Well, once again the birthday weather curse struck. The weather was crap where I was. It was great everywhere else, but as you’ll see from the pictures, the suckiness followed me to Lake Ann. That means I have an unbroken streak of crappy hiking weather on my birthdays in this century.
We started up at 7 and got to the lake at 9. The trail is beautiful, even in clouds and fog. You start out in trees, but very shortly end up in meadows. The bottom of the valley is laced with little streams. There are lots of blueberries right now. We missed wildflower season, but there were still a few blooms around. We saw pikas and heard some marmots. There were a few grouse or ptarmigan around as well. The vegetation is low alpine vegetation, so you can see forever once you get out of the trees. After you cross the bottom of the valley, you start up to the lake through some scree and talus and boulder fields. The trail though all of that is pretty well maintained, but you still have to watch your ankles.
We reached the lake and it was completely socked in with clouds. I wandered around the edge of the lake and caught a very brief glimpse of the glacier on Mt. Shuksan. I could also see the trail that leads up to the glacier, and I’m thinking that someday I’ll do this hike again as an overnight trip and go up to the glacier. (But not on my birthday.)
The view lasted about 30 seconds before it was hidden again. Just that short glimpse was amazing. You get so close to Mt. Shuksan on this trail, and the glacier is so big you can’t really comprehend the scale of it, and yet it is only a small part of the mountain.
I went back to the lake to let Duncan drink and eat and wade in the lake while I sat on a big rock on the shore to wait for it to clear up. It didn’t clear up. Over the next hour, the lake got smaller and smaller. It was getting eaten by the edge of the world. I’ve seen some Steven King movies in my time, and I know you don’t want to get caught in that mist. So I packed out. We got back to the car at noon where it was all sunshine and rainbows, but you could see the cloud bank parked on Lake Ann. It wasn’t moving.
Duncan is happy anyway.
And that’s how I spent my summer vacation.
Lake Ann, August 22 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Lake Ann, August 21 2009
I’m not fond of doing hikes that make you hike a V to get to your destination. This one does just that. The first thing you do is drop 800 feet in two miles, then you climb 900 feet in the next two miles. I really prefer all uphill on the way in, then all downhill on the way out. Or just totally flat. But hey, this hike is only 500 feet of elevation gain for two miles on each of the uphill bits so I figured I could manage, sore feet and knees or not.
However, when I got up this morning and drove up to the trailhead, it was raining, cold, foggy, and windy, so we aren’t doing the hike regardless of how I feel.
We went into Glacier to find some geocaches. I found one of them, and in the process I discovered where kids go to huff spray paint. I didn’t find the other two because my GPS unit was being a giant butthead and consistently pointed 20-70 feet in the direction I just came from. There’s too much interference from the trees.
However, when I got up this morning and drove up to the trailhead, it was raining, cold, foggy, and windy, so we aren’t doing the hike regardless of how I feel.
We went into Glacier to find some geocaches. I found one of them, and in the process I discovered where kids go to huff spray paint. I didn’t find the other two because my GPS unit was being a giant butthead and consistently pointed 20-70 feet in the direction I just came from. There’s too much interference from the trees.
Sitting around, August 20 2009
Yep, that’s mostly what I’m doing. Sitting around. My knees ached when I got up today, so we’ve been taking it easy. We went to Nooksack Falls to find a geocache, then up 542 a bit for another, then further along to the White Salmon ski area for a third. From there, we headed up to Artist Point and wandered a bit on the trails near the parking lot, plodding along with the other tourists. Then we came back here, got the Growler, and headed to the Beer Shrine. I got the Growler filled with their Hefeweizen and ordered a large White pizza with no mushrooms but with added roasted garlic. And here I am. I finished my book, and the only channel on TV is 101. The pizza box is too big to fit in the fridge. I think that pretty much covers my day.
Beer bottle #30: “I’ve had so much to drink and it hasn’t even afflicted me.” Better have a double.
Hey, why is Marmot Creek Brewing Company NOT named on my beer labels? Dude, you gotta put the brewery name on the bottle labels!
At one of the geocaches I found something I couldn’t identify, so naturally I took it. I think, upon further inspection, that it is an eraser of some sort. I’m going to forget to look this up by the time I get home, so someone tell me what a Staedtler Rasoplast is. I don’t have internet here, remember? I can’t Google or Bing it right now, and by the time I get home my goldfish brain will not remember that I want to know what this is.
