Heather Lake - May 2010

Since becoming a cube monkey again, I can only hike on weekends. Today’s was a quick trip to Heather Lake (about a hour from the house). Bogie and I rocked it out pretty quickly and even made it completely around the lake. I think it is about 5 miles round trip with just about 1/3 of it rocky switchbacks. There was a decent amount of snow at the lake and that actually help matters. We were able to walk on the snow pack on top of the last seasons avalanche damage. The early start allowed us to miss most of the crowds but the parking lot was getting full as we left. Forgot to snap a picture but met a hiker as we were coming down that was taking his 11 week old black lab puppy for his first hike. How cool!

Huge stump with a tree growing out of it.

At the lake, great day!

Whoa, must have left the zoom setting on!

Snow dog is quite happy!







Next three pictures a me experimenting with the cameras timer!





Mountains surrounding the lake.

Ice Caves - April 2010

Sunday turned out to be a nice day, so we headed over to the Granite Falls area to check out the ice cave. This was our second visit to the area (last visit the end of August in 2009) and here is a link to that post if you want to check it out. http://dwayneworld.blogspot.com/2009/08/big-4-ice-caves.html


This visit, no caves yet! Too early in the year for the unusual runoff of mountain snow to melt enough of the glacier ice to form the caves. Still a great visit and always nice to get out among the Cascades! Here you can see the parking area where a number of people were having picnics.

The bridge of doom, from Bogies perspective. Evidently this bridge plays tricks on Bogies eyes and he cannot see the shiny metal footings, only the raging water below. It is sad to watch him struggle one paw at a time but I try to hide it by giggling like a school girl. In my defense, it is funny as hell to watch him make the trek!



Here are some snap on the short journey to where the caves will eventually appear. A tree that has seen better days, a skunk cabbage about to blossom (stinky!) and some avalanche damage from a couple years ago.




Although no ice caves, plenty of snow to enjoy. You can see some of the many waterfalls coming down the mountain side in one of these pictures.

Finishing this out with some classic mountain shots.

Back To Heybrook Tower (April 2010)

Sun was out a bit yesterday, so decided to do quick hike to Heybrook Tower off of Route 2. These pictures are new as of yesterday.



This is my second visit to the tower and here is a link to the posting I did about Heybrook Tower back in June of 2008. ( http://tinyurl.com/y4xzys3 )

The surrounding mountains are quite beautiful to view for a very conservative hike.






The the tower is quite neat to explore.




Going back to the parking lot. A short but very nice little excursion for the day.

Say Hello To The Summer Puppy Cut

Mount Dickerman Hike - Woefully Unprepared

I’ve been itching for a challenging hike for sometime now and today looked like a great day to get out into it. I didn’t make it to the top, although I got very close. The slow was getting too deep and I wasn’t prepared for it with the proper gear. Every five or six steps ended up with me hitting a soft pack and sinking up to my crotch in snow. Pretty hard hiking up a mountain in those conditions.

As you can see, it wasn’t bad at all the first mile or so. No sign of snow at all!




Here you can see some great views nearing the top.




Coming back down was pretty rough. At points, the snow trail is just a couple feet across with a steep decent on one side. Being a Saturday, I wasn’t alone on my trek. That two feet wide trail was getting pretty bad in spots and it totally gave away on me once. I must of slide 20 or 30 yards down stopped where some previous slides had deposited a lot of tree growth. This really sucked as I tried to go up the embankment but simply slide down further. I finally kept going to my right and trying to make headway back up to the trail. I totally couldn’t see bogie but he had the sense not to follow me down.

Finally, found where a previous avalanche had dropped some trees and I was able to crawl / climb my way back to the trail. Covered with dirt, sweat and a pieces of evergreen, there was bogie. Just sitting their on the trail, head cocked as if to say “What the hell dude?”. So next time, I’ll be better prepared!

The Bogie Cigar

Really not much else needs to be said.

If / When I Get Stressed Today - Gonna Think About This Movie Short

After all, it could be worse. You could have a big freaking statue following you around. Amazing that the director of the District 9 movie (which also started off a movie short) is thinking about adapting this odd little number into a full movie. Don't know about that one ...