’s homemade, Norwegian-style cinnamon buns (and biscuits for the Italians) and watched a pair of pikas frolicking in the talus field before reluctantly heading back down to the car.

On the way we found a side trail and stumbled across a waterfall we hadn’t seen before – I wish we had known about it during the heat wave since jumping into that little pool would have been absolutely heavenly when it was over 100 degrees outside… Yet another reason to love this hike!

Unfortunately I have spent today inside the house with a fever, sore throat and entertaining myself with some epic sneezing (seven times in a row!!), so it turns out that there was a reason why my head felt all heavy and fuzzy this weekend. If I had known I was getting sick, I would have been smart enough to not swim yesterday. Oh well!

Hopefully I’ll get better soon so I can get some more miles in for the Hike-a-thon, I’m a bit behind now since we didn’t get to go on the backpacking trip we had planned this weekend – now it really will be a challenge to get to 100 miles! I’m crossing my fingers for better weather (and less sneezing!) next week so I can get out a lot.

Melakwa Lake added 9 miles to the list, for a total of 28. Only 72 miles to go!

After years of not caring about much of anything at all, I’m trying to put the pieces of my life back together.

One of the big things for me is to make our little townhouse feel more like a home, so we’ve spent a lot of time over the last couple of weeks decluttering and organizing stuff. Now that I feel less cluttered as a person, I want our house to reflect that as well. Oh, and it would also be nice to be able to have people over without having to spend an hour cleaning first. Yeah…

Now that we have some progress in our living room, I decided to take some photos. The fact that I now keep the blinds on our windows completely open feels oddly significant (please stop me if I sound like a self-help book); I used to keep them shut all the time and just hide in my dark little cave.

I just got the new IKEA catalog in the mail and I think a shopping trip is in order (have I mentioned how much I hate shopping). I want to put a little bookshelf in the corner between the fireplace and the stairs to help contain the ever-growing mess that is my library – I’ve been good and very strict and am selling/donating all the books except my all-time favorites and the ones I know I am going to read again, but we still don’t have enough shelf space.

If we can fit it in our ridiculously narrow living room, I also want a comfy chair that would complete a circle around our coffee table. Now it just feels so tv-centric.

It feels so nice and light and airy in here now, I love it! My next project will have to be to make the bedroom feel the same way so we can wake up and feel good about ourselves every morning. Unfortunately this means going through the imposing mountain of ill-fitting clothes that is taking up all the space in my closet and sorting them for trash and donation. Bah!

We didn’t have much time on Tuesday, so once JK could get out of work we headed off to our favorite close-to-home hike, the Chirico trail up to Poo Poo Point on Tiger Mountain. This short but relatively steep trail is very popular, not only with hikers but with the paragliders that use Poo Poo Point as a launch area. Earlier this year we came across a Washington Trails Association work party doing some much needed trail maintenance here, exactly the kind of work the Hike-a-thon donations will be going towards (hint hint). ;)

On Wednesday, our friends Tom and Amy joined us for what was supposed to be a quick, post-work jaunt up to Snow Lake. We left grey, cold (yup, the heat wave is definitely over), depressing Redmond and drove up to happy, sunny Snoqualmie Pass. Success!

The water in the lake was surprisingly warm, so we escaped the mosquitoes by swimming. Wellie got in the water three or four times; I am still confused as to whether he likes it or if he’s just trying to rescue us:

We started hiking back to the car at sunset, but unfortunately poor Amy rolled her ankle on the way down. I had sports tape (I always carry it since my ankles are useless from years of playing handball in Norway) so she was able to tape her ankle tightly enough to walk out on her own with hiking poles. We slowly and carefully made our way back to the car under a beautiful moon and a layer of fog.

All this midweek hiking is making me feel very good, both physically and mentally – it’s nice to keep the endorphins flowing throughout the week instead of just spiking every weekend.

During the worst of the heat I didn’t even want to think about hiking, but by Saturday the temperature had dropped enough for us to start considering hitting the trail. We figured the best way to beat the heat would be to swim in a glacier-fed lake, so we hiked up to beautiful Blanca Lake off US2.

Even with temperatures in the 90′s, the 8 miles and 3300 feet of elevation gain to Blanca were a small price to pay to get to such an amazing place. I haven’t seen a color like this since we went to Jade Lake last year, and that one was much less accessible.

Usually I let JK test the waters before I hesitatingly dip my feet, but Blanca was so inviting that I jumped right in. Heaven!!

We spent a lovely afternoon there, swimming and eating and synthesizing vitamin D.

Wellie seemed to have learned from last time and chose not to jump in, even though I had the camera ready. Hrmf. Does anyone have a video editing program they like that’s either free or very cheap? And tips for holding the camera still? And for not sounding like a dumbass while narrating..?

Since this was August 1, it was our first official hike in the Washington Trail Association’s Hike-a-thon. WTA does a lot of invaluable work protecting and maintaining trails, not to mention advocating to keep our wilderness areas wild for generations to come.

During the month of August we (well, mostly me since JK already used most of his vacation time) will attempt to hike 100 miles (8 down, 92 to go!) and hopefully raise some money for this excellent organization. JK will be donating a dollar per mile and his employer will match this amount, so I am motivated and ready to go! If you want to contribute, any amount, would be greatly appreciated!

It would be great if all of those 100 miles turned out as perfect as the 8 on Saturday, but knowing Washington I expect to be battling rain and fog in the not-too-distant future. Keep your fingers crossed for sunny weather (sans heat waves, of course)!

It’s pretty much too hot to do anything else but go swimming or collapse naked in front of a fan, so I went for one of the least active activities I could come up with – scrapbooking! Unfortunately the upstairs office (where all my scrap crap lives) was baking in the sun, so I had to drag some paper and supplies downstairs. I quit after this one layout because the process of cutting things was making me sweaty and, as it turns out, fans and paper don’t mix. Sure felt good to make a page again though. Scrapbooking, I missed you!

This is a lift of a page by the wonderful Jessica Sprague from the September issue (I love how you get the September issues of magazines in July) of Creating Keepsakes. I got to use my new favorite font, Reuse by Quickutz.

I’m off to go take a cold shower (and I should probably force the pups in there to cool them off a bit) and then go to the movie theater to take advantage of their air conditioning. When it’s cold outside you can at least put on more clothes; this is torture!

We took it easy on the way in to make sure Bobby was doing ok, and stopped after 4 or so flat miles to have lunch by Pete Lake. I have never heard anything positive about Pete at all, so I was pleased to find a very pretty little lake nestled below some impressive mountain scenery.

Bobby seemed happy and energetic even in the heat, so we carried on towards Spectacle Lake. After 7 miles or so we got to the double creek crossing where a ranger was hanging signs – apparently the bridge is out on the alternate trail via the PCT, so you have to ford the creek either way. It wasn’t deep, but it was pretty damn cold – here’s a video of the first half of the crossing:

We hiked onward and (finally!) upward with the ranger for a bit (hi Billie! ) until she forked off towards Escondido and left us to battle the dusty switchbacks up to Spectacle. The first view of the lake from the ridge is amazing, I fell in love instantly. Unfortunately the local mosquitoes had similar amorous feelings for us, so we hurried down and along the lakeshore to find a good campsite.

JK eventually spotted a great site at the very tip of the little peninsula, and we wasted no time getting the tent up and hiding inside. JK went for a quick swim, but apart from that and eating dinner, we pretty much spent the whole evening in the tent, reading and snoozing. Stupid little vampires.

We were hoping it would be better the next day since it was supposed to be windy, but by then the mosquitoes were bad enough that we elected to have breakfast in the tent, something we never do. We spent a couple more hours reading before deciding to just give up and hike out.

We cleaned off some trail dust in Pete Lake (heavenly!) on the way out and hurried out the last four miles to the car. I need to either grow thicker skin or be more liberal with the DEET. We spent a month in India for our honeymoon and the mosquitoes were NOTHING compared to here in the Cascades.

I might have been less pissy about the skeeters if the little buggers had been polite enough to avoid my face, but noooo, I had to walk around for the next week with a face full of what looked like giant, bulbous zits.

Here’s a clip from JK (and Wellie’s!!) swim in Pete Lake – it’s a wee bit long since I haven’t found a video editing program yet.

Hopefully I’ll be able to go back here later in the season when the little bloodsucking monsters have died.

Since I don’t drive*, my brilliant and very patient husband agreed to shuttle me to Snoqualmie Pass and pick me up after work. I suspect he has finally realized how much easier I am to live with when I hike regularly.

JK dropped me and Wellie off at the Denny Creek trailhead and we started up towards the lakes. After reading on the FS website that Melakwa Lake was “not accessible from the Denny Creek trail” and seeing the signs about the “extremely hazardous” conditions where the bridge was washed out, I was amused to find a wide, completely dry path across the creek.