Beer bottle #29: “C’mon, let’s go drink ‘til we can’t feel feelings anymore.” I’ll drink to that.
Duncan has repeatedly approached Wiggles. The cat doesn’t react terribly, but she has hissed and swiped at him once or twice. Duncan takes the hint and walks away, so what does the cat do? She follows him so that he goes back to her! Cats are psycho. They remind me of some people I’ve known.
I finished reading “Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal,” by Christopher Moore. Now I’m starting on the short stories of Vladimir Nabakov. Good thing I downloaded it on my laptop while I was supposed to be working one day or I would have had to find a different way to entertain myself for the rest of the night.
Wow, I wish this place had a vacuum cleaner. There’s dog hair everywhere. Glad it isn’t my carpeting. HA!
It is now about 10 pm and I just stepped out to take a pizza box out to the garbage. On a whim, I walked out into the street to look at the stars. It is so dark here, you can see the Milky Way, which makes it a little difficult for me to pick out the few constellations I recognize. While I was looking up to Cassiopeia, I saw a meteorite. Or maybe it was a Quagaar. I hear this is the time of year they visit.
Beer bottle #30: “I’ve had so much to drink and it hasn’t even afflicted me.” Better have a double.
Hey, why is Marmot Creek Brewing Company NOT named on my beer labels? Dude, you gotta put the brewery name on the bottle labels!
At one of the geocaches I found something I couldn’t identify, so naturally I took it. I think, upon further inspection, that it is an eraser of some sort. I’m going to forget to look this up by the time I get home, so someone tell me what a Staedtler Rasoplast is. I don’t have internet here, remember? I can’t Google or Bing it right now, and by the time I get home my goldfish brain will not remember that I want to know what this is.
Beer bottle #29: “C’mon, let’s go drink ‘til we can’t feel feelings anymore.” I’ll drink to that.
Duncan has repeatedly approached Wiggles. The cat doesn’t react terribly, but she has hissed and swiped at him once or twice. Duncan takes the hint and walks away, so what does the cat do? She follows him so that he goes back to her! Cats are psycho. They remind me of some people I’ve known.
I finished reading “Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal,” by Christopher Moore. Now I’m starting on the short stories of Vladimir Nabakov. Good thing I downloaded it on my laptop while I was supposed to be working one day or I would have had to find a different way to entertain myself for the rest of the night.
Wow, I wish this place had a vacuum cleaner. There’s dog hair everywhere. Glad it isn’t my carpeting. HA!
It is now about 10 pm and I just stepped out to take a pizza box out to the garbage. On a whim, I walked out into the street to look at the stars. It is so dark here, you can see the Milky Way, which makes it a little difficult for me to pick out the few constellations I recognize. While I was looking up to Cassiopeia, I saw a meteorite. Or maybe it was a Quagaar. I hear this is the time of year they visit.
Nooksack Cirque, August 19 2009
I wanted an easy hike today to give my knees, my feet, and my Duncan a chance to recover from the harder hikes of the last three days. Poor Duncan was really dragging after yesterday.
It was a little hazy this morning when we got up, so I decided that we could get a late start in hopes that the haze would burn off. (The irony in this statement is not yet evident.) We got to the trailhead at about 9. First obstacle: the Ruth Creek crossing. There are two ways to do this crossing; the easy way, and the hard way. From the trailhead side of the creek, the obvious way to get across the log jam also happens to be the difficult way. Coming back to the car, you can see the easy way. Naturally, we took the hard way one direction and the easy way the other direction. Just to be helpful, I added three small cairns to the logs that are the easiest to follow across in hopes of sparing further idiots the hard route. Duncan made it back and forth repeatedly while I was contemplating exactly how to place my feet. He has awesome ninja skills.
The trail to the river is boring. It is as though someone put a treadmill in my front yard. Miles of nothing but standard Pacific Northwest foliage and ferns. The most interesting things along the way were the tree fungi.
We got to the Nooksack River and were immediately assaulted by bees. They were everywhere. They were landing on me, and for that they were dying hideous deaths by crushing. After about five minutes of no respite from bees landing on me, getting tangled in my hair, and harassing Duncan, we went back into the trees. The bees did not follow. I sat down, drank some water, ate a snack, fed Duncan, and eventually tried the river route again. No luck. More bees. I managed to get three pictures of the river in between hysterical swatting at bees on me, then left.
