Thanksgiving Week Mini Vacation

For about six years now, I've been trading visits with my cousin Michael and his family in Redding California. One year I come down there to visit and one year they make the trip up to Seattle to see me. Keeping an eye on the weather up to the last minute, the wonder dog and I started our little four day adventure.

We wanted to do some hiking (of course) but almost every trail we could find east of I5 was closed after October. Decided to give the Oregon coast a try on the way down to Redding. This late in the year isn't recommended for those hikes either but decided to roll the dice.

The evolving plan included leaving Seattle early Monday morning and make it to Lincoln City Oregon and crash at a hotel right on the coast. Had picked out a little walk to a lighthouse and a five mile trail on the coast itself. Then planned on another lighthouse visit, two more trail before stopping somewhere in the Eugene Oregon area. Then over to the Oberlanders Wednesday, Thursday and then see how weather looks before making any firms plans in regards to heading back.

First Snow Of The Season

Rainy Weekends Preventing Our Hikes

A little bummed out that every weekend we have had ugly rainy days and not really worth going out into yet. I hate to push it for ugly hikes when I know we have an entire winter for that. So we have been chilling out, doing Centennial Trail and I've been trying to reduce my stuff overhead with numerous Craig's List postings.


Snapped this picture last night as Bogie was enjoying a chew.

Cloudless Sky Saturday Hike Of Mount Dickerman

I haven't been able to hike much lately due to the combination of the day job (with a daily 2 hour commute), crappy weekend weather and a ongoing plantar fasciitis. When Friday turned out so gorgeous and practically cloudless, I had Mount Dickerman on the brain. Although the view from the summit is always worth the trip, cloud cover has been an issue for every excursion this year.



We left about 8 AM and it was very foggy on the drive through Snohomish to Mountain Loop highway. The nippy temperature of 37 degrees at the trail head had me don on a sweat shirt, however I doubted I would need it with the plethora of switchbacks for the few couple miles. I was correct and it ended up hanging from my belt for all but 20 minutes of the hike.

I was quite surprised to see snow cover towards the summit. but someone else was certainly into it. It seemed to cling to sides of the trail as a decoration and prelude of things to come ... soon.








Great shots with the cloudless blue sky.

Bogie rarely climbs into the back seat of the truck but he did after this hike. He stayed back there until we pulled into the driveway. Love those hikes that feed the body and and soul.

Lake 22 On A Saturday Morning

Seems like ages since the wonder dog and I have been on a hike. Yesterday morning looked like our opportunity so we got an early start. Was happy to see just a few cars in the parking lot at the trailhead but it sure didn’t stay that way. On our way back down, we met at least a dozen hiking teams and on easily had over a dozen members.



It was a very nice hike up to the lake and the views were quite beautiful.


There was just a little bit of the winters ice flow left and some hikers made the trek up to check out one of its ice caves. I decided it wasn’t worth the effort on this trip and we continued our way around the lake.

Monday hike to Gothic Basic

Last Monday was the last day of my mini vacation and wanted to knock out a new challenging hike. We selected Gothic Basin off of Mountain Loop Highway (starting elevation 2840 feet - ending elevation 5200 feet - 9 miles round trip). This is a branch off of the same trail that leads to the Monte Cristo mining town site that we have visited within the last couple years.





Starting out, the hike was a steep climb but not the rapid switchbacks that are found on Mount Dickerman. In many ways, this is a more challenging hike but I didn't feel as drained after completing todays journey.



There were numerous waterfalls and the view is pretty spectacular all the way up. This might be why I wasn't so tired because I took in frequent breaks to let Bogie enjoy the waterfalls and for myself to enjoy the view.




Here you can see Bogie taking a cooling off dip in the meadows before the final push to the basin. Also a self portrait shot just before we enter the basin proper.



The pictures do NOT do the basin proud! I thought it was a remarkable view with all the small clear pounds created by the melting snow. It was only a half mile to Foggy Lake but I decided not to go any further. It was already 3PM and we had been hiking since a little after 10 AM. In hindsight, I should have because we made remarkable time (for us) on the way back. Although Bogie was obviously getting tired. I have some movies that I'll upload later and you can actually see him nodding off as we stopped at the last big waterfall coming back.


So we stayed, had lunch and enjoyed the basin view for about 30 minutes. Bogie gobbled down 4 good sized biscuits and even accepted some of the dried fruit I brought along for myself.

Friday Hike - Oyster Dome

After hiking Mt Dickerman on Thursday, decided to try a new and less taxing hike. Turned out to be fairly taxing as we did the Oyster Dome hike over by Mount Vernon. It is a 6.5 mile hike that has an elevation gain of 1900 feet (ending off at 2025, so that is pretty much straight up in spots).




It was a nice hike, a few views of the San Juan Islands and the Olympic Mountains. There is a series of Bat Caves near by and the directions from there back to the dome trail are a bit confusing. All in all, pretty nice but not sure I’d make that trip again for this hike alone.