The hike up to Melakwa took longer than I thought due to the heat (and possibly due to all the diner food I ate on the East Coast), but was well worth it – this was my first summer visit to the lake and it was absolutely gorgeous.

After eating lunch and lounging around by the upper lake, I headed down the trail to Tuscohatchie. This was kind of a pain in the ass for a trail that is actually on the map (and I love that the Forest Service recommended this approach to Melakwa instead of Denny Creek). I missed the first switchback and suddenly realized I wasn’t on the trail anymore, and I had to look around for a minute to find it again. After this the trail was easy to follow, but very rocky, muddy, brushy in some places and with enough downed trees to make it annoying. I was going a little faster than I should have, jumped off a log, rolled my ankle and fell onto the end of another log that went straight into my thigh, turned around to help Wellie get over the log and then did the same exact thing with my other thigh.

Finally we got to Lower Tuscohatchie and lazed around, soaking our feet in the water. It was heavenly.

After Tuscohatchie it’s a short way to Pratt Lake. The lake itself was somewhat underwhelming, but the trail was full of tiger lilies and hummingbirds. The trail up from the lake took longer than expected, once again due to heat and the after-effects of too many french fries. Ugh.

I was planning on dropping down to Olallie Lake from the Pratt trail following a little side trail that was marked on the map, but suddenly I was by the Talapus Lake junction and realized I must have missed the other trail. By then I was too warm to want to take the longer route, so I just hiked on to the Pratt/Granite trailhead to wait for JK. In retrospect I regret not using that time to take a dip in Olallie instead of snoozing at the trailhead with Wellie.

All in all a good (but hot) day, hardly any bugs, hardly any people. I was more comfortable hiking alone than I thought I would be, but at certain points during the very lonely stretch between Melakwa and Tuscohatchie I took to singing loudly – I figured my horrendous renditions of Ingrid Michaelson songs would deter bears and scary, murderous woodsmen alike.

Miles: 13-14
Elevation gain: around 3500 feet
Pounds it felt like I had gained while on vacation: 23

*Living without a drivers license is perfectly feasible in Norway, not so much over here. I just started reading the WA drivers manual so I can start taking classes.

The road up to Sunrise on Mount Rainier opened the last weekend of June, so we decided to revisit one of our first hikes, Burroughs Mountain. We planned a relaxed day since we were to be joined by a group of friends, but once again the number of participants dwindled down to just me and JK. Luckily I kind of like him and think he’s easy on the peepers, so I didn’t mind wandering around in the mountains with him.

The Sunrise area was mostly melted out with only a few little snow crossings left on the way to Burroughs.

After enjoying our sandwiches on Second Burroughs while watching climbers making their way up the Emmons Glacier route on Rainier, we trotted back to Frozen Lake and up to the Fremont Lookout. We hadn’t been there before, and I was pleasantly surprised by the trail – I think I even prefer it to Burroughs!

This whole area is so beautiful, possibly even more so than Paradise (and much more so than our photos can convey). It didn’t hurt that it was an absolutely perfect and HOT day! I wish we lived closer so I could explore this side of the mountain further during the workweek (our must-hike list is getting impossibly long for the number of weekends we have available).

The only wildlife sightings we had were of these frisky deer and a well-fed marmot.

We had to leave earlier than we wanted to get back to the dogs (they’re not allowed on National Park trails, boo!), so after stalking the marmot for a little bit we turned around and walked back to the Sunrise parking lot which was swarming with tourists – apparently most of them just drive up, walk 15 feet away from their car to take a picture and then drive away again, even though the area is full of gorgeous but easy trails. Oh well, more solitude for us!

This has been a very volcano-centric year for us (St. Helens, Baker, a bajillion trips to Rainier), but I don’t think I can ever get tired of Mount Rainier National Park.

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…

Unfortunately I will have to endure another week or so of discomfort until my mouth is happy again and I stop looking like a greedy hamster, but at least I have drugs, ice cream and books galore.

In the meantime, here are some layouts from last year. I love this first one; it perfectly sums up our summer:

..and this one is somewhat bittersweet, about our oh so cute niece and nephew and how sad it is that we live so far away from them the rest of our family as well.

I wanted the album to really focus on the photos, so I chose white and grey cardstock as my base, no patterned paper (there’s so much color in the photos already!) and minimal embellishments – just those cute butterflies from Quickutz, cut out in different sizes with my Silhouette. This page is from our first hike of the trip, to Cable Mountain in Zion National Park:

I’m using the same fonts throughout the album: Century Gothic for journaling, CK Becky for the “handwritten” titles and Modern No. 20 for the rest of the titles.

If you live in St. George (or anywhere in Utah for that matter), you must visit Snow Canyon State Park. We ended up there as a backup when our backpacking trip in Zion got rained out, and we were so happy it happened!

To go with the butterfly theme (ok, so it was just an excuse to finally use them…), I’m adding butterfly transparencies from Hambly between some of the pages. I love those things.

To make the pages easy to put together (since I have yet to actually finish an album…), I’m using a bunch of divided 4×6 page protectors, and a lot of the designs are based on 4×6 or 5×7 photos – the 8×8 size is perfect for this!

This is from Bryce Canyon National Park where we hiked an excellent little loop:

After Bryce we spent some time in Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada. Again, everyone should visit this place! Lots of little hikes and areas to explore, and the best campground you’ll ever find (free showers!).

We avoided Vegas (ugh, Vegas) like the plague and chose slot canyons over slot machines:

Valley of Fire was where we saw our favorite animals of the trip (antelope ground squirrels and chuckwallas!) and our absolute least favorite animal (rattlesnake, eep!!):

I attached the butterflies to the outside of some of the page protectors because it looked more interesting – let’s see how long it takes before they fall off.

…and here’s a mushy closing page (for the time being) with a collection of some of our self-portraits.

Happy vacation, happy album, happy me! The full trip report is on nwhikers.net.

Anyway, back to camping. We hiked in a couple of miles and set up camp in the last flat area we could find, right below the tree line. Since it was already getting dark, we just had dinner, melted some snow for water for the next day, and some of us (cough) tried to dry our soggy feet and boots as the stars were coming out.

Since it was a beautiful and oh so warm weekend, we decided to get an early start before the snow turned into a slushy mess – we started hiking up at 4:45 in the morning when the snow was still nice and firm. (If you decide to start this early it might be a good idea to bring some crampons for the icier parts.)

Gawking at the beautiful sunrise colors all around us made all the *up* seem a little less horrible.

Finally the sun popped over the ridge where Mount Adams was watching over us from the east.

After four hours we made it to the top – suddenly the crater rim was just there and we realized it would probably be a good idea to stop walking. The views were amazing; the steaming lava dome in the crater, Spirit and Coldwater Lakes in front of Mount Rainier to the north, Mount Hood to the south and Mount Adams to the east.

We tried to capture the view of the crater in this less-than-stellar panorama shot (click to open it in flickr where you can see the big version), but you really have to be there to appreciate how impressive this thing really is.

I was having some stomach issues (let’s just say it was the wrong time of the month to do anything more strenuous than pigging out on the couch in front of Gilmore Girls), so I stayed by the crater viewpoint as JK and Carlos hiked up another couple of feet to the true summit.

Me with those smelly boys I keep hiking with:

By the time we decided to head down, the sun had already warmed the snow to a wet, heavy slush, which meant that even I had the cojones to try glissading.

I have no words for how enjoyable it felt to slide down past those poor bastards who were slogging up, sometimes popping through the snow and ending up knee-deep in slush. Moahahaaa! Getting up early that day proved to be a very wise decision.

After yet another attempt at drying my soggy toes, we took down our tents, donned our heavy packs and headed back to the car. 11 miles, 5700 feet of elevation gain, and yet another excellent trip with these two boys:

I don’t have time to write much about the trip right now, but I did write a trip report with lots of photos on nwhikers.net if you want to take a look.

In a display of uncharacteristic efficiency, I am already halfway done with my album for our trip. I wanted to share some pages from it today but the photos I took look like crap and I’ll have to wait until after the weekend when my lovely assistant JK can help me. I’ll see you on the other side of the three-day weekend!

On Saturday JK and I took little Wellington to Mount Persis, the big peak in the first photo. This was his first real snow hike (albeit in very warm temperatures), so we were excited to see that he did really, really well. He got cold in the wind on the summit, but the snow didn’t really seem to bother him at all. Success!

The hike itself was gorgeous, with all sorts of rugged peaks popping out everywhere and a fun climber’s trail. I tend to prefer going short and steep rather than walking on gentle forest roads for hours on end, so this was right up my alley. It was great to be out on the trail again and feeling great despite not seeing the inside of a gym for over a month – I lost my workout mojo once I stopped training for Mount Baker, so I need a new, concrete goal to work towards. Ponder ponder…

Wellie is still masquerading as a real dog and spent most of his time on the summit chewing on a stick. I think I like him. ;)

Wellington is doing great by the way. I’m still amazed by how dog-like he is for an Italian Greyhound. Here he’s chewing on a stick (Bobby would never even think of acting so…canine) he found on the hike:

…and here he’s nursing Bobby back to good health after the vet appointment:

Alrightyroo, short post (I have to run) but at least it’s a post. Ok, so it was just an excuse to post the cute photo of Wellie with the stick.

