Cascade Pass is our favorite hike in the Pacific Northwest so far, and one that we have done two previous times. We didn't go last summer, so I wanted to make sure to go this summer. We had planned to go last weekend, but the weather was wet, and I feared that we may not have another chance to go hike with sunny and warm summer weather. Fortunately, though, we had beautiful 70 degrees this past Saturday.

It's almost a 3 hour drive to the trailhead, so we left at 7:30 and ate some bagels on the way. The sky was clear and it was a nice sunny morning. The trail starts by ascending for a mile or so through forest. We did this part of the hike with relative ease, it seemed like, I guess because we've been hiking all summer and are in decent shape.

This part of the hike seemed a little longer than we remembered, but eventually the trees thinned out as we approached the treeline. Then we walked along the side of a mountain, over a rocky section. This part reminded me of the Highline Trail we did in Glacier. And, we made it to the Pass at around noon.

Normally we'd eat here and then turn back, but this time we wanted to go farther. I was feeling very good at this point. It seemed like we made good time and I wasn't tired at all.

So, we continued on toward the Sahale Arm that led higher on the mountain toward a glacier and a camp. This part of the trail was at about 5,400 feet and had a very steep ascent. Lesley didn't seem to have much trouble hiking uphill over uneven and loose rocks, but I had to stop a couple times to rest. The view from here was one of the best of the day as we passed through meadows of wildflowers.

After a while we made it to the crest of the slope we were on and could see to the North. There were more mountains on this side, as well as a small lake a couple hundred feet below us called Doubtful Lake.

We weren't planning to go all the way to the camp at the end of the trail, but wanted to go far enough to enjoy some of the better views. Eventually we had a good view to the west as well as the east found a good rock to sit on. We had some of our snacks and water before heading back down.

The walk down seemed longer than the way up, but the views were still great, though some clouds had come in. Lesley was pretty exhausted and sore, but we made it back to the car and through the long ride back home.

We walked about 10 miles and ascended nearly 3,000 feet in elevation, taking five and a half hours, so this was probably the most challenging hike we've ever done. It was definitely a good workout, and I look forward to doing additional challenging hikes in the future.

Last weekend we hiked the Lilm Kiln Trail for the second time. We hiked it for the first time almost three years ago, in October 2008. I remember really liking the trail because of all the neat old artifacts and how it was relatively flat without much change in elevation. We also really liked sitting at the Stillaguamish River at the end of the trail.

Last weekend we had a pretty different experience. I didn't remember horses being allowed on the first part of the trail, but we found lots of evidence they had been there this time. The entire trail was overgrown too, with wild invasive blackberry in several places, which scratched us a few times. The bugs were probably the most annoying part though, which I never thought I'd say since we rarely see bugs in the Pacific Northwest. I guess a hike on a sunny, slightly muggy day in August is bound to include bugs.

It was a good workout and took about 3 hours to complete the 6 mile out and back trail. We sat at the end on the river shore again, which was really nice. Here's a video of the river.

Stillaguamish River at Lime Kiln Trail on Vimeo.

I turned 28 years old on Saturday. Troy took me to the Dahlia Lounge on Friday for dinner and the food was excellent. We started with a glass of wine each and some shrimp potstickers and bread. For the main course, I had the dungeness crab cakes with potato salad, tomatoes, pickles, and a few chips. It was put together very well and tasted great together. Troy had some sort of pasta with zucchini and sun dried tomatoes. Then for dessert I had the doughnuts, fried to order with vanilla mascarpone and apricot jam. Troy had the creme caramel. Both were so delicious! My dessert was free because they knew it was my birthday, so that was nice. Dahlia Lounge is one of the best restaurants I've been to in Seattle. Tom Douglas, the chef, definitely deserves the local fame he gets.

Saturday Troy gave me my birthday presents - Sim City 4 and a butterfly necklace. Then we headed out for the day to Mount Rainier. But first, we stopped to get bagels at Noah's on Mercer Island. We decided to go the opposite way we normally go to Rainier and went through the Northeast corner instead of the Southwest. We got a late start to the day, so we didn't arrive at our first stop until around 11. We went to Ohanapecosh and hiked about 1.5 miles to Silver Falls. The trail was pretty busy, but that was to be expected since the weather was perfect and it was a Saturday in the summer. The trail had a little elevation gain and wound its way through the old growth forest, with several creeks and small waterfalls along the way. We eventually made it to Silver Falls and it was just beautiful. The falls were rushing so fast with white foam and the water was a clear blue-green color.