In other words, we did not go up the river valley to the glacier. It turns out that this was the right decision anyway, because there’s a shiny new wildfire upriver and the smoke was obscuring the view of the glacier anyway, so we saved ourselves the extra two miles of walking on sandbars and river stones for nothing. I thought all that haze was just from the heat and humidity. This is what I get for not having internet access this week so that I can check on things like this. Normally you can see the glacier from where you reach the shore of the river, but all I could see was white. Totally not worth it.
Beer bottle #32: “This is bottle number 42 of 40.”
We got back and I turned on the telly. It no longer works. It was fine this morning, but now all I get is a message: “Your smart card does not currently have authorization to view or purchase this program. Please wait or channel up or down.” Whatever that means. I was watching Good Dog U on Animal Planet and I turned off the TV when we left. Now I got nothin’. Good thing I brought a book and my iPod, huh? Also, I’m getting laundry done. That’s always a good time.
Beer bottle #31: “Beer: The 11th Essential. A shower is the 12th.”
So now I’m contemplating tomorrow. I figure I have two choices. I can either try to do a hike, or we can take a day off. In light of the fact that I’m having trouble navigating stairs right now, I think that means that my knees are on strike and I need a day off. If I try to go hiking, I’ll probably give up in agony and humiliation and go home. But if I take a day off to lounge around, drink and take pain killers, maybe go geocaching, and check out the “social trails” at Artist Point, maybe my knees will allow me to do one last hike before I bail out for home. Lake Ann is on the agenda. Mt. Shuksan is my favorite, so I really want to get as close to it as possible and do a little alpine worshiping before I go home. I think I have just answered my own questions about what I’m doing tomorrow. I think it is safer not to push it too much.
See, when I said that I was in the worst shape I’ve ever been in, I wasn’t joking. A year ago, I could have done hikes with 1,000 feet of elevation gain per mile for four or five miles, and now I’m not sure I can manage 500 feet per mile for more than two miles. Distance I can do, as long as there’s not much elevation gain, like Ptarmigan Ridge. That’s what I get for sitting around all winter, wrapped in my little grey blanket of Seasonal Affective Disorder. I need to be more careful about that this winter.
In fact, that’s something I’m worried about. Normally I can tell when the Seasonal Affective Disorder recedes. I’m not sure it did this year, which means my seasonal low may now be my norm. How lovely is that?
There’s someone lurking around outside. I can hear them walking around in the dark. That’s a little creepy. I’m sure they feel that way when I’m out there with Duncan. I’ll be sure to stick to the well-lighted areas.
Let’s talk about my sunburn for a few seconds, because it amuses me. I was wearing a ballcap while hiking, as is my wont, so my forehead is the normal color. The right side of my face is more burned than the left side. My right arm is also burned, and my neck is burned in that fabulous V that you get when your chin casts a shadow over part of your neck and allows the rest of it to burn. Also, I was apparently smiling a lot while I was frying (this was at Ptarmigan Ridge, you see), so I have these nice little white crescents on my cheeks that didn’t burn. It is all very attractive, I assure you. In spite of all of this, my skin looks healthier than normal. I guess getting out of the office is good for things other than my mental health. It hasn’t faded much in two days, which seems like it might be a bad thing. If nothing else, I’ve learned that the moisturizer I used that day is not an effective sunscreen. I’ll use the other one from now on. (Why do I have two moisturizers to go hiking? Because I’m a girl.)
Speaking of lurking in the dark… did you know that a Great Dane drinking from a stream in the dark looks an awful lot like a mountain lion from a certain angle? You’re welcome. I thought you might need to know that.
Nooksack Cirque, August 19 2009
It was a little hazy this morning when we got up, so I decided that we could get a late start in hopes that the haze would burn off. (The irony in this statement is not yet evident.) We got to the trailhead at about 9. First obstacle: the Ruth Creek crossing. There are two ways to do this crossing; the easy way, and the hard way. From the trailhead side of the creek, the obvious way to get across the log jam also happens to be the difficult way. Coming back to the car, you can see the easy way. Naturally, we took the hard way one direction and the easy way the other direction. Just to be helpful, I added three small cairns to the logs that are the easiest to follow across in hopes of sparing further idiots the hard route. Duncan made it back and forth repeatedly while I was contemplating exactly how to place my feet. He has awesome ninja skills.