Ali Edwards used a digital template in the current issue of Creating Keepsakes that I just fell in love with, so I had to try it. I wanted to stuff more photos from our hike to Camp Muir in there, so I made a second page using the top of the template. Easy and fast, huzzah!

(Speaking of Ali, this post made me really want to get into scrapbooking again.)

I made this next layout for the February issue of CK – the photos are from our amazing trip to Jade Lake last summer. The paper is blue but at least I didn’t use those transparent snowflakes.

This time Mount Rainier was covered in all sorts of lenticular clouds that looked like UFOs hovering above us to take us away.

We headed up to Mazama Ridge and ambled along, oohing and aahing at the views, dropped down to Reflection Lake, and circled back up to Paradise. In the heat and wet, heavy, sloppy snow, hiking up the gently sloping Paradise Valley Road ended up feeling more tiring than rest-stepping up Aaron’s signature (or so I’ve gathered :D) steep hill earlier in the day. The good news is that the snow is melting and summer is on its way!

Perfect weather, beautiful views, and a great bunch of hikers. Regardless of what Dr. Phil has to say about it, meeting people from teh intarwebs just plain rules.

A thing that certainly does not rule is forgetting sunscreen. You would think I would have learned after burning my lips on our trip to Camp Muir a couple of weeks ago, but no. The day before this hike I spent the afternoon on a sailboat on Lake Washington with not a drop of sunscreen on my face, and on the hike I diligently applied and reapplied gunk all day but neglected to cover my ears, neck, chest, and, curiously, one thin, straight line down my nose. I am officially stupid and am paying for it by looking like a peeling Freddy Krueger.

Last weekend our class went to Spire Rock, an outside rock climbing wall about an hour south of Seattle, and it became painfully obvious that I wasn’t ready after all. As it turns out, climbing on smooth, worn, mossy rock outside while wearing stiff mountaineering boots is 374 (approximately) times as terrifying as climbing inside with rock shoes that will stick to anything and huge, luxurious hand holds. When it was time to try rappelling, I couldn’t even take the first step off the “cliff”. I just had this vision in my head that my foot would slip and I would bang into the wall.

I spent all week trying to prepare (both mentally and physically) for our next outing to Spire. The first thing I did when we got there was get up on that rock, set up my rappel, take the first step…and then slip and bang straight into the rock. I rappelled down (rappelling itself is fun; it’s just that nothing in my mind or body wants to take that first step) and got right back on the horse…and slipped again, really banging into the rock again (my knee is still swollen, magnificently multi-colored and painful as all hell when I bend it, whine whine whine).

The rock was ridiculously slick from being marinated in a couple of days of rain, so people kept slipping and sliding and flipping over all day, but it was over for me. I can’t join the class for the climbs if I am that uncomfortable on rock. Lame.

I’m trying very hard not to dwell on the fact that I failed at something yet again, and that it is ok that I’m scared of heights. It’s not something that absolutely needs to be fixed, and there is a lifetime of non-sphincter tightening hiking to be had in Washington. But as much as the heights bother me, I think what really screwed things up for me this time was trying to learn this stuff in a large group of people where I felt like I could never measure up. And that’s really not good.

Number one lesson learned from the class – I have the self-esteem of a (really really insecure) gnat. And I don’t know where to even begin to fix it.

Well, summer came around and I was definitely in shape to do it, but between a lack of cooperating weather and some conflicting backpacking trips, we never got around to visiting Muir – so with the promise of excellent weather this Sunday, JK, Carlos and I decided we should finally go for it! I was a little worried about coughing up a lung or two since this would be my first hike after the flu, but I really needed a beautiful day in the mountains after my pathetic attempts at climbing in our class the day before (more on this later when I’m feeling less ridiculous and/or traumatized).

The sun was out, the sky was blue and everything was just perfect. I got to test my post-plague lungs on the hill up to Panorama Point, and luckily all my innards stayed where they were supposed to be:

JK was on camera duty this time to make up for bossing me around as his personal photographer the last time we went to Rainier, but I did get some shots of my happy husband in his natural element as Mountain Man:

As we got higher and higher the wind really started to pick up, so I put on my Tellytubby costume and hiked on:

I felt fantastic until the last 1000 vertical feet, then my body started noticing the thinner air. We could see Camp Muir ahead of us, but no matter how far we walked it just didn’t seem to get any closer…

At long last we made it. Huzzah! Once we stopped moving I felt great again, but JK and Carlos had headaches and were getting nauseous because of the altitude, so we just ate some food, took a few photos, then headed back down again. I was intrigued by the wheelchair accessible outhouse:

The way down was great, we didn’t need snowshoes anymore and could plunge-step most of the way. Once we had descended a bit the boys started feeling back to normal as well.

There are few things more beautiful that seeing the afternoon light on Mount Rainier. Have I mentioned I love living here??

…and as if the day hadn’t been perfect enough, we were greeted by this beautiful fox once we were back on the road:

We’ve been on some excellent hikes this year, but this was by far the best!

Since I was sick I had to make it as easy as possible, so I put these layouts together in Photoshop, printed the photos on photo paper and the journaling and titles on cardstock, and then just glued stuff down. I added the paper that was closest to me (from the same slab of paper as this one) and that just happened to look kind of like the Snuggle Sax in the photos.

For this one I just recycled a template I had made for one of my layouts in Computer Tricks for Scrapbooking 3 – this time making it 8×8. Since my scrapbooking stuff is in an inexcusable state of chaos, the easiest thing to do was just use some leftover paper from the Wellington layout…

…and this was the easiest one – once I decided there was no way I was going to choose just one or two photos from this trip. Seriously, too many photos I loved from this trip. So I enlarged my favorite, copied this setup from last year, and filled both sides of the divided page protector with 4×6 prints.

Mount Catherine:

Ok, this one was fun. After some trip planning confusion, JK and I headed to Snoqualmie Pass to test our cross-country skis, but on the way we were invited along to Mt Catherine with Tom and Carol (scary people from The Internet). While proficient skiers might make it up there on skinny little cross-country planks, we were glad to have brought our snowshoes as backup. Unfortunately we only had our ski boots, so I got some interesting blisters that day.

After hiking through a magical forest (and a less magical, downright boring forest), we gained the summit of Catherine. It is not a high mountain by any means, but the summit ridge is narrow enough to make you feel cool. For more details (and cute photos of Jasper dog), you can read Tom’s trip report.

Cross-country skiing:

Eventually we did get out to try our skis – first for a quick, flat, boring five miles by Snoqualmie Pass…

…and then for a midweek not-boring-at-all trip up to High Hut for an amazing view of Mount Rainier:

There’s a whole little hut-to-hut system (almost like in Norway!) down there, and I hope we’ll get a chance to visit all of them.

We hung around by the hut for a couple hours and went inside to warm our cold cheeks, but we were both bummed that we couldn’t spend the night. Imagine seeing the sunset and sunrise from up there…

I wrote a trip report here if you want more info on the hut. The 2,400 feet of elevation we gained on the way up to the hut proved interesting on the way back down again. I really have no business on cross-country skis at all…

Training hikes:

Aah, yes, training hikes. A necessary evil to get in shape for the alpine climbing class we’re taking this spring. We’ve been tromping aroung on local trails like Mount Si, Rattlesnake Ledge and Tiger Mountain with 35-45 lb packs. Fun fun.

Last week we joined the Thursday Night Afterburners for their first hike of the season, to Poo Poo Point. I didn’t add any extra weight to my pack for that one since they are certifiably insane and pretty much just run up the trail. JK is at the second hike as we speak, while I am stuck here all congested and feverish. Whine whine whine.

Less whining, more cute hiking photos of puppy Wellington:

I really hope I get better before Saturday as it will be our first field trip with the class. I’ll keep eating Sudafed like it’s candy and hope for the best.

These photos are from our first view of the Grand Canyon North Rim in 2007 (we’re orange because of the sunset, not some freak tanning accident):

And this is from our beautiful hike into Havasu Canyon in 2008:

This is pretty much the reason why I scrapbook – to have an excuse to stare at these photos long after they were taken and practically feeling the sun and the sweat and the exitement and the happiness all over again.

Now please excuse me while I turn on my happy lamp and look for more old photos to lose myself in.

…and, *shock* playing!! Bobby never plays with other dogs, so this is a big breakthrough.

