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 37
The calendar my still say it’s summer, but it’s definitely looking (and feeling) a lot more like fall lately! The leaves are just beginning to turn, mushrooms are popping up all over, and happiest of all rain has returned. Over the course of the week, it rained more often than not, and after another hot, dry summer, I’m happy for the change. We started the week off with one last day at my parents cabin, spending a leisurely morning enjoying the peace before packing up to head home. Once we got home, it was another short but very busy work week (it’s going to be tough going back to a full 5 days!). After sleeping in Saturday morning, I made my way to Evans Creek Preserve to see if hints of fall were beginning to creep in. I went armed with a warm hat, mittens, and a new fall playlist to listen to while I walked. Much to my surprise, I still saw many signs of summer around the preserve, including a few lingering lupine blooms! In a few places though, fall was definitely making its presence known.
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 moreIcicle Ridge
After the awesomeness that was the April Alpine Trails Book Club camping trip, our May outing had a lot to live up to. May has always felt to me like an awkward time to plan a hike. Do I stick to the low altitude trails I've been hiking through the winter or contend with potential avalanche danger and the annoyance of postholing in the mountains? Thankfully, the sunny eastern slopes of the Cascades provide a few options for snow-free hiking early in the season. Instead of lowland mud, on our Sunday hike to Icicle Ridge we found a dusty trail lined with ponderosa pines and sprinkled liberally with an assortment of wildflowers.
Read moreDalles Mountain Ranch
Confession - I almost didn't make it to the April Alpine Trails Book Club outing. Our destination for the month was Columbia Hills State Park for a weekend of camping, hiking, and other adventures. With such a long drive, going for just one day to join the group for our Sunday hike was out of the question, but spring is always a busy time for me at work, and in years past I've ended up working at least one day each weekend from late April through late May. Thankfully, I not only managed to avoid working through the weekend, but was able to take Friday - all without falling to far behind! Three whole days spent away from my computer, soaking up the glorious sunshine in the company of an inspiring group of women was just what I needed to restore me. Our weekend was filled with all sorts of adventures, but my favorite was definitely our Sunday hike through the wildflowers studded hills at Dalles Mountain Ranch.
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