Sunday, April 24, 2011

Denied Mount Si - Rattlesnake Alternative



Left home a little after nine and that was evidently way too late to try and hike either Mount Si or Little Mount Si on a beautiful Saturday. Both parking lots were jammed and there were cars parked anywhere there was any free space! Went to Rattlesnake Ledge State Park as an alternative and even them had to park a mile or so from the park entrance.


It was so crowded that going into the park felt like going into an open air concert. Not what I'm looking for after having a stressful week at work. I knew that I couldn't go back to my other fallback hike (Squak Mountain) because there was a marathon trail run that was taking place. I knew this because a couple weeks ago I had seen the ad, came home immediately to check it out and saw that it was sold out. (Bummer).


Rattlesnake Ledge is a 4 mile hike round trip to a very popular ledge viewpoint, however the trail does extend out to a 8.8 mile round trip hike. A few years ago, I had explored the trails past the ledge but didn't go that far. Last month I only went to the ledge, turned around and came back.






As you can see in the pictures, the ledge was so crowded (people, kids & dogs) that it was quickly becoming unsafe. So we headed on down the trail to Snoqualmie Point. We didn't make it all the way because I was getting tired of hiking through snow. At one point, I set my iPhone timer for 30 minutes and decided I would turn around when it went off.




I don't mind hiking up in snow but coming back down without the proper gear can be a drag. Actually, I'd describe it more as a controlled slide and I wasn't really into it that day. However, in the back of my mind, I knew we would be back soon to finish this trail to the final peak.


Indeed we did jog or walk at a very fast pace all the way back. It was crowded again once we got back to the ledge to the trailhead but that was fine. Bogie got a ton of compliments (what a puppy) and even one person commented that "he will grow into a big dog someday" and this had me chuckling for a half mile or so!

Bullitt Fireplace On Squak Mountain


Because our first trail last Saturday didn't really do it for us, we headed back to Squak Mountain. Its ample parking, low traffic and variety of intersecting trails make it a great low impact training hike.

This time I took the South Access Road until it comes closest to May Valley Loop, then take that up to the Bullitt Fireplace. From there I really didn't know. You cannot see if there is a connecting trail to the towers we visited a few weeks ago.





Turns out there is a connecting trail but it isn't marked very well and twists around a bit. Saves a bunch of time and since we had already logged a couple hours on a trail, this turned out to be just about a perfect route to end the day.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Tiger Mountain Poo Poo Point Trail

Saturday, we wanted to try one of the trails we hadn't explored yet from the 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles Of Seattle. These last few hikes in this book have been disappointing and this one was horrible.
Confusing trail system with all sorts of forks and branches, few (if any signs), what appears to be a firing range, junk cars and almost no view to be found.

From now on, I will simply remember this as pure poo. I did decided to try Squak Mountain on the way back and was very happy with it.

Exploring Green River Trail With Pictures



Last Friday after work and Sunday after racquetball, bogie and I ventured to the Green River trail over by the house. On Friday, we went across the grated bridge (bogie not a fan) and Sunday we went down the road on the same side of the river.

On to the pictures!







Monday, April 4, 2011

My First Dog - Rinny (for rin tin tin)

Last year I started a project of scanning all my photos in digital files and then the arduous task of organizing them. Then when that would be done, uploading them to the "cloud", via various services, for long term storage.

Came across this gem of the first dog I ever had (and technically he was one of my brothers dogs) but I certainly bonded with him hard.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Cedar River Trail - Landsburg Park


The sun came out just a little bit, after an entire week of rain. Decided that we should try to knock another one of the “60 Hikes With 60 Miles Of Seattle” items off of our list. Decided to do number 21, Cedar River Trail, Landsburg Park. I had never driven through Issaquah and found that was delightful. I also was paying attention to where Front Street was because I would need to make a left turn on it for a future hike (number 19 in the book Poo Poo Trail).


The river was really high and the current looked a tad bit scary. Also, was amazed about how much moss was over taking much of the trees in particular areas of the trail.


It was only a four mile hike or so but we enjoyed it. I tried my hand at taking some abstract pictures of an old railroad bridge. All in all, a nice little hike but I am getting anxious (way too soon) for future all day hikes to come.




Interurban Photo Walk Experiment

Last Sunday I wanted to see how it would be like to walk over to the Interurban Trail is closest to the apartment and take some pictures along the way. I knew the pictures wouldn’t be impressive but you never really know until you download them from the camera. I also wanted to see how likely it was to walk with Bogie to the trail. This turned out to be OK but the trail just isn’t pretty enough for me to make it a regular thing. However, I do think it is possible for me to use it to ride a bike to work. I may see if there is a way to “rent” a bike instead of buying one for this next experiment. I know that sounds pretty lame but I really don’t want to add more stuff in my life that doesn’t work out. Anyway, on to the photos ...



Have to say I looked at the end of school day time of 2:53 and thought "really?".