We continued on another .7 miles to the Grove of the Patriarchs where we saw some old growth forest trees that were estimated to be over 1,000 years old. There was a neat small bridge over the river (the same river that continues down and becomes Silver Falls) to the grove. We were pretty hungry by the time we started to head back, but we forgot to bring a backpack and left all our snacks in the car. I guess we didn't realize how long the hike would take.

Anyway, we finally got back to the car and ate our snacks on a picnic table nearby. We had an apple, strawberries, trail mix, a granola bar, some cashews, and drinks. By the time we were done, it was after 3:00, so we headed out toward Paradise. We stopped at a few viewpoints along the way for some photos, but basically continued on without stopping very long. There were lots of wildflowers along the Stevens Canyon Road. I would have liked to do another short hike at Longmire, but it was getting late and we didn't want to be eating dinner at 9:00 at night. We got home around 7:00 and ordered Pagliacci pizza for dinner and watched Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring the rest of the night. We also had some chocolate cake with chocolate icing that Troy had made for my birthday.

Last weekend we decided to hike at Middle Fork Snoqualmie River Trail. We had done this trail one other time, but it started to rain on us shortly after we started, so we didn't end up going very far. With temperatures forecast in the mid to upper 70s, Saturday was a great day to go hike there again.

The trailhead is almost an hour off the freeway, much of it along a pothole-filled gravel road. The trail starts by crossing the river over a nice wood suspension bridge and then follows closely alongside the river. This first part of the trail along the river is the best part, in my opinion. The trail then diverges away from the river for a couple miles. This trail has some ups and downs, but nowhere is it very difficult. Some of the hardest part may be avoiding the mud that sometimes covers the trail while not getting scraped by branches encroaching on the trail.

In a few spots, there are bridges or rocks that provide a path over small streams. This trail may be too wet to do earlier in the year, but most of these streams were pretty small. After a few miles of hiking through the forest, the trail returns back to the river. This would have been a good place to stop and rest and then turn around, but we decided to keep going. Our hiking book showed a waterfall not too much farther ahead. After hiking through more mud and thorny brambles, we eventually realized that there was no waterfall (at least not at this time of year) and decided to turn around. After a brief stop at the river, we walked the three miles or so back to the trailhead.

We hiked probably a total of 8 miles, and while the mud was a little annoying, overall it was a pleasant hike with a good amount of solitude on the trail.

Snoqualmie River on Vimeo.

With Lesley's foot hopefully on the mend, I'd like to fit two year's worth of hikes into this summer, since we weren't able to hike much last year. Here are the top trails I want to hit:

• Rattlesnake Ledge - A moderately difficult hike that's not too far away and offers beautiful views. Probably my favorite trail in the nearby area.


• Iron Goat Trail - Not sure if we'll do this one again, as it's kind of far away, but it's one of my favorite hikes we've done in the past few years.


• Cascade Pass - We've gone twice before and it's been one of our favorite hikes. We'd like to go earlier in the season so that we can see all the wildflowers.


• Lime Kiln Trail - One of my favorite hikes we did our first year here, it's a little far away but I'd like to go again.


• Twin Falls - Another enjoyable trail that can get rather busy


• Cougar Mountain - We've been here many times as it's closer than all these other options. There are many different trails of easy to moderate difficulty. I hope we can go here several times.


• Olympic Peninsula - We went here with Lesley's parents a couple years ago, but the weather was rather hot. I'd like to go back and do some longer hikes in different parts of the park.

Troy and I went to a pumpkin patch this past Saturday. There are tons of them in the area and we'd never been to one before, so we decided to go to the Craven Farm in Snohomish, about 30 miles to the northeast. The drive was pretty with lots of colorful trees all red, orange, and yellow. We got there and the parking lot was intimidatingly full. Once we got inside, there was so much stuff going on and so many people there that we didn't know what to do first.

