Winter is Coming

Sun-filled days have been harder to come by with the end of the year fast approaching, and the colder weather and more frequent rain have put a damper on our regular hiking trips. However a few unexpectedly nice weekend days recently gave us the opportunity to explore some areas closer to home.

Lincoln Park
Lincoln Park is one of Seattle’s largest parks and only a few minutes down the road from us. The park is gorgeous with plenty of walking trails, a rocky beach and an outdoor, saltwater pool. We will be back!

Luther Burbank Dog Park
Adventure Beagle has been a little stir crazy since the rain set in, so when we got a short reprieve a couple weekends ago we took him to a dog park located on Mercer Island. He got to kick back and unwind in the soothing waters of Lake Washington while we tried to stay out of the way off all the wet and muddy dogs bounding around.

A dog going full steam ahead after his ball

Puget Sound
Having the sound close by makes it easy to take an evening stroll after a long day of work.

Northwest Boulderfest Bouldering Competition
This last one didn’t require a sunny day, just a full day of climbing and watching the pros do their thing (a full day for Jason that is, I just showed up at the end for finals and beer). Jason was super excited when he found out he’d be competing in the same comp as Ashima Shiraishi. She’s an extremely talented climber and at only 15 she’s been named National Geographic’s Adventurer of the Year. He came thiiiis close to beating her score 😉

Into the Clouds

Ever since Jason first stepped foot in Seattle back in April he’s been enamoured with Mount Rainier. It’s not hard to see why, at 14,410 feet above sea level, Rainier is visible from all over the city, including from our apartment building.

 

Not the view from our apartment building

 

Jason has frequently expressed interest in climbing Rainier, but since the hike would take a couple days and require him to learn how to hike on glaciers, that particular