Unfortunately Bobby broke a bone in his paw two weeks ago, so he’s been wearing a humongous cast and has been unable to play or run around. We’re going back to the vet today to hopefully get the cast off so he can go back to doing all his happy dog things.

Luckily for Wellie, he has another new playmate while Bobby is off-limits – we’re dogsitting little Rocco! There is officially too much cuteness in our house!

Even though JK and I have been talking about getting a second Italian Greyhound, we had pretty much given up on the idea since we go hiking and backpacking so much now. Still, we saw him, looked at each other, commented on how big and muscular he was (he’s already bigger than Bobby!), looked at each other some more, and then we just couldn’t resist those puppy dog eyes anymore. Huzzah!!

His name is Max, and so far we’ve been calling him Maxie, Maxi Pad (just once before I realized what I was saying), Maxwell, Max Wellington and Wellie. AND WE ALREADY LOVE HIM SO MUCH. Yesterday we took him for a short hike up to Rattlesnake Ledge to slowly get him used to trails:

Both pups got rather muddy on the way down, so the poor little guys had to endure the tub – I love how proud JK looks of his new furry son:

Max is doing so well in the house, with us, and with Bobby. Luckily he seemed comfortable with us right from the start, and he’s ridiculously snuggly. The only problems so far have been some indoor poopage and a bit of humping (but Bobby schooled him on that pretty quickly). I am very happy so far in my brand new role as puppy mom! How could anyone not be happy when they get to play with someone this soft?!

The Mountain rewarded our patience with the best, sunniest, hottest February mountain weather I have ever experienced! The boys brought skis (I would too if I had any to bring) and we snowshoed our way up above Panorama Point to McClure Rock:

Enjoying the view of beautiful Mount Adams:

The boys trying a bit of skiing:

Carlos and JK with Mount Adams and Mount Hood in the background:

We stayed there as long as we could, regretting not getting an earlier start so we could have gone to Camp Muir – but now we have a very good excuse to go back!

One of the parking lot residents:

It was a perfect day (even though I managed to twist my ankle as I was running down in front of the boys to try to take some pictures of them – so my whole early morning gym experiment has been a big fail so far), and hopefully it recharged my batteries enough to last another week. I really needed this.

Trip report on NWHikers.

For now I’m staying focused on training for various mountain adventures we will hopefully be able to go on this year. This involves huffing and puffing up steep hills with a 30-50 lb pack on my back, and more cardio in the gym. I’m learning to enjoy running. I feel like mountains and exercise are the only things that are keeping me sane right now. Maybe we’ll have to consider a sunny vacation this spring after all, if we can afford it. It certainly helped last year.

On Tuesday we joined Mark and some of his colleagues for a Dawn Patrol to Rattlesnake Ledge. In order to see the sunrise, we had to get up at 4:30 AM, drive to North Bend and hike up in the dark – but it’s always worth it. Even when I have to do it on less than two hours of sleep.

Next week we’re going to try to get up early (sleep or no sleep) to meet Carlos at the gym before work instead of doing it at night. It’s going to be absolutely brutal those first days but I’m hoping it will eventually help my sleeping habits and energy level. Now that I’ve outed our plans here, hopefully I’ll feel like I have to do it.

I know it’s a cliché , but the serenity prayer feels very appropriate these days.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

If that fails there’s always Serenity Now…

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.

Still plodding away at my Southwest Road Trip album – I’m probably jinxing it by saying this, but there’s a certain chance I might actually finish this one. It would be my first completed theme album ever. I’ve never even finished a measly mini album. Anyway, here’s an easy one from the hike we did in Zion:

…and this one is from one of my favorite hikes this year, a trip up to Diptop Gap where we could drool over Mount Daniel and Pea Soup Lake:

Last but not least, here’s Bobby pimping the new special issue from Creating Keepsakes, 101 Expert Solutions for Scrapbooking. It features pages by the 2008 Hall of Famers, the Scrapbooker of the Year, and the Dream Team. Bobby’s verdict? Four paws up!

On the first snow day we skied across town to gawk at all the cars stuck on the highway, and a camera crew interviewed JK for King 5 news - hilarious. It aired live and several people recognized JK from the clip as we made our way back to the house (you never forget those yellow pants).

So yes, we had a beautiful white Christmas – and even though this was our first Christmas without a visit from our families in Norway, we had a really good time with our little family of three.

…and now that all the snow is gone down here, we can still go up to the mountains for skiing and snowshoeing.

Washington really ain’t a bad place to live.

This one happened because a) I had some leftover photos from our two trips to Zion that I wanted to use, and b) because I wanted to put them in our Places We Go album. There are plenty of layouts from Zion in my old 11×8.5 hiking album and in the Southwest Road Trip album, but nothing in my main albums. Since Zion is our favorite National Park (so far – I have high hopes for Yosemite!), it needed some lovin’ there.

Egads – no patterned paper! Can’t remember the last time I did that.

I never thought I would end up scrapbooking this photo of me looking, ehm, FLABulous and overheated in a COWBOY HAT, but it really does the job of conveying the absolute horribleness of being out of shape and running out of water on the way out of a canyon. So here you go:

This one is a non-Cathy layout from Havasu Falls. Yeah, we’re pretty much going to have to go back there as well. Hopefully it will be back to its beautiful self once it gets cleaned up from the flash flood. The chipboard tree and leaves are from the same CK Kit of the Month as those transparent elements I love so much.

I am still sick (and tomorrow JK is going hiking without me – hrmf), but we had a good Thanksgiving anyway. We made a tasty little feast (including the yam soufflé I’ve been dreaming about since last year) and snuggled up together on the couch with Bobby to watch Dan in Real Life. Love that movie. I hope you all had a great long weekend with your friends and families!

Luckily we don’t have to drive far to seek out the white stuff, so on Sunday JK, Carlos, Bobby and I headed to Melakwa Lake for a quick hike (I love that I can call 9 miles and 2300 feet of elevation gain a “quick hike” now; a year ago it would have killed me!):

We had a perfect day except for the icy, relentless wind by the lake. When we stopped to eat lunch, it was too much for little fat- and furless Bobby to take, so JK stuffed him inside his jacket and opened one of the ventilation zippers on the side so Bobs could stick his head out for air (and snacks). Marsupial madness!

Loved the snow on the trees (even though they kept aiming for our necks with their cold, soggy snow bombs:

Bobs made a new friend:

Walking in a winter wonderland:

It was great to get out there, the snow conditions were perfect – fresh and shallow enough to not need snowshoes or have to worry about avalanches yet.

Unfortunately it’s also the season for Kleenex, and I have come down with a lovely sinus infection. I haven’t had one since I was a kid, so I forgot how much it hurts – and I’m being exceptionally whiny and annoying about it. I just want to pull out all my teeth and pop holes in my ears and rip out my eyeballs to relieve some of the pressure. Gaaah!

All hope of joining our friends for Thanksgiving is now lost, so we’ll try to make the best of the situation and have a cozy meal at home.

Everything I used is from the kit – my favorite part was a cool 6×12 piece of transparent craft plastic that I used to make the snowflakes (I used my Quickutz Squeeze to cut them out). I want to try cutting out some titles with it too, to layer directly on top of photos or journaling.

The kit will go on sale on Wednesday (November 26) in Latrice’s shop: anyoccasion.etsy.com – in the meantime, check out the snowflake rounds and mirrors that are already in her shop! Waaant.

Snoqualmie Falls roaring after the storm | Obamarama

1 ) The election: wow, have I really not updated since the election? See, it’s getting harder to do stuff. Anyway, we had a wee party to follow the election results and there were huzzahs all around. Even though I’ve spent most of my life in Norway, I’ve managed to be in the U.S. for three presidential elections – 1992 (success!) when my family lived in New Jersey, 2004 (FAIL) when JK and I were going to school in California, and 2008 (great success!) now that we’re being all grown up and stuff in Washington.

2 ) The holidays: I absolutely love Christmas, and now that we live in the U.S. I absolutely love Thanksgiving. Anything that gives me an excuse to start celebrating earlier. This past weekend Tom and Amy hosted their annual Fakesgiving Feast. Since so many people in this area are transplants who go home to wherever for real Thanksgiving, Fakesgiving gives everyone a chance to celebrate together here. And to eat twice as much.

The Fakesgiving table | Candy Cane Lane

4 ) My happy lamp – I’ve been talking about buying one of these for years, and I finally got around to it last week. It is amazing. It ACTUALLY WORKS.

5 ) Ingrid Michaelson: we finally got to see her live last week. I love her. I just want her to come live with us so she can entertain me all day. I think JK has a crush on her too, so it would totally work.

6 ) More music: Me and Armini by Emiliana Torrini (Birds is my favorite song at the moment) and Winter Songs, a Christmas compilation from The Hotel Cafe.

7 ) Idea books: Quick & Easy Photo Albums is freakin’ awesome – even if you’re not a scrapbooker. I am so full of ideas after reading this!