We made our way to the pumpkin patch that seemed to go on for miles. I couldn't believe how many pumpkins of all shapes and sizes there were! Some were as small as two fists and others were the size of two basketballs. There were probably over 5,000 pumpkins there to choose from. I guess we could have bought one to carve or make food from, but we didn't bother with it. Last time we had a carved pumpkin in our apartment, it started to smell after a few days.

Other things we could have done included a hay ride, corn maze, pumpkin slinging, face painting, and seeing baby livestock. I was interested in the corn maze, but we didn't have rain boots on and it was probably pretty muddy in there from the recent rain we've had. I snacked on some roasted corn and Troy got two donuts, including a pumpkin one.

The only thing I was disappointed with was the lack of a nice set for taking pictures. It sounds corny, but I wanted a picture of Troy and I sitting on some hay with pumpkins around us. Oh well, maybe next year we can try out a different pumpkin patch. It was a fun experience this year and definitely worth doing at least once.

Here are some pictures Troy took at the Lake Union Park opening last Saturday. We added to an existing gallery, so be sure to check out the second page of photos. There was a lot more people and a lot less food there than we were expecting at the park opening. We did see some guys cooking salmon on an open fire which I'd never seen before. We were sort of hungry after we'd been there a while, so we bought some cheese bread and banana bread from the farmer's market. We also bought some blueberry jam from a local farmer and it was really good. The weather was also incredible for late September, with a high around 75 and completely sunny.

More than a year ago, phase 1 of South Lake Union Park opened. Unfortunately, the park closed again after just a few months so that the other phases could be built. After a very long wait, the rest of the park opened on Saturday.

We're just over a half mile away from Lake Union, but with the park being closed, we didn't really have a good way to get to the lake. The park has some good open space and offers a plesant environment for enjoying the view across the lake.

During the opening festivities, there were kayak and stand-up paddleboard rentals, several informative booths, and a farmers market.

The park includes a model boat pond, a public fountain, which had plenty of children playing in it today, and green space for sitting, lying down, throwing a frisbee, and whatever else.

Now that the park is open, it contributes to the growing livability of this part of the city along with the new restaurants that have opened in the past few months. We're looking forward to being able to walk down to the lake and enjoy the park.

We went to pick blueberries today in North Bend with a group of friends from church. Berry picking is a fairly common thing to do around here, but we've never done it before. We went to a u-pick farm to pick our own blueberries at the base of Mount Si. There were a lot of cars in their parking lot, but there were many rows of blueberries and we rarely ran into anyone.

Picking blueberries was a new experience for me, I've never looked at a plant to find food on it and then eat it. We had to move branches aside and reach toward the back to find the ripe blueberries. There were also some thorny invasive blackberry plants that scratched us a few times.

There were two different kinds of blueberries available for picking, one was sweeter and larger and the other was more tart and better for baking. We got a little of both and ended up with four pounds of blueberries. We'll probably snack on quite a few of these and maybe make a pie or a smoothie with some others. A lot of people pick blueberries and then freeze them for later in the year. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and something that we'll look forward to doing next summer.

We haven't done much hiking this summer, but we were able to get out for a hike on Saturday. We didn't want to do anything too difficult, or too easy, so we opted to go to Rattlesnake Mountain. It's not as hard as some trails but still has a great view. The weather was really nice for hiking, in the upper 60s. I got a little tired on the way up since I haven't hiked much this summer. It was a fairly busy trail, but not as busy as some that we've done. We spent plenty of time relaxing and enjoying the view at the top before heading back down. It's probably one of my favorite hikes in the area.

Friday was our last full day together. We started the day with some breakfast at Portage Bay Cafe, one of our favorite breakfast places despite the wastefully-large portions and slow service. The food was great as usual, though and it was just a few blocks away from where we live.

We then left to check out Snoqualmie Falls. The mist was blowing all the way to the parking lot and the falls were bigger than our friends expected. The trail to the bottom of the falls was closed, so we spent some time enjoying the view up top. We also stopped by the gift shop before we left.

Snoqualmie Falls on Vimeo.