The trail to the river is boring. It is as though someone put a treadmill in my front yard. Miles of nothing but standard Pacific Northwest foliage and ferns. The most interesting things along the way were the tree fungi.
We got to the Nooksack River and were immediately assaulted by bees. They were everywhere. They were landing on me, and for that they were dying hideous deaths by crushing. After about five minutes of no respite from bees landing on me, getting tangled in my hair, and harassing Duncan, we went back into the trees. The bees did not follow. I sat down, drank some water, ate a snack, fed Duncan, and eventually tried the river route again. No luck. More bees. I managed to get three pictures of the river in between hysterical swatting at bees on me, then left.
In other words, we did not go up the river valley to the glacier. It turns out that this was the right decision anyway, because there’s a shiny new wildfire upriver and the smoke was obscuring the view of the glacier anyway, so we saved ourselves the extra two miles of walking on sandbars and river stones for nothing. I thought all that haze was just from the heat and humidity. This is what I get for not having internet access this week so that I can check on things like this. Normally you can see the glacier from where you reach the shore of the river, but all I could see was white. Totally not worth it.
Beer bottle #32: “This is bottle number 42 of 40.”
We got back and I turned on the telly. It no longer works. It was fine this morning, but now all I get is a message: “Your smart card does not currently have authorization to view or purchase this program. Please wait or channel up or down.” Whatever that means. I was watching Good Dog U on Animal Planet and I turned off the TV when we left. Now I got nothin’. Good thing I brought a book and my iPod, huh? Also, I’m getting laundry done. That’s always a good time.
Beer bottle #31: “Beer: The 11th Essential. A shower is the 12th.”
So now I’m contemplating tomorrow. I figure I have two choices. I can either try to do a hike, or we can take a day off. In light of the fact that I’m having trouble navigating stairs right now, I think that means that my knees are on strike and I need a day off. If I try to go hiking, I’ll probably give up in agony and humiliation and go home. But if I take a day off to lounge around, drink and take pain killers, maybe go geocaching, and check out the “social trails” at Artist Point, maybe my knees will allow me to do one last hike before I bail out for home. Lake Ann is on the agenda. Mt. Shuksan is my favorite, so I really want to get as close to it as possible and do a little alpine worshiping before I go home. I think I have just answered my own questions about what I’m doing tomorrow. I think it is safer not to push it too much.
See, when I said that I was in the worst shape I’ve ever been in, I wasn’t joking. A year ago, I could have done hikes with 1,000 feet of elevation gain per mile for four or five miles, and now I’m not sure I can manage 500 feet per mile for more than two miles. Distance I can do, as long as there’s not much elevation gain, like Ptarmigan Ridge. That’s what I get for sitting around all winter, wrapped in my little grey blanket of Seasonal Affective Disorder. I need to be more careful about that this winter.
In fact, that’s something I’m worried about. Normally I can tell when the Seasonal Affective Disorder recedes. I’m not sure it did this year, which means my seasonal low may now be my norm. How lovely is that?
There’s someone lurking around outside. I can hear them walking around in the dark. That’s a little creepy. I’m sure they feel that way when I’m out there with Duncan. I’ll be sure to stick to the well-lighted areas.
Let’s talk about my sunburn for a few seconds, because it amuses me. I was wearing a ballcap while hiking, as is my wont, so my forehead is the normal color. The right side of my face is more burned than the left side. My right arm is also burned, and my neck is burned in that fabulous V that you get when your chin casts a shadow over part of your neck and allows the rest of it to burn. Also, I was apparently smiling a lot while I was frying (this was at Ptarmigan Ridge, you see), so I have these nice little white crescents on my cheeks that didn’t burn. It is all very attractive, I assure you. In spite of all of this, my skin looks healthier than normal. I guess getting out of the office is good for things other than my mental health. It hasn’t faded much in two days, which seems like it might be a bad thing. If nothing else, I’ve learned that the moisturizer I used that day is not an effective sunscreen. I’ll use the other one from now on. (Why do I have two moisturizers to go hiking? Because I’m a girl.)
Speaking of lurking in the dark… did you know that a Great Dane drinking from a stream in the dark looks an awful lot like a mountain lion from a certain angle? You’re welcome. I thought you might need to know that.
