The early summer weather continued into another week, with midweek temperatures climbing over 90° - unheard of for June in the PNW. With plans for backpacking over the weekend, I spent the week carefully monitoring the forecast for Saturday and Sunday, worrying about hot dry weather. To my relief, by Friday we had some relief in the form of rain and the weekend forecast had dropped from the mid nineties down to the low seventies, with some cloudy skies thrown in for good measure. Much better hiking weather! After our foraging last weekend, Andy and I had morels to enjoy, and while I had plans to try several new recipes - including a morel risotto I still want to try out - we liked them sautéed in an excessive amount of butter and tossed into a bowl of ramen so much that we ate it for dinner twice, even with the heat!
Read moreLife: Week 22
Now that Memorial Day has come and gone, work has slowed down, and I'm finally starting to have the time and energy to do more during the week than work, eat a quick dinner, then binge a few episodes of Veep (which I finally got around to watching) before bed. This week, that left me with the time and energy to tackle our mess of backpacking gear so we could hit the trail over the weekend and finally break in the new tent we bought last fall! It turned out to be the perfect weekend for our first trip of the year - the trail we'd picked was bursting with wildflowers and inexplicably uncrowded. We even had the campground where we set up camp to ourselves! Raging Ingalls Creek may have been loud enough to wake me up a few times over the course of the night, but the view from our campsite was well worth it. With such a short hike back to the car, we even made it back to civilization in time for a late lunch at the soft opening of a restaurant in Duvall that will certainly be a new favorite! My summer weekends are quickly filling up, but I'm hoping for at least a few more weekends like this one!
Read moreIron Bear - Teanaway Ridge
The Iron Bear - Teanaway Ridge trail is one of the one of the quickest ways to access the Teanaway forest from the Seattle area, with an easy drive of a little more than an hour. By the time you reach the trailhead, you've already gained most of your elevation too! I imagine that normally on a spring weekend, this trail would be thoroughly crowded, but on the cool, overcast day we visited, we passed only one other group. Because of the low, dense clouds, we had nothing in the way of views, but I was so pleased to finally have the time to get back out on a trail that I didn't mind. Especially since what the trail lacked in views, it made up for in blooms!
Read moreLife: Week 19
One of the new additions to my May calendar compared to previous years was the first birthday or a certain adorable niece of mine. Saturday was her birthday party, to which I contributed a delicious funfetti cake made using this recipe. I don't think it's possible to go wrong with funfetti, but this one definitely didn't disappoint! While it's hard to tell from the photos I have of the week, most of it was hot and sunny, continuing to feel decidedly un-springlike. Still, I managed to make it out for a few runs to break in my new running shoes! I'll have to hope for some good wet weather soon so I can start building up a good solid layer of trail mud on my new shoes.
Sunday, we finally had time for a hike, and we were going - rain be damned! Luckily, while it was overcast all day and rained the entire drive to and from the trailhead, it never rained on the trail. While there were absolutely no views there were plenty of wildflowers blooming, and I certainly got my fix of cloud-obscured ridgelines!
Read moreLarch magic
Mt Stewart hiding behind a veil of cloud
Last fall, inspired by all the stunning photos being shared by other hikers, I dragged my husband up to Lake Ingalls. This turned out to be my absolute favorite hike of 2014. Not only because of the sapphire blue lake, or the constant, breathtaking views of mountains freshly dusted with snow, but mostly because of the magical golden larches.
We got an early start and it was just below freezing most of the day, but we quickly warmed up and started enjoying the rocky views from the trail below Ingalls Pass.
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