We decided to hike again after this, so we went to the Anti-Aircraft Trailhead at Cougar Mountain. There's a great view of Lake Sammamish from up there and many trails to choose from. Our visitors were interested that we might see cougars on the trail, and while we heard some kind of animal, we were most surprised by how many banana slugs and how few people we saw along our roughly two hour hike through the forest.

We had thought about picking blueberries this afternoon, but they weren't quite in season yet. So, our next stop was the Bite of Seattle festival, which had lots of good food. We tried a lot of different food and drinks, including free samples of tea, roasted corn, fried macaroni and cheese, a veggie gyro, Indian samosas, wine samples, stir-fried soba noodles (one of my favorites to get at festivals here), hushpuppies (which were really good), a Nutella crepe, donut-like fried rice balls, more Indian food, and spring rolls. Being a Friday, the festival wasn't as busy as we've seen it in the past, and we had a great time in the great weather.

That night we played some pool and went up to our building's roof to show them the view. Our visitors seemed pretty impressed that people were using our roof's pea-patch garden to grow fruits and vegetables. We also had some more cheese and Chukar Cherries, recommended some good movies for each other to add to our Netflix queues, and played Taboo for a while.

It was a great evening to end a wonderful visit. It was very nice to have visitors, especially people we enjoy spending time with and it's a shame that we'll be going a few months without spending time with any more good friends or family from Texas.

One of the things we were most excited about doing was going to Mount Rainier. It's the 5th oldest National Park and is an impressively beautiful place to spend a day or more. We grabbed something to eat for breakfast at Nollie's, near where we live, and headed out. Traffic wasn't bad and we decided to take the longer way past Tacoma, rather than the route through Puyallup. The grating Washington State highway noise was a little annoying in our loud car, but after we turned onto some smaller highways the road was quieter and the scenery gradually improved.

Shortly after entering the park, we stopped at the Twin Firs Loop trail head. It's about a half-mile long trail, but we took plenty of time to enjoy the green plants and impressively-large trees. It was a nice short hike.

Next we stopped at Longmire and walked the Trail of the Shadows. This trail was slightly longer and had more diverse surroundings. There was a meadow with a view of Mount Rainier, a few natural springs whose iron content highlighted the ground with rust-color. There was also a historical cabin from a family that had lived there and a variety of impressive plants.

After this walk, we were getting hungry, so we stopped to eat at picnic tables near Cougar Rock. We had brought a variety of tasty local food to eat. There was a giant peach and Rainier cherries, a delicious type of hybrid cherry that is grown in the area, from Pike Place Market. We also brought some Cougar Gold cheese and some Dutch Gouda cheese that we had purchased in Leavenworth to enjoy with some crackers. There was trail mix, a bag of salt & vinegar chips, granola bars, and vegan beef jerky from Whole Foods. We also brought some Chukar Cherries for dessert. We were pretty full and satisfied after all that.

Our next stop was Narada Falls, which was impressive as always and featured a partial double rainbow. We then headed to Paradise, where we checked out the relatively new visitor center. From a telescope within the visitor center, we were able to see a couple hikers part way up the mountain. We also watched a short but enjoyable video on the park. We had hoped to hike some around there but there was still quite a bit of snow on the ground.

So, we continued on to Reflection Lake. There was snow that prevented us from walking around there as well, but it was still beautiful and we enjoyed the view. We drove further along to Box Canyon and did the short walk there near the huge glacially-carved rocks and over the stream more than a hundred feet below. We also had a view of Mount Adams.

Continuing on, we made one final stop within the park at the Grover Grove of the Patriarchs. This trail was along a river and had a lot of huge trees, but we didn't feel like doing the whole thing, so we headed back.

This was the most hiking we had done at Mount Rainier and I really enjoyed it. The drive home also seemed shorter than it has seemed in the past.

On the way home we ordered pizza from Pagliacci - the Verde Primo and the AGOG Primo - both of which were very good. It was after 8 by then and the rest of the night we hung out at our apartment played some more games.

There are quite a few places to hike around here and since we had driven a ways out to Leavenworth, we wanted to hike somewhere far from Seattle that we wouldn't normally go to. We also wanted something relatively easy.