I’m also really looking forward to Month by Month Scrapbooking by Amanda Probst – I love Amanda’s style and I’ve been waiting for this one a long time!

Ok, this one isn’t actually an idea book but rather a collection of humorous scrapbooking tales: Snippets by the awesome Lain Ehmann. To whom it may concern, I want this one for Christmas!

8 ) CKC Seattle: I got to take two perfect classes with Stacy Julian on Friday (ugh, I am really starting to feel like a stalker) and met some great people (*waves in case they’re reading this*). I love CKC.

This one is for Cathy Zielske’s Design Your Life class – the hellish part was hiking up in the absolutely intense heat (Norwegian blog readers may not know that on the other side of the Cascade Mountains it is basically all desert country – not like rainy Seattle at all!), the heavenly part was cooling off in Ingalls Lake. Aaaah…

Last Tuesday, JK and Mark got up stupid early to hike up a mountain before work. I stayed at home since I wouldn’t be able to keep up with them for more than two minutes…anyway, Snoqualmie Mountain is the highest peak in the Snoqualmie Pass area, so the views were pretty much perfect. At least I got to see the photos! Speaking of photos, the enlargement plus the silhouette of JK were taken by Mark and stolen by me.

I’m not completely happy with this one; it looks too angular. Maybe I’ll have to sneak some rounded corners in there somewhere. The little rising sun is an old flower die from Quickutz.

This is a lift of a layout by Cathy Zielske. I’ve been wanting to use that title forever!

Finally, an old layout I found as I was sorting my albums:

Right. I seriously have nothing interesting to say (do I ever?), so there you go.

If you are an American citizen, please go out and vote tomorrow – it is so important. Think of all us poor little resident aliens who don’t have that right! :o)

Nevertheless, here is a Halloween layout and an Autumn layout. ‘Cause it’s just that time of year.

This one is for a color challenge in Cathy Zielske’s Design Your Life class, and I blatantly stole Nichol Magouirk’s embellishment idea:

Snow Lake is probably the most popular hike in the Snoqualmie Pass area, so after hearing stories about the huge crowds, we didn’t want to do this one during the summer. I didn’t actually want to do it at all, but then it hit me that it must be this popular for a reason. It is. You get incredible views (and probably a good swim in the summer) for minimal effort – 11 miles and 2500 feet of elevation gain round trip to Gem Lake.

Most people stop at Snow, so we hiked on to Gem Lake and had lunch there all by ourselves. Perfection!

Bobby was happy to be out in the mountains again:

We brought a special anniversary treat with us! Kvikk Lunsj is the official (well, not really, but kind of) Norwegian hiking chocolate bar – we’ve kept this one in our fridge since we came back from Norway, waiting for a hike where it wouldn’t melt. I have shown impressive self-restraint knowing it was in our fridge all this time and not eating it, seriously. It’s so good. Anyway, we finally got to devour this bad boy yesterday, and man alive was it heavenly. Whenever I eat this chocolate, I get all these little flashbacks from ski trips when I was little. Sitting in the Easter sun eating Kvikk Lunsj and oranges….mmm. I think I’ll have to look for some old photos of these trips and some new ones and make a Kvikk Lunsj scrapbook page.

I love living here (even though Kvikk Lunsj are scarce) :D

By the way, the albums I showed in the last post (and the divided page protectors) are from We R Memory Keepers.

There were so many photos from Andre and Ellie’s wedding that I wanted to have in my album, so I had a bunch of 4×6 photos developed with a white border and put them in a divided page protectors (from We R Memory Keepers). Anything that gets my photos of the computer and into the real world is fun, no? I love the absolute laziness of it; anyone could do this in five minutes.

Here’s the back (I added some photo descriptions on a 4×6 piece of cardstock):

I wanted a place to keep all the memorabilia, so I used one of the 12×12 folders from a CK Kit of the Month as the base for my layout and snuck the invitation, save the date card and menu (Andre & Ellie’s wedding was all vegan and the food was fantastic) into the folder.

Some of the random layouts that finally have a home now that I am using 12×12 albums: one of the first layouts I made (before found my style…) and the page JK made the time I forced him to scrapbook – how cute is that?? Almost better than the Valentine’s Day card I got this year:

I’ve also added pages that other people have sent me, like this super-cool one made by Ania from when we were teaching at Papirfest (I miss you guys!), and have embraced the opportunity to use really weird page protectors like this “hinged” one I used for the party layout (Design Your Life classmates: this page protector can make jumping the gutter feel less traumatic!):

Last, but absolutely not least – the albums (from We R Memory Keepers) look pretty freakin’ cute on my shelf:

Thank you for all the kind words and virtual baked goods after my last post – I am happy to announce that I am back to my happy healthy self again. I went to the gym today for the first time since…uhm…some time before the Enchantments. My muscles and lungs don’t like me very much right now, but it felt really good to move again after being sick for so long. I also took Bobby for a looong walk yesterday so we could pee on fire hydrants (him) and take in all the Autumn colors (me). Hopefully the weather will stay good so we can breathe in some fresh mountain air this weekend!

Oh, and speaking of the gym – am I the only one who thinks Seth Rogen looked much hotter when he was “fat”?

THE SKY IS BLUE AND THE SUN IS OUT AND IT’S A BLOODY PERFECT AUTUMN DAY AND I HAVE TO STAY IN BED WITH BOOKS AND YOUTUBE.

Hrrrrmmmmfffff.

Tea and sympathy (and baked goods) are encouraged.

Anyway, until anything more interesting happens, here is the first of my layouts for week two of Design Your Life. I have to say, I have never spent this much time on a layout before. All that cropping and aligning (all in vain; my paper trimmer is officially crooked as one of Bobby’s hind legs) took forever. Not to mention the fact that a double 12×12 spread is freakin’ huge.

It looks better in real life since the silvery shimmer in the cardstock reflected weirdly in the photo and you can’t really see the transparent embellishments (I love those things, they’re from the September CK Kit of the Month). Oh, and I had a brain fart and forgot that it is called a reception in English, not a party. Bah. Alright, enough excuses:

A clarification about fixing older layouts, like I mentioned in my last post: I’m talking about the layouts I made quite a few of when I was just starting out, following what was in style back then…one photo of something random, a bunch of paper flowers and no journaling or anything that would tell the person looking through the album what the page was about. I’m either adding something (mostly journaling that would help the page make sense), removing something (embellishments that take the focus away from the photos – this sometimes happened when I was on product-specific design teams), or, in the really grim cases, moving the entire layout into an album in my closet that I’m calling a crapbook. Hah.

The designing part of scrapbooking is just for me, to enjoy it right now. Just because it’s fun. Otherwise I would just use a regular photo album. But I want to be able to look back on my albums when I’m old and grey and rather have fewer albums with more substance than shelves full of layouts that don’t mean anything to me.

Oh, and the hiking pages? I’ve decided that since it is such an important hobby *cough*obsession*cough* for us, it should permeate all the album categories. Easy dayhikes and trails we do over and over again = things we do. Backpacking trips = places we go. Pages about overcoming some sort of hiking-related challenge or why we love doing it = all about us.

Alright, enough about that already. Sorry that I’m rambling on about this again, but when I’m down in the dumps and feel like I can’t control what’s going on in my life, I tend to react by microorganizing something like this. It makes me feel much, much better. :)

Since I have so much free time on my hands, I’ve decided to finally take Stacy Julian’s Library of Memories class. I signed up for this in the spring, but I didn’t make it all the way through. Luckily, Big Picture Scrapbooking gives you passes to revisit the classroom later. If you haven’t read any of Stacy’s books and don’t know what this whole system is about, you can read two very descriptive blog posts here and here – it goes deeper than just sorting layouts and photos.

After a period of dissatisfaction with this hobby, the biggest point for me is to make my scrapbooks meaningful so I won’t look back on them years from now and think what *is* this crap?? There is a difference between scrapbooking photographs and scrapbooking memories, and I want to focus on the latter.

Today I’ve started sorting and categorizing my layouts so I can put them into the right albums. For such a messy person, organizing is making me surprisingly happy!

I have to admit that as an incorrigible perfectionist, I am also weeding out the pages that are just plain meaningless (and serve no greater purpose than taking up space) and the downright fugly ones. I’m going to try to “fix” some semi-fugly ones as well. I just don’t want to end up with 700 huge albums full of crap.

Anyway, the implementation of this system takes time and can seem somewhat frustrating in the beginning. I’m sorting my photos digitally as it seems less wasteful than printing everything (and I start most of my layouts on the computer anyway) and luckily I’ve been good at weeding my folders before, but going through and tagging all of our photos is taking forever.

