Karen and Tom Wanderings

We here in the Pacific Northwest are blessed with one of the most wonderful places on Earth ... Mt Rainier.  While we know the National Park well and sometimes take our access to it for granted, it never ceases to leave us slack-jawed with the massive scale and incredible, varied beauty.  So, we once again found ourselves drawn there to revisit a couple of our favorite day hikes ... Spray Park and Tolmie Peak.  Tom has long considered Spray Park to be his favorite flower-garden in the Park.  It's tucked in the relatively remote northwest corner of the Park, accessed by 15- 20 miles of logging roads, and so is typically less crowded.  Our trip started in clear blue skies, but as we hiked through the lovely forest over and up to the park, the mountain disappeared into a bank of low clouds and fog.  The silver lining:  we got to pay more attention to the billions of wild flowers!!  By the time we reached the upper end of the park, the breeze was cold...

For our first backpack of the year, we headed to the east side of the Cascades to Navaho Peak.  We'd attempted to go here twice before, but had been thwarted once by weather and once by helicopter logging!  The hike in was a significant effort, and we were very thankful for the below-normal temperatures.   After a setting up camp and resting a bit, we headed up towards Navaho Pass, climbing through an interesting very barren area (the hiking guide calls it a moonscape, and that seems about right).  After evaluating our energy level, we opted to head toward the summit of Navaho Peak, and see how far we'd get.  As we climbed, the views just got bigger and bigger, always egging us on a bit further.  Quite a grind, but we spent a good while hanging out on the summit with big views and no people!  Can't beat that!   After our descent back to camp, our dinner was interrupted by several bucks wandering through and around camp.  It was kind...

Palisades Lakes Palisades Lakes is located in the north-eastern portion of Mt Rainier National Park, but nominally has no view of the mountain.  Certainly the reason we hadn't visited before now.  But with great weather, and the reportedly snow-free trail, we opted for the bigger vistas of the sub-alpine country instead of the lower, more heavily wooded hikes that were our alternatives. And an excellent choice it was.  The hike has the unusual characteristic (at least in the NW) that the trailhead is the high point, so you initially head seriously down.  Multiple beautiful lakes, sunshine, and green meadows dotted with flowers, subalpine firs and mountain hemlock.  Very soothing.  We even found the energy to do a side excursion to the top of Brown Peak, which had big-time views in every direction ... including Mt Rainier.  After grunting back up to the trailhead, we made a mandatory stop at Sunrise to take in the close-up views from there.  Anothe...

In normal circumstances, this little outing might not have made it's own post.  But, after 10 months of issues, including body non-compliance and Covid lockdown, it needed to be celebrated.  Summer comes pretty late to the mountains in Washington, so adventuring into the high alpine country still requires negotiating snow, though it's never clear how much or where.  So, I opted for a day trip to relatively-low Goat Lake in the North Cascades (in an area sometimes known as the rainy valley). While not a particularly spectacular hike by Cascade standards, the trailed wandered through a lush, fern-filled forest ... bursting with shades of green!  A large creek tumbling down the mountain provided a soundtrack, and a number of substantial waterfalls to admire.  And some huge trees (mostly cedar and hemlock) populated the forest for the last couple of miles to the lake.  Interestingly, much of the area had clearly been logged many years ago, but some of these m...

As our PCT-support obligations ended and Tom's hamstring healed, we headed out for a few days of backpacking in one of our all-time favorite places:  the Goat Rocks in the southern Washington Cascades.  The hike into Snowgrass Flats and the PCT, where we set up camp, was straight-forward and uneventful.  The meadows near our camp were a bit drier and less flower-filled than some of our past visits, but the views of the surrounding peaks, including Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helens were just as special as we remembered.  After wandering a bit to get water, we headed up to the summit of Old Snowy ... first through subalpine meadows and trees, and then through rocky, barren terrain.  The approach was quite airy, but included more spectacular views ... including Mt. Rainier to the north, Mt. Gilbert to the east., and the famed "knife's edge" portion of the PCT.  The late afternoon light only made it all more beautiful.  After returning to camp, we decided to "c...