We decided to hike the Iron Goat Trail, which we had attempted to hike in May last year but were stopped by snow on the trail.

The trail follows an old rail line, which was hazardous and regularly interrupted by avalanches for the time it was operational. This rail line was no longer used once a 7.8 mile tunnel (the longest in the US) was constructed along an alternate route in 1929.

Since the trail follows a rail line, it was pretty straight and relatively flat. There's an upper grade and a lower grade and we walked along both. Crossing from the lower grade to the upper grade was a bit difficult. Otherwise, the trail was pleasant and had neat historical artifacts, including a few sections of very old tunnel, some of which had collapsed due to falling rock above.

The weather was surprisingly cool. It was sunny with temps in the upper 70s in Leavenworth, which was just 42 miles east, but after we crossed over Stevens Pass, it became cloudy, and temperatures along the hike were in the lower 50s.

We ended up hiking for almost 3 hours, but despite Lesley's sore feet, it sure felt great to be hiking again in such a beautiful area.

Note: This post comes from my Walking in Seattle blog.

Volunteer Park is a diversely landscaped park with open green space and several landmarks including a water tower, conservatory, and Seattle Asian Art Museum.


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Note: This post comes from my Walking in Seattle blog.

The Central Waterfront is a fun walk on a clear day, though it can become crowded with tourists. It offers good views of the mountains and the city and shops to browse and places to eat.


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Note: This post comes from my Walking in Seattle blog.

The Burke-Gilman trail is 27 miles of a former rail line that has been converted to a pedestrian and bike path. We'll be taking the relatively short walk from Fremont to Gas Works Park.


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Note: This post comes from my Walking in Seattle blog.

Seward Park is a large park on a peninsula extending into Lake Washington in the southeast part of the city. The trail around the perimeter of the park is a great place for a lake-side stroll.


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Note: This post comes from my Walking in Seattle blog.

Alki in West Seattle is a popular place to go on any sunny day. This walk takes you alongside the water for a great view of the city and the skyline, then a view across the water towards the Olympic Mountains. There's also a beach and several places to stop and eat or have a drink.


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Note: This post comes from my Walking in Seattle blog.

Discovery Park is a popular place to go for a walk on a nice sunny day. While there are numerous trails, the Loop Trail provides an enjoyable and relatively easy 2.8 mile journey through the park.



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This past Saturday we hiked to Annette Lake just off of I-90 near Snoqualmie Pass. It was our first hike in over six weeks. We started the day with bagels at Noah's on Mercer Island and then drove about 45 minutes to the trailhead. Near the start of the hike is Humpback Creek, which drains from the lake. The water was rushing pretty fast and was cool to watch. Here's a video of it:

Creek near Annette Lake on Vimeo.

It was a pretty long hike actually and I didn't realize it would be so long before we started out. We hiked for about two hours up through mostly old growth forest for three miles with a 1,500 feet elevation gain until we finally got to the top. It was a little chilly outside (probably in the upper 40s) too and my ears started to hurt because they were cold after about 30 minutes, so I'm glad Troy let me steal his beanie.

At one point it was really rocky and I lost my balance on one of the rocks and accidentally threw my cell phone down the hill about 8 feet. I had my hands in my pockets trying to keep them warm and my cell phone was in my pocket as well. So when I started to lose my balance, I clinched my cell phone out of reflex and yanked my hand out of my pocket to try to keep my balance and accidentally threw my cell phone down the hill. Troy was able to navigate the bushes and leaves down to get it. Thankfully I could see it from where I was and was able to direct him to it. It was kind of funny after the fact.

We finally made it to the top and sat at Annette Lake for a little while. There was a waterfall on one side emptying into the lake that starts from high up in the mountain peak, even farther up from where we stopped. It was a little cold and windy, but it was nice when the sun was out. The sun was at a bad angle for pictures though, so we'll have to go back again sometime next year to take better pictures. We started walking back down and I wished we had brought the hiking poles, because my knees and ankles started to get tired. We finally got back to the car after about an hour and a half and drove back. On the way back we saw a full rainbow, end to end, which was pretty cool. We were both a little sore on Sunday, but feel back to normal now. It was nice to hike again, after going several weeks without hiking.