I’m also having trouble distinguishing between the Places We Go and Things We Do categories (like gaaah, where do my hiking layouts go?) – I guess I’ll just have to make some executive decisions there, after all it will eventually be my personal system and there is no right or wrong. I’ll just keep telling myself that… ;)

If anyone else is using this system I would really appreciate some insight or words of encouragement!

Alrighty, now it’s back to tissues and Dayquil.

This downtime also enabled me to get started on my first assignments for Design Your Life – you can register until October 8 if you still want to join. The first one is from Park Butte, the day after we slept in the lookout tower. Please excuse the lame title, I just couldn’t help myself (for Norwegians: tarn = tjern).

This one is from that horrifying hike down to Mooney Falls. I struggled with how to embellish this one; my usual flowers and butterflies somehow didn’t seem to go with the whole DOOOOM-theme…so I finally got to use one of the cool Quickutz state dies to cut out a tiny little Arizona.

I’ve come to three conclusions about my scrapbooking lately:

1) I want to get back to making really simple layouts. I want the photos to take center stage, especially on the hiking pages. I just have this vision of looking through my album ten years from now and thinking that all the embellishments and frilly things are ugly (my perfectionism and general self-loathing will combine to ensure that this will happen). Less is more and all that.

2) Even though my pages will be simple, they need some sort of finishing touch. I really need to work on this. Maybe I’ll use this depressive downtime to learn how to use my sewing machine on paper; I love that look. Maybe I should learn to use my sewing machine in general. Hm.

3) There are way too many photos I want to include in my album (and limits to how many layouts one can make from one event), so I’ll jump on the bandwagon and use different sizes of page protectors and even divided protectors to add regular 4×6 photos.

On to the layouts!

I bought different sizes of page protectors to use in Cathy Zielske’s class, so I made a 6×6 collage of extra photos that I wanted to add – I really like the look of the different sizes together. Might add more, especially of the beautiful Upper Enchantments…*sigh*

For this one I wasn’t going to add a title at all (it’s kind of an extension of the other layout), but then I realized that this transparent title from the September CK KOTM fit perfectly over the journaling. Destination doesn’t really make sense as a title here, but it kind of works anyway. And it’s so cool and transparent. I mean, come on!

I have officially reached a new level of rambleness. Speaking of rambling and not being able to construct simple sentences, everyone must remember to watch the Vice Presidential debate tonight – it’s bound to be hilarious (in a sad, sad, really scary way)…

To be completely honest, I’m really struggling at the moment. Knowing I have these trips to look forward to is the only thing that gets me through the week. It’s amazing that I can be so completely happy and carefree in the mountains and so utterly depressed at home. At least I can look back to last winter (my last bout of depression) and realize that I’m better off this time around. Now at least I have this one great thing that I am really passionate about. The low points are easier to handle when you have a high point to look forward to.

Anyway, blah blah blah. I’m trying to find lots of little things to do to keep me occupied until I am able to make bigger changes. I want to go back to school, but I am unable to on the visa I have now. Hopefully that will change soon. I need to make some sort of big, proactive change.

As I was writing that, I managed to spill a whole cup of tea down my shirt. Awesome. I’ll probably write and whine more later, but I have to go wash this thing.

Conclusion #1: the Enchantments = heaven on earth

Conclusion #2: I love multi-day backpacking and want to go on some longer trips next year

Conclusion #3: I have a slightly disturbing love (fetish?) for alpine lakes

We hadn’t been up by Mount Baker before, so we headed north. Since the fire lookout is first come, first serve, we drove up on Friday after work and car camped by Baker Lake to get a head start. Unfortunately our head start was all for nothing when we woke up Saturday morning and found that mice had somehow snuck into our car…apparently they got in somewhere by the front wheel and made their way to the trunk, where they proceeded to gnaw on most of our food. After spending ages chasing the mice out of the car, we were relieved to see that they had left us a couple packets of dehydrated food so we wouldn’t starve on our hike. Yay..

Fail number two was the weather. We basically couldn’t see anything at all the entire hike up because of the fog. If it weren’t for the map, I would have no idea that we were walking right next to a huge volcano. We made our way up to the lookout where – success! – we were the only ones who planned to stay the night. After a while we gave up on getting a glimpse of the mountain and snuck into our sleeping bags with a couple of books. Then, miracle of miracles, just when the sun was setting, the fog lifted.

It was amazing! It went from completely fogged in to one of the clearest nights I have ever experienced.

The next morning we lingered in the lookout for a while longer before heading out.

On the way down we found the beautiful tarn we had seen photographed in the guide book – I love the reflection of Mount Baker!

We were supposed to hike up to the climbers’ high camp on Baker before getting back to the car, but due to the whole mouse incident we were both really, really hungry. We ended up just hoofing it back to the trailhead instead. Now we have a good reason to go back… :D

After making it back up to Hualapai Hilltop and driving back to Las Vegas, we had a quiet night to recover. The next day we woke up unsure of what to do. Our flight wasn’t until the following day, and none of us could stomach the thought of Las Vegas in the daytime (*shudder*). Solution? Why, go hiking again of course!

I had found some info on some hot springs by Hoover Dam on the intertubes, so off we went. I’ll just copy and paste my trip report from NWHikers because I’m too lazy to write something more interesting:

To get to the trailhead from Vegas, we drive towards the Hoover Dam for about an hour. 0.5 miles or so past the Hacienda Casino, turn right onto a road that passes under the new highway they’re building. When you reach a fork in the road, turn left and drive to the end where there is room for parking.

The hike is about 4 miles roundtrip. At first you walk through the canyon looking at all the remnants of car crashes from the old highway above.

At around 1.5 miles, you start having to scramble over and around some huge boulders – it’s all good fun though, no really scary parts…even for a wuss like me. I did, however, fall flat on my face and had the pleasure of my bum being photographed with a wide-angle lens.

After getting over all those boulders, you get to relax in the hot springs (heaven for our post-Havasu leg muscles). There are three separate pools, but we stayed in the first two since the third one (where, apparently, there is some sort of tunnel you can swim through to get to a little grotto) was full of them thar young’uns drinking beer.

Definitely a hike I would recommend if, like me, you’re allergic to the sight of Las Vegas in daylight and need something to do! :o)

After soaking in the pools for a while, we drove back to Vegas. Somehow, Julia convinced us to eat at the Hooters Hotel (why? whyyyyyy??). A couple hours later I suddenly started feeling weird, so I went to bed…only to wake up the next morning to an inferno of projectile vomiting and (how do I say this delicately), uhm, other excretions. After a couple of hours of this I was so exhausted and dehydrated that JK and Jules had to take me to the ER.

Two bags of IV fluids and several shots in the bum later, I was feeling better but still couldn’t really walk. Lame (literally). We ended up having to postpone our flight one day until I was able to fly back.

A really really bad ending to a very very good vacation. I would totally recommend our whole route and itinerary – but whatever you do, don’t eat at Hooters.

Anyhoo, on to the trip report. Amy was out of town, so JK, Bobby and I kidnapped Tom and took him into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. We had heard the road to the Deception Pass trailhead was total shite, but we had no problems – one harmless creek ford (someone less fortunate had left their bumper in it though), and we were good to go. The five miles to Deception Pass just flew by, and we dropped down into the beautiful Hozzbizz Basin (flowers galore – but I left my camera at home to save weight and JK always insists on using the wide-angle lens, so no flower photos) before climbing on up to Marmot Lake.

At Marmot Lake we ate lunch, cooled off, were swarmed by mosquitoes, and decided to head on. Marmot Lake is a lovely destination in itself, but we had our sights set on higher places. The “trail” keeps going up and down over all sorts of obstacles before climbing up a steep, rocky gully. It’s hard to convey steepness in photos, but here I am going up, and then down again the next day:

Once we cleared the boulder field (which was full of pikas and marmots), we found a trail again – and man alive, was getting up that gully worth it:

We quickly passed by No Name Lake (yes, that’s its name) with the intention of exploring it the next day (this was not to happen), and made our way to Jade Lake – I had seen photos of it before, but I was still completely amazed by its color:

We set up our tents as quickly as possible since the mosquitoes were really getting annoying. Poor Bobby had swollen bites all over his face, so we wondered if maybe we should drop the rest of the hike and just stay in our tent with him…but the tent was so warm would all have been miserable. Solution? Stuff Bobs in a backpack, put DEET on the parts of his head he can’t lick, then keep moving.

We walked up and over the knob by the side of the lake and started traversing a steep scree slope to get to the Jade Glacier. Every other step seemed to relase a nasty slide, so naturally I started freaking out and angled down to the snowfield as soon as possible. Ugh. I have never been happier to walk on snow. Tom, however, skipped along the scree without a care in a world, seemingly unaware that death was imminent. Men!