Nooksack Cirque, August 19 2009
Ptarmigan Ridge, August 18 2009
You know what I would like to do with the rest of my life? I would like to do this hike every day or so (weather permitting) and chat with people who ask me about Duncan. Because that was the best day ever.
We did not, as planned, go all the way to the end of the trail. Instead, we dropped down to the tarn to the south of the end of the trail. It was fantastically beautiful. The weather was great, and nobody else was there. Let the masses have their Camp Kaiser or Kiser Camp or whatever the book you have is calling it. I’d rather have an opal-like tarn at my feet.
This trail is great. You start high and in the open. No messing about in the forests. You can see a very long way. In fact, you can see the three-mile mark from the trailhead. There’s a nasty snowfield visible from the car, and you can see the trail across it. I was smart and went above it like nearly everyone else did. The three mile mark is just to the left of the end of that snowfield. There were other snowfields that were easy to cross and that allowed Duncan a chance to catch snowballs and roll around in the coolness.
The entire trail is out in the open, so you can see forever. All the mountains around, the valleys, the changing sky. It is hard to get your head around how big it is until you see another person in the distance. Pictures do not do it justice.
Duncan and I were both very tired after that since it was 10 miles, so we fell into the car and retired for the day. I managed to roll my right ankle about half a mile from the car, so I’ll be icing that and taking something for it very soon.
People in this building seem fond of sitting out on their balconies while speaking loudly on their phones about how important or adventurous they are and how they need things faxed to them. I’m ever so fascinated with them.
Beer bottle #34: “No wine-ing! Drink beer; be happy.”
Oh my god. I have a sunburn. How did that happen?
It is now time to eat the other half of the giant chicken burrito from Graham’s. Dang, they make a killer huge burrito.
Beer bottle #33: “Beer is about community, camaraderie, and collaboration.”
We did not, as planned, go all the way to the end of the trail. Instead, we dropped down to the tarn to the south of the end of the trail. It was fantastically beautiful. The weather was great, and nobody else was there. Let the masses have their Camp Kaiser or Kiser Camp or whatever the book you have is calling it. I’d rather have an opal-like tarn at my feet.
This trail is great. You start high and in the open. No messing about in the forests. You can see a very long way. In fact, you can see the three-mile mark from the trailhead. There’s a nasty snowfield visible from the car, and you can see the trail across it. I was smart and went above it like nearly everyone else did. The three mile mark is just to the left of the end of that snowfield. There were other snowfields that were easy to cross and that allowed Duncan a chance to catch snowballs and roll around in the coolness.
The entire trail is out in the open, so you can see forever. All the mountains around, the valleys, the changing sky. It is hard to get your head around how big it is until you see another person in the distance. Pictures do not do it justice.
Duncan and I were both very tired after that since it was 10 miles, so we fell into the car and retired for the day. I managed to roll my right ankle about half a mile from the car, so I’ll be icing that and taking something for it very soon.
People in this building seem fond of sitting out on their balconies while speaking loudly on their phones about how important or adventurous they are and how they need things faxed to them. I’m ever so fascinated with them.
Beer bottle #34: “No wine-ing! Drink beer; be happy.”
Oh my god. I have a sunburn. How did that happen?
It is now time to eat the other half of the giant chicken burrito from Graham’s. Dang, they make a killer huge burrito.
Beer bottle #33: “Beer is about community, camaraderie, and collaboration.”
Damfino Lakes and Excelsior Pass, August 17 2009
We got to the trailhead at 6:50. It took an hour to drive the 17 miles because the road is nasty in bits. They’re working on it. In fact, the road is closed from 6:00 a.m. to noon every day for construction according the sign, but they weren’t working when I was on my way up.
Anyway, the lakes are named more or less appropriately, except for the “Lakes” part. Rumor has it that someone asked a ranger the name of the lakes, and the answer was “Damn if I know.” The more appropriate question would be “Why would anyone hike to these lakes?” They’re tiny, shallow, marshy, bug-filled, and totally without a view. They’re so close to the trailhead that they aren’t even worth stopping to fill up your water bottles. They’re more like ponds than lakes. If you continue past them (as you should), you get up into the meadows and have a multitude of options from there.
