Sand Lake (8ish miles)

Bet you thought I'd let Facebook kill my blogs, didn't you? Well, I haven't, but I must admit that it has put a dent in them what with its ease of posting pics and such. That's only one excuse for why this particular blog hasn't seen activity since October. The others are that for most of this year's hiking season I was training for an off-road sprint triathlon while also starting school to become a Surgical Technologist, hence eliminating any hiking time there may have been. With the tri completed (yay, me!) we were able to finally get our boots back out in the dust.

The hike, which is part of the Pacific Crest Trail, began at Leach Lake (NOT leech.) It was breezy, obviously sunny, and the perfect temperature for hiking.

So let's go!

There were still a few blueberries to be had along the way.

Lots of pretty meadows, too.

This was the Forest Pig's first hike in a long time. She was thirsty.

What I thought were interesting trees. Are they still considered trees?

 

Three miles in, and here is our original destination, Sand Lake. You can see a tent along the shore, and this whole hike had a lot of good places for camping for those so inclined.

 We decided to keep going for a while longer before we had our lunch.

There were still some nice views to be viewed, such as this one of Rimrock Lake far in the distance.

And lots of little "lakes" like this one. This, and even Sand Lake, aren't lakes in the sense that they're not spring- or tributary-fed, but are "basin" lakes that fill up from rain and snow melt.

Give me my lunch or I'm not going any further! Forest Pigs are bossy.

After a lunch of ham and cheese sandwiches and Milk Bones, we headed back the way from which we'd come, taking a short spur to view Deer Lake. It was the best one. "Deer Lake, I am writing to let you know you're the best one. Love, J."

Squee!!! Back at Leach Lake (NOT leech!) me and the FP waited while The Big Guy went to commune with nature. I thought there were water bugs skittering around, but then saw they were teeny-weeny frog babies everywhere. Still with tails!

Any hike during which I can see baby anything is a good day.

Tolmie Peak, 5.6 mi.

Occasionally, Facebook leads to something good, and being a fan of the Washington Trails Association's page led to this featured "Hike of the Week." A special bonus was that it was a hike we hadn't done before -- always high on my criteria list when choosing an outing. Because it is within Mount Rainier Nat'l Park, we couldn't take the little forest pig along this time. We even went so far as to put on our hiking pants in the garage, out of sight of the little one, since both pups go crazy when they see the hiking pants come out. 

After leaving the smoothness of paved roads, it is approximately 17 miles along the bumpy gravel road to this particular park entrance (yay Subaru!)Thank goodness we are early birds, because the dust was incredible, and it would've been awful to be behind another vehicle for that long. We were the 2nd car to park along the roadway, but the first hikers to hit the trail.

We'll go this way!

 Mowich Lake, at the trail head, was a sheet of glass.

As I was uploading these photos, I had a very difficult time determining which way was "up," the reflections were so perfect. Can you see the shoreline?

Pretty trail along the edge of Mowich Lake. Despite the sun, the morning was quite chilly to start.

So many choices!

 Big scenery dwarfing The Big Guy.

Looking up while crossing a scree can make you dizzy!

If you look in the gap between the two trees, to the left of the tip of that middle tree, you can see Tolmie Lookout way up there. Standing here, it was very hard to believe that was only .9 miles away. Not to mention, it was quite clear that .9 miles was going to be a grinder.

Going to check out Eunice Lake, down below the lookout.

The Big Guy playing with the panoramic camera feature. *Click on these pics to see the whole shot.

We made it! At times, we could hear people behind us on the trail, and we were determined to be the first to summit. We had about 15 minutes alone at the lookout. We won!

It was pretty cool, too. I am terribly afraid of heights, but this lookout has a lot of ground around it, so even though you're, obviously, up quite high, you only feel as high as the deck. If that makes any sense. Other acrophobics will know what I mean.

The Big Guy's panoramic* shot from one side of the deck to the other.

The lookout wasn't open, but the view into it was neat. Here is proof that I walked the deck!

The Mountain*. On the east side of peak shown center-left here, we saw a mountain goat. The sun hit its coat for a split-second and lit it up like a beacon. Before I could get my camera trained on it, it dipped back over the ridge. Darn it!

Hey, come down from there, I'm hungry for lunch!

The Winners.

Our lunchtime view.

On the trek back down. We were down by noon -- a title I also considered when I named this blog -- and, not surprisingly, the road was positively packed with cars by that time. We zipped away from the crowds and back home to the pups and our own little piece of heaven right here.

Huckleberry Hikin'

I'm a bit behind in updating our adventures. This "hike" happened the last weekend of August. I put "hike" in quotes because these berry-picking outings don't really involve all that much hiking. First, you have to drive up to the mountains as if you are going to go for a real hike.

You will see pretty flowers like these.

And wispy things like these.

 

And red seed-pod things like these. Together, the red, white, and blue was so stunning.

You do have to walk across some of the alpine fields to get to the berries. The pups like that part a lot.

My three best friends enjoying the warm sunshine. The temps were perfect this day, and while there were several other cars parked along the forest road, we had the fields to ourselves. So peaceful!

 Some of the berries were up high, but mostly they were very low-growing this year, and we could practically sit in one spot to load up our buckets. We had gone in search of huckleberries, but found far more blueberries ready. By far more, I mean we came home with 7 lbs. of mountain blueberries.  That wasn't the best part of the day, though.

This was the best part. Otter finally got to go again. At 13.5 years old, he has had to sit out the hiking for awhile now, but today he was able to come along and enjoy the mountains again and more than a few berries. My sweet huckleberry hound.