As we made our way up the snowfield, the views really started opening up:

By the time we got to the top of the pass, I was a wee bit proud of myself – I have never gained that much elevation (over relatively challenging terrain) with an overnight pack on before. It seemed fitting to belt out the Rocky theme song as I walked the last steps to the top, so I did. :)

Diptop Gap is officially my new happy place. The view of Pea Soup Lake in front of Mount Daniel (the highest mountain in our county at 7,959 feet) and the Lynch Glacier is just amazing. I had no idea Mount Daniel was so beautiful. I think we need to climb it next summer.

Since the sun was setting, we reluctantly left Diptop Gap and glissaded down the snowfield. By now I had a really intense headache accompanied by a lovely bit of nausea (I get exertion headaches, so it was no surprise that I got one that day), so I only ate a couple bites for dinner and then tried to sleep. In vain. All in all I got around three hours of sleep, and woke up feeling like crap the next day.

Between my nausea and the mosquito situation, we decided to head out as soon as possible. I hiked the entire way out feeling like I was seconds away from vomiting (from now on I’m bringing anti-nausea pills in my first-aid kit!), while Bobby did his best to scratch his mosquito bites:

When we got to Hyas Lake, a couple of miles from the car, the boys went for a well-deserved swim (I stayed put on land, trying not to vomit).

Since Tom had spent the entire hike out talking about pizza and beer (this didn’t help my stomach by the way), we stopped in Roslyn on the way out. Fellow Northern Exposure geeks will recognize this:

There you have it, an absolutely fabulous first day and a less than stellar second day – but the views made up for the sickness. :) According to our GPS the round trip was 21 miles with 6,800 feet of elevation gain. Mosquito bites: in the hundreds. Would I do it again? Oh yes. In a heartbeat.

1) get one of those magical happy lamps
2) find new winter-type hobby (consuming foodstuffs and beer does not count as hobby)
3) surround yourself with memories of better days

I’m getting started on number three. We’ve already bought a huge canvas of one of our Mt. Rainier photos (the one in my blog header actually) to hang in the living room, and I’m going to frame some nature photos for the bedroom so I’ll be more inspired to, well, get up in the morning. And for the scrapbooking room/office: photo folders!

I’m using Lisa Bearnson’s Kit of the Month to make these, and it’s freaking awesome. I just got my paper trimmer and some adhesive and sat down to make this while watching an episode of Veronica Mars.

Super-easy, super-sweet. Here’s to hoping winter will be a little less grim this year!

I’m also going to take Cathy Zielske’s class over at Big Picture Scrapbooking. I’m really excited about this, which means I actually did the pre-class assignment early. For anyone who knows me and my procrastinating ways, you’ll understand how amazing this is. Anyway, here it is:

There, I mentioned scrapbooking. Now on to the hiking! I just want to do a quick little thing about the trips we’ve been on this summer.

Marmot Pass & Buckhorn Mountain:

To be honest, this one kind of sucked for me. I was really dragging ass after our vacation in Norway (where I basically lived on chocolate and soy dogs), and by the time we reached the pass I was really tired. Amy and I stayed there while Ellie, Brendan, JK and Tom hopped on up to the summit of Buckhorn Mountain. After a very good night’s sleep in the tent, I woke up feeling much much better, so I wish we could have gone up to Buckhorn then instead. Oh well. Photo stolen from Brendan:

Spider Meadow:

The weekend after we went on my favorite trip so far this summer. This time we took our neighbors along, and they are basically the perfect hiking partners. We need to do it again! Anyway, after 4 miles or so of forest, we arrived at the sweetest alpine meadow I have ever seen:

We dropped our packs and set up camp in the meadow, then hiked on to climb up to Spider Gap. Looking at it from the meadow it seemed next to impossible, but it really wasn’t that bad (ask me again after I’ve done it with a full pack). After following a steep miner’s path up the mountain, we reached what is left of the Spider Glacier:

Our original plan was to drop down to Upper Lyman Lakes from the gap to get a better look at the Lyman Glacier, but since we had gotten a late start there just wasn’t enough time. At least we could see them from Spider Gap:

Noble Knob:

The next weekend we attended Andre & Ellie’s absolutely beautiful wedding (huzzah!!):

We took some of the guests on an easy hike to Noble Knob. It is pretty much the perfect hike for out-of-town visitors as you get amazing views for next to no effort:

Ingalls Lake:

This past weekend we beat the heat at Ingalls Lake. I have never been so happy to see cold water before, seriously. Gorgeous, gorgeous place.

We also got a close look at the wildfire burning in the area:

For this weekend we’re planning another trip into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, and I am ridiculously excited about it. It’s relatively ambitious for my fitness level (= bad), so we’ll see how it goes. Wish me luck!

Ok, sleep now.

Sometime around Christmas, I had a show about the Grand Canyon on the Travel Channel on in the background while working on my computer, and I caught a glimpse of a spectacular, turquoise waterfall. Being a hiking geek, I immediately got online to get the details – thus the idea of the road trip was born.

Havasu Falls is located on a reservation outside of Grand Canyon. To get there, you either have to hike 10 miles (slackers send their packs in on mules) or take a helicopter into Supai, a tiny village a mile away from the falls. Young and sprightly as we are (hah!), we backpacked in.

Mule train:

The hike itself is beautiful, but nothing compares to the first sight of the turquoise waterfall after ten miles of red rocks and desert. I have never seen anything like it.

We were pooped after the hike in (hiking in that heat with a full backpack = gaaaah), so we found a campsite (there’s room for over 300 campers; this is not the place to go if you’re looking for solitude), slept, slept some more, and then got up in the morning to swim and explore.

On the other side of the campground you find Mooney Falls, notorious for the sketchy trail you have to descend to get to the bottom.

It’s not really a trail at all, just an old miner’s route blasted into the wall. Julia and I made it down the first part and through the tunnels (eep) before freaking out and turning back. JK lacks the vertiginous gene, so he made it all the way down. If you keep hiking even further, you’ll see even more waterfalls and eventually reach the Colorado River. I’ve already promised JK that I’ll do it if we ever go back…

Luckily, you get a great view of Mooney even if you don’t go all the way down:

In the evening, we tried to take some exposure shots of Havasu Falls, had dinner (the dehydrated camping food you get here in the US is surprisingly tasty), played cards with a new friend we met, and I got my first spider bite – huzzah! It wasn’t a black widow or a brown recluse, so I could breathe easy – desert life amongst poisonous spiders, snakes and scorpions is quite intense for a gang of Norwegians!

We headed back the next morning. Because we’re total idiots, we started around ten, hiking out during the hottest hours of the day. I have never ever been so tired in my entire life. By the time we reached the hill up to Hualapai Hilltop, where our car was parked, I was spent. Even though we had three liters of water each plus two bottles of Gatorade that we picked up in Supai, we all ran out of water before we hit the switchbacks. I ended up having to sit down for a couple of minutes any time I could find some shade.

Eventually we dragged our asses up to the parking lot where gallons of lovely water awaited us in the car.

The worst part is that I would totally do this again. :D

Havasu Canyon must be one of the most beautiful places on earth, but it was a completely different experience than what I’m used to as a backpacker. First of all, there are so many people. Many send their stuff in by mules or helicopters and many don’t even hike in, so the place is full of people who have never heard the term “leave no trace”. We saw huge groups of people living it up with full-sized barbecues that they had sent in, people washing themselves and their clothes with soap in the creek, and the most disgusting toilets I have ever experienced (including that toilet in Poland (ugh) and all the ones in India).

Backpackers are usually very nice and helpful, but here people were pushing other people’s tents out of the way so they could take their spots (and a group of “women” (they were acting like they were 13) took the table from our camp and refused to give it back). I hope the area gets a tighter permit system soon, but since the tribe needs tourists to survive I doubt it will happen.

Also, the story of the Havasupai tribe is, as with most Native American tribes, really depressing. I recommend reading the book I Am the Grand Canyon: The Story of the Havasupai People and this article from Backpacker Magazine.

Anyway, enough whining. Next stop: Route 66, Vegas and Goldstrike Hot Springs!

On our way from Page, we hit our first ever sandstorm – it was pretty intense for us non-desert dwellers. (Also intense: all the squished bugs on our windshield.)

Driving towards the national park, we could see the ground opening wider and wider…

…and finally we could see the famous Desert View Watchtower:

We also got our only sizeable wildlife sighting of the trip (the rest were all chipmunks, squirrel-type things and lizards):

Jules posed for her favorite soccer team:

After setting up camp and eating a quick dinner in one of the lodges, we just ended up playing cards and going to bed. This sounds horrible, but we were all really underwhelmed by the Grand Canyon. I think it was partly because we had already seen so many beautiful places on our trip (I know, we’re spoiled), but I have to say that the South Rim lacks some of the charm you can find up by the North Rim…in other words, there were just too many tourists and too many fancy buildings. I would probably like it much better if we had time to actually go for a hike and explore it without busloads of loud humans around us.

Anyhoo, enough whining. If the Grand Canyon is the low point of your trip, it means your vacation has been pretty freakin’ awesome.