The stupid thing is that when you reach the junction with the signs, there’s a sign that very clearly points left for High Pass and Welcome Pass, and it points straight ahead for Excelsior. So what do you think we did? We went straight. We were at the pass already. The sign is clearly misleading. It points to the Excelsior trail, not Excelsior Pass or Excelsior Peak. If you go straight, you go down into the Nooksack River drainage and highway 542. We lost a hell of a lot of elevation before I decided that this stupid trail was not what I wanted to do, and we turned and headed back up to the pass. I decided I didn’t care to go up to the peak and we headed out. The views on the way up and from the saddle were enough for me for the day. We got back to the car at 11, so it was a short hike. We saw one guy on the whole trail, and if we’d been five minutes later we would have missed him, because he was taking off on the side trail to the other ridge.
For giggles we headed to the burgeoning metropolis of Maple Falls to get some stuff, like expensive gas and cheap Asian noodle bowls. Hey, they have green curry paste and popadums! Woo! Both are very hard to find at Safeway in my town.
Duncan met the little black cat that has been hanging around outside. Duncan was very excited to meet a new friend. The cat wasn’t, but I figure if they meet another time or two they’ll be buddies. The cat seems quite amenable to the idea, but a little cautious. We’ll see.
Beer bottle #36: “A møøse once bit my sister…”
So, it seems as though I’ve kinda broken my camera. I popped the memory card out and then couldn’t get it back in. When I looked down into the slot, two pins were bent and the mechanism to push the card out of the slot hadn’t gone back down to where it belongs. With a steak knife and a toothpick, I got the pins back into place and got the eject mechanism back down where it belongs. (Tools of the trade, you know. Be prepared, I always say.) I tested the camera and it works, but now I have a morbid fear of popping out the memory card. The reason this is bad is that I have two memory cards, one regular and one high-resolution. They plug into different slots at the same time, but to access the high resolution card from the computer, I have to take out the regular card. Unless I can figure something else out, anyway. Maybe something will occur to me.
It turns out that there are two black cats here, and both are a little fascinated with Duncan. The kicker is that one looks like Bagheera and one looks like Chloe. I believe that they were sent here to make me feel guilty for leaving my cats at home alone for a week.
Beer bottle 35: “Mynd you, møøse bites kan be pretti nasti…”
It is now time to eat a giant chicken burrito from Graham’s.
Cat update: The cat that showed up on the balcony is named is Wiggles and she terrorizes Luna the Cattle Dog, who lives in the corner unit. She just watches Duncan run right up into her face without any reaction. Duncan, of course, runs away immediately or just won’t make eye contact, suddenly finding something very interesting on the ground to examine instead of looking at the cat. He’s clearly not a threat to her, so she’s curious. This is fun to some of us.
Damfino Lakes and Excelsior Pass, August 18 2009
Anyway, the lakes are named more or less appropriately, except for the “Lakes” part. Rumor has it that someone asked a ranger the name of the lakes, and the answer was “Damn if I know.” The more appropriate question would be “Why would anyone hike to these lakes?” They’re tiny, shallow, marshy, bug-filled, and totally without a view. They’re so close to the trailhead that they aren’t even worth stopping to fill up your water bottles. They’re more like ponds than lakes. If you continue past them (as you should), you get up into the meadows and have a multitude of options from there.
The stupid thing is that when you reach the junction with the signs, there’s a sign that very clearly points left for High Pass and Welcome Pass, and it points straight ahead for Excelsior. So what do you think we did? We went straight. We were at the pass already. The sign is clearly misleading. It points to the Excelsior trail, not Excelsior Pass or Excelsior Peak. If you go straight, you go down into the Nooksack River drainage and highway 542. We lost a hell of a lot of elevation before I decided that this stupid trail was not what I wanted to do, and we turned and headed back up to the pass. I decided I didn’t care to go up to the peak and we headed out. The views on the way up and from the saddle were enough for me for the day. We got back to the car at 11, so it was a short hike. We saw one guy on the whole trail, and if we’d been five minutes later we would have missed him, because he was taking off on the side trail to the other ridge.
For giggles we headed to the burgeoning metropolis of Maple Falls to get some stuff, like expensive gas and cheap Asian noodle bowls. Hey, they have green curry paste and popadums! Woo! Both are very hard to find at Safeway in my town.
