Ohanapecosh & Bench Lakes

On Friday morning, our friend Malissa was gracious enough to do a photo shoot at Tumwater Falls with our family (including Matty Sioux). We know that anytime you're dealing with a kid, you never know how it'll work out. From our perspective on Friday, it didn't work well at all. Abigail didn't cooperate, and it wasn't until the very last pic that Mal took did she even think about giving some semblance of a smile. But she's good enough to even make an unhappy baby look good. Check out a few of the photos she got here. All of them are amazing, but my favorite is the B&W one.

On Saturday we took advantage of the nice summer weather that's holding out for us, and headed up in the Corolla with Kristin & Michelle to the SE Corner of Mt Rainier NP. None of us had been there before, but it came highly recommended by some friends. Now the little stinker decided to give us some smiles. She's all about doing things in her own timing. Something this week clicked with her walking. She's been capable of it for a few weeks now, but this week she made huge improvements, and she was glad to show those off wherever we allowed her to.
' Uh. . .Auntie Kristin. . .don't you think this is a little big for me?'

Some hot springs on the way to Silver Falls.
Silver Falls itself.
Thanks for holding still for a 1.3 second exposure, Kristin!
'Hmmm, what trouble can I get into around here?'
Walking in the woods with Mom & Dad.Smilin' with Mama.
With the Aunties
'Guys, I promise, you can let go now.'
'See, I told you so!'Some of the alpenglow just above Snow Lake, not far from Paradise.
Upper Bench Lake, about 1 minute after the sun went down. . .about 30 seconds after we arrived, out of breath.
Thanks for being a trooper, Abee!
We had plenty of moonlight to walk back with.
The final remnants of the day get swallowed below the horizon (it took a 20 second exposure to capture this shot with as little light as there was there!).

Backpacking to Lake Ellinor

When Dave asked me a few weeks ago about backpacking this weekend, I was a little bummed, because I had already committed to give a talk to a Lions Club about the InfantSee Program. Thankfully, my talk was at 9 am, which meant I'd just leave a few hours after everyone else.

The destination was Lake Eleanor via Grand Park, leaving from Sunrise on Mt Rainier.

I was glad to have Roger join me on the way out. Here's a shot of him as we approached Grand Park, which is a unique plateau 1 1/2 miles long, and 1/2 mile wide. Because it's nearly all meadow, you can almost imagine that far off bush being a elk or a bear. But that's all we could do - no large wildlife was spotted on the way out, although we did hear some elk bugling in a valley nearby.
Lake Eleanor in the morning.
These camp robber birds were actually a bit annoying. They'd dive-bomb anyone with food, and didn't mind landing on your hand for a nibble of whatever you had to offer. You wonder how they got this fearless ;-)
Dave tried his luck at fishing, but only pulled up some of tin foil.
Mark & I stayed nice & cozy in here.
Dave, Mark, me, Bill, & Roger.

Grand Park & Rainier on our way out this morning.
One of the numerous small falls along the way.
Bill shows his balancing skills navigating the slippery rocks.
The wildflowers were mostly done, but some bear grass was still hanging around.
We hiked this whole valley to the plateau on the far end, about 9 miles total each way.

Marmots were plentiful in this area. It's hard to see, but this guy is chubby enough that he'll have no problem making it through this winter.
Frozen Lake, near Sunrise.
About 400 yards from the parking lot, a bear cub crossed out trail in front of us. We watched for a while for mamma bear, but never did see her!
Thanks for the great weekend, guys! And thanks to Melis & Abee Joy for letting me go!!!

Lewis River Camping Trip

Labor Day weekend has often meant camping or hanging out with friends, but this weekend it was just a time for Melis, Abee Joy & I to hang out and enjoy some solitude. We sought this solitude in the Lewis River valley, about halfway between Mt St Helens and Mt Adams. Out first stop was near Ape Caves, at the Trial of Two Forests.

The Trail of Two Forests is so named due to the hundreds of huge potholes (see above). We first trudged off through the woods without having seen an explanation for what they were. I was bamboozled, until an interpretive sign said that they were where trees had been over-run by a lava flow on a previous St Helens eruption (not the most recent one). Here, a downed tree was turned into a cave, quite similar to a typical lava tube.
Guys, did you know I'm one now?
We did a short hike up to Middle Falls.
More Middle Falls.
I hate slugs. In fact, just tonight I killed two of them for eating a few of my last remaining radishes. Slugs love radishes. And beans. And peas. And pumpkins. And squash. And spinach. And now I love to hate slugs. Geese used to be my animal of choice to hate, mostly because of their aggressive antics on a particular running trail I had in Portland. But 'gooses' can rest easy now - my choice of animals to despise has changed. So I got a pretty big kick out of seeing this guy with a bunch of pine needles sticking out of his tail end. And nope, I didn't even put them there!
Upper Falls.
Two chicks & Upper Falls.
Two chicks & a dude at Upper Falls.
It got pretty cold, but only a few sprinkles fell on us one day. The nights were in the low 40's, and we wrapped poor Abigail into numerous layers of clothes, then wrapped her in a few more blankets. But she slept 10 straight hours in her pack & play both nights, and woke up warm from head to toe! Thanks kiddo!
We drove quite a while down some gnarly roads in search for Little Niagara Falls, which the map depicted in a certain location. We found this certain spot with a very high degree of certainty, but there were definitely no falls. Other than this. Not quite what we expected. And I'm not sure it was quite worth all the scratches to our rig. But as Melis said with reckless abandon, 'We don't have a 4x4 for nothing!' That's my girl!
We drove on from the invisible falls, down more forest roads, and finally met up with some pavement. Shortly after, we hit Big Mosquito Lake. And thankfully, there wasn't a bug in sight!
Melis was an awesome navigator on this drive. We criss-crossed forest roads (the very thinnest lines on our 90-page Washington topo map), and headed down any that looked like it had the potential to be cool. Melis told me to turn down this particular 2-track, which took us to the top of Lone Butte. Well, almost to the top. Lower Falls. We camped only 150 yards or so from this one, but didn't go see it until our second evening.

I think this is my favorite scenic picture of the weekend. Simple. Elegant. Just. . .cool.
Abee watched the Olympic gymnasts, and said she'd like to start training for Seattle 2024.
Nothing like Mom & daughter, just chillin'.
This is the end of the line for salmon swimming upstream from the Pacific. The Indians used to hang out here during the salmon runs, and get tons of fish, and dry it for winter.
We camped at Lower Falls Campground #9 (I write that here for our future reference). We're convinced it's the best spot in the campground. It's so big even our cathedral-sized tent looks small.

No babies were harmed in the making of this picture.
We learned this is called Chicken of the Woods. It's edible when young, but this was too mature to eat. I don't mind picking just about any berry here in the PNW, but it'd take me a while to warm up to the idea of eating anything called 'chicken' that looks like this.
Abee loves hats. She loves to take them off, then give it right back to you so you can put it back on, and start the whole cycle over. If only we were all satisfied with such simple pleasures.
Upside-down baby!