After a freezing (literally – we were somewhere around 7,000 feet, so it dropped below freezing) night in our tents, we got up early (ugh, really early) to see the sunrise. We all looked amazing:

Afterwards we quickly stuffed all our crap into the car and drove on to our main adventure of the trip: Havasu Canyon. Huzzah!

Since I have nothing better to do, I might as well upload some layouts. Both of these were from my national parks article in the July issue of Creating Keepsakes, the first is from our trip to Zion National Park in 2006:

…and this is from our super-cool snowshoeing trip with Amy on Mount Rainier in January:

Now I will go back to doing nothing. Carry on.

Another highlight for us geeks was to finally hike Besseggen; the (in)famous ridge Peer Gynt claimed to have ridden on a reindeer. The hike across the Besseggen ridge is the most popular trail in Norway, so be prepared to share it with hordes (40,000 every year!) of not just Norwegians, but tourists from continental Europe in various states of preparedness – a couple years ago my friend had to help a tourist who was scrambling up the ridge in flip flops…

Anyway, the reason why I haven’t hiked this before (even though my family used to have a cabin in the area) is because I am ridiculously afraid of heights. I’ve been pushing my limits this last year though, so I thought I would do fine. Ahem.

We drove up and stayed in an overpriced hotel ($200 for a pretty shabby room) at Beitostølen so JK and I could get up early and catch the first ferry at 7:45 the next morning – we owe my dad many thanks for getting up and driving us… :) A much better plan would have been to stay for next to nothing at Gjendesheim, where you take the ferry ($20). All you need is a sleeping bag. You could also camp in the area.

Once you get off the ferry, the trail immediately starts climbing up. It was only 40 degrees (Fahrenheit..) when we started, but the combination of the sun and the hill had me stripping off in less than 15 minutes, a new record! Fortunately this part of the trail also serves to thin out the crowd as the stragglers fall back; a blessing since everyone from the ferry starts hiking at the same time.

As you get higher, the views into Jotunheimen really open up. Definitely one of the prettiest places I’ve ever been – the glacier-fed Lake Gjende and those beautiful peaks…our photos really don’t do it justice! Seeing a flock of reindeer was an unexpected bonus.

Finally we reached the part I was dreading – the Besseggen ridge. Supposedly (I think these figures sound too high), when you near the top of the ridge there is a 700 meter drop down to Lake Gjende on one side and 300 meters to Bessvatn on the other. As we started scrambling up the ridge, I had an embarrassing moment of panic and got really dizzy. It got better once I sat down to breathe, and then all I could think of was getting to the top..

Looking back, I can see that it really isn’t that dangerous; it was all in my vertically-challenged head. It is comforting to know that even with all the people that hike this every year, no one has ever fallen off and died. I felt a little silly panicking up there while little children just ran past me…

I don’t have any good stats on this hike since Norwegian trail guides measure trails in hours, not distance. This hike is supposed to take 6 hours without rest stops – we used 8 with all our food/photo/looking-at-reindeer breaks.

I found out on the intertubes that the hike is around 10 miles long, and if I had to guess, I would say the elevation gain is around 3,500 feet.

For those of you who are NOT scared of heights, I would recommend doing this hike the other way around; starting at Gjendesheim, walking down Besseggen, and then taking the ferry back – this way you get the best views without having to turn around all the time.

Oh well – at least being sick = being bored = scrapbooking = a chance to try out my awesome new mountain dies from Quickutz. Here is a total scraplift of a layout by the fabulous Moon Ko:

A few days after our trip to Mailbox Peak, the photographer we met sent us this photo – huzzah! By the way, I appear to already have forgotten the PURE HELL my thighs were in after that hike and am planning to go back once the wildflowers start blooming.
I’m stupid.

Happy solstice everyone!

See that pass on the left side of Dragontail Peak? That’s Aasgard Pass, and we have to hike up that thing in order to get to the Enchantments in September. JK could probably run up it right now if he wanted to; I have yet to see him winded on a hike. I, on the other hand, will have to devise some sort of evil, rigorous training plan in order to even entertain the thought of making it to the top (with energy to spare to explore the Enchantments and, horror of horrors, get back down again – all without coughing up a lung).

(By the way, the reason this hike was snow-free (even though it is over 2,000 feet higher than where we went last weekend) is because it is located on the magical, happy, sunny eastern side of the Cascades. But since they also have rattlesnakes and ticks galore, so I would rather live here on the we(s)tside.)

Nothing more exciting to share. I’ve been feeling under the weather and what was left of my scrapbooking mojo has disappeared. Methinks a trip to Norway without access to paper, photos or glue might be just what I need…

Ok, so can someone explain to me how to take photos of snow without it looking either grey or totally blown out?? I’ve read about it several times but apparently my brain can’t seem to process the information.

Take a look at the snow levels – Talapus Lake is only at 3,250 feet!

Bobby’s poor little Italian paws were getting a little cold in the snow, so we tried his booties for the first time. They may look absolutely ridiculous, but they did stop the shivering!

I’m off to plan hikes for the weekend, so I’ll leave you with my layout for this week’s challenge (flowers flowers flowers!) over at Scrappedugnad. Don’t ask me why (uhm, because we’re weird?), but we’ve started calling Bobby Miguel.

The gorgeous paper is from the Norwegian company 3ndypapir :D

I was re-reading The Measure of a Mountain: Beauty and Terror on Mount Rainier by Bruce Barcott last night (because it’s an excellent read and because I appear to have run out of books), and he describes the feeling so well:

The Pacific Northwest boasts a long and honorable tradition of rain-soaked misery. [...] The stuff puts you on edge. It feels as if nobody’s showered or shaved in three days. The civility that Northwesterners wear like a hand lotion washes away; some snap at one another, some just snap. About the ninth or tenth day, everybody looks at each other and says, “Goddamn it’s been raining.”

Even running intervals at the gym isn’t providing the necessary endorphins anymore. If anyone knows a better cure than I have found (burrowing under blankets on the couch, inhaling vitamin D, fattening foodstuffs and copious amounts of alcohol), please tell me now. My thighs/liver/friends will thank you.

Antelope Canyon is located in the Navajo Nation, so if you want to see it you will have to go with a Navajo guide. Unfortunately, there are 5-6 different guide services and they all cram as many people into the canyon as possible. Instead of getting to explore this amazing canyon on your own, you’ll spend most of your time waiting in line and looking at this:

By the time our tour was over, we were so sick of other human beings that we decided to go where they weren’t – the beach! Lake Powell was formed by the damming of the Colorado River and is the second largest man-made lake in the U.S…and apparently it is insanely cold in April. No wonder we were the only ones there :o)

JK captured our looks of horror/hypothermia as we braved the water:

Before driving on the next morning, we stopped by Horseshoe Bend. I have to say, this is one of the most awesome things we saw on the entire trip – even more breathtaking than the Grand Canyon. The drop-offs are insane though – if I ever bring kids here, they’re all going to be on leashes!!

Next stop: Grand Canyon South Rim!

Anyhoo, I was feeling cocky after not having a heart attack on Mount Si, so I decided I was ready for Mailbox (hah!). We drove to North Bend, found the trailhead, laced up our boots…and realized there was no memory card in our camera. Gaaaah! Since 99% of the people who read this are scrapbookers, I’m sure y’all can understand just how much this sucked. This is how our photos, taken with JK’s ridiculous cell phone camera, look. Sigh.

Oh well, at least I have the memories. And I’m sure my thighs will still be sore a couple of weeks from now as a reminder of just how freaking steep this trail was. Man alive! Going up wasn’t that bad, you just have to pace yourself (I’m sure I broke the record for the slowest ascent of Mailbox ever), it’s the going down part that sucks. With my rotten ankles, I really had to concentrate with every step I took (I definitely hold the record for the slowest descent) – my thighs are just screaming today.

Anyway, I did it. It was awesome. You’ll just have to believe me when I tell you that it’s beautiful up there…

Speaking of hiking and why on earth I put myself through this stuff, here’s my first layout from our vacation:

This is from the dinosaur track discovery museum we stopped by in St. George, Utah on our way back from the Grand Canyon last year. JK was in heaven and it gave me an excuse to use these freakin’ adorable dinosaur products from BasicGrey:

…and this one is from my SoY entry last year. JK bought an RC chopper and regressed into childhood for about a day or so until the chopper crashed and broke:

Let’s all hope he never stops being a boy (*aaaaaaaaaawww*)!

May 17th, also known as Norwegian Constitution Day – I had hoped the parade in Ballard (the “Norwegian” part of Seattle and home to what is supposedly the biggest May 17th parade outside of Norway) would calm my homesickness, but alas – it just made it worse. The parade really doesn’t feel like the parades back home. Next year we should just climb some little mountain and plant the Norwegian flag on top ;)