Duncan met the little black cat that has been hanging around outside. Duncan was very excited to meet a new friend. The cat wasn’t, but I figure if they meet another time or two they’ll be buddies. The cat seems quite amenable to the idea, but a little cautious. We’ll see.
Beer bottle #36: “A møøse once bit my sister…”
So, it seems as though I’ve kinda broken my camera. I popped the memory card out and then couldn’t get it back in. When I looked down into the slot, two pins were bent and the mechanism to push the card out of the slot hadn’t gone back down to where it belongs. With a steak knife and a toothpick, I got the pins back into place and got the eject mechanism back down where it belongs. (Tools of the trade, you know. Be prepared, I always say.) I tested the camera and it works, but now I have a morbid fear of popping out the memory card. The reason this is bad is that I have two memory cards, one regular and one high-resolution. They plug into different slots at the same time, but to access the high resolution card from the computer, I have to take out the regular card. Unless I can figure something else out, anyway. Maybe something will occur to me.
It turns out that there are two black cats here, and both are a little fascinated with Duncan. The kicker is that one looks like Bagheera and one looks like Chloe. I believe that they were sent here to make me feel guilty for leaving my cats at home alone for a week.
Beer bottle 35: “Mynd you, møøse bites kan be pretti nasti…”
It is now time to eat a giant chicken burrito from Graham’s.
Cat update: The cat that showed up on the balcony is named is Wiggles and she terrorizes Luna the Cattle Dog, who lives in the corner unit. She just watches Duncan run right up into her face without any reaction. Duncan, of course, runs away immediately or just won’t make eye contact, suddenly finding something very interesting on the ground to examine instead of looking at the cat. He’s clearly not a threat to her, so she’s curious. This is fun to some of us.
Damfino Lakes and Excelsior Pass, August 18 2009
Skyline Divide, August 16 2009
As planned, Duncan and I hiked Skyline Divide today. We left the condo at about 6. On the way up the road, we had a sudden surprise with a giant boulder in the road. My guess was that it had rolled down from the slope the night before, because the dirt around it was a different color than the dirt of the road, and there were no tracks passing it on the right. I was the first to pass the boulder in the road! Yay!
We left the car at about 6:53 and headed up. The trail is mostly in good shape with the exception of about 10 feet of deep, reddish mud right at the beginning. Two miles, up and up. And up. Then suddenly, we broke out onto the ridge and there was Mt. Baker. Sure, it seems close from there, but we headed onward just to see how much closer I could get before I got tired. The magic number is two more miles. We passed the first big knoll, then the second, and headed to the third for a fantastic view of Mt. Baker.
Mt. Shuksan, on the other hand, was being a big fat butthead. It was very hazy toward the north and east, so I didn’t get any decent pictures.
On the way up, my GPS unit wasn’t working well. My track log said I had gone only .4 miles and gained only 100 feet of elevation, but I knew that couldn’t be right. Suddenly, in a clearing, my altitude reading went from 4300 feet to 5500 feet, so I’m guessing that I had no reception at all until then. So I actually have no idea how far I hiked today, but I think it was about 8.1 miles total. Once I got to the 2 mile mark, it started working fine because there was no tree interference. First I headed south, then when we got back to the junction at the two mile mark, we headed east to pick up a geocache. I didn’t find it at first because there was some muggle hanging out on the other side of the trees, so Duncan and I headed down the trail to the knoll overlooking the Canadian border mountains. I found the cache on the way back.
I saw only 10 other people on the ridge, and we left at noon. Everyone else on the trail was still on the way up.
One of the people on the ridge was Becky. Poor, poor Becky. Suckiest life ever. She is forced at gunpoint to hike up to Skyline Divide every day and stand there with that view and help people with questions. It must be horrifying to stand there, daily, and look at that skyline. Becky confirmed the overnight appearance of the boulder on the road. It wasn’t there at 4:30 the day before.
I got to the ridge in one hour and twenty three minutes. Is that good, or should I be ashamed of myself for being fat, old, and out of shape? It seemed really steep to me…
Other things of note: the bugs were not biting. I had a few land on me, and a few ran into my face, but no bites, and no DEET usage. Hallelujah. That could have something to do with the fact that it was only 48 degrees on the ridge when I got there at 8:15ish. Maybe the chill was too much for them. On the other hand, it was also very windy, so maybe that helped keep the bugs down.
As previously noted, we left the ridge at 12:08, and got back to the car at 1:07. Lots of people. I counted 27 parties of two or more people and numerous dogs, two of which were rather aggressive and shouldn’t have been on a trail with so many other dogs. (Stupid owners.) We hopped in the car and started down. About halfway down I saw something small and fluffy looking in the road, so I slowed down. I thought it was a rabbit, but it turned out to be a grouse or a ptarmigan. It was just lying in the road, sunning itself. I actually pulled up next to it and talked to it (well, I talked at it) for about half a minute before Duncan realized he wasn’t the center of attention and jumped up to investigate. The bird and two that I didn’t even notice in the bushes took off. We continued down, passing the boulder and its new tracks in the shoulder. I went to Graham’s for a burger and we came back here to eat, drink, cake (is “cake” a verb?) and take painkillers in preparation for tomorrow’s hike.
Beer bottle #37: “Relax. Don’t worry. Have a homebrew.”
I’m amazed at how many of my pictures have UFOs shaped like mosquitoes and flies.
Skyline Divide, August 16 2009
We left the car at about 6:53 and headed up. The trail is mostly in good shape with the exception of about 10 feet of deep, reddish mud right at the beginning. Two miles, up and up. And up. Then suddenly, we broke out onto the ridge and there was Mt. Baker. Sure, it seems close from there, but we headed onward just to see how much closer I could get before I got tired. The magic number is two more miles. We passed the first big knoll, then the second, and headed to the third for a fantastic view of Mt. Baker.
Mt. Shuksan, on the other hand, was being a big fat butthead. It was very hazy toward the north and east, so I didn’t get any decent pictures.
On the way up, my GPS unit wasn’t working well. My track log said I had gone only .4 miles and gained only 100 feet of elevation, but I knew that couldn’t be right. Suddenly, in a clearing, my altitude reading went from 4300 feet to 5500 feet, so I’m guessing that I had no reception at all until then. So I actually have no idea how far I hiked today, but I think it was about 8.1 miles total. Once I got to the 2 mile mark, it started working fine because there was no tree interference. First I headed south, then when we got back to the junction at the two mile mark, we headed east to pick up a geocache. I didn’t find it at first because there was some muggle hanging out on the other side of the trees, so Duncan and I headed down the trail to the knoll overlooking the Canadian border mountains. I found the cache on the way back.
I saw only 10 other people on the ridge, and we left at noon. Everyone else on the trail was still on the way up.
One of the people on the ridge was Becky. Poor, poor Becky. Suckiest life ever. She is forced at gunpoint to hike up to Skyline Divide every day and stand there with that view and help people with questions. It must be horrifying to stand there, daily, and look at that skyline. Becky confirmed the overnight appearance of the boulder on the road. It wasn’t there at 4:30 the day before.
I got to the ridge in one hour and twenty three minutes. Is that good, or should I be ashamed of myself for being fat, old, and out of shape? It seemed really steep to me…
Other things of note: the bugs were not biting. I had a few land on me, and a few ran into my face, but no bites, and no DEET usage. Hallelujah. That could have something to do with the fact that it was only 48 degrees on the ridge when I got there at 8:15ish. Maybe the chill was too much for them. On the other hand, it was also very windy, so maybe that helped keep the bugs down.
As previously noted, we left the ridge at 12:08, and got back to the car at 1:07. Lots of people. I counted 27 parties of two or more people and numerous dogs, two of which were rather aggressive and shouldn’t have been on a trail with so many other dogs. (Stupid owners.) We hopped in the car and started down. About halfway down I saw something small and fluffy looking in the road, so I slowed down. I thought it was a rabbit, but it turned out to be a grouse or a ptarmigan. It was just lying in the road, sunning itself. I actually pulled up next to it and talked to it (well, I talked at it) for about half a minute before Duncan realized he wasn’t the center of attention and jumped up to investigate. The bird and two that I didn’t even notice in the bushes took off. We continued down, passing the boulder and its new tracks in the shoulder. I went to Graham’s for a burger and we came back here to eat, drink, cake (is “cake” a verb?) and take painkillers in preparation for tomorrow’s hike.
Beer bottle #37: “Relax. Don’t worry. Have a homebrew.”
I’m amazed at how many of my pictures have UFOs shaped like mosquitoes and flies.
Skyline Divide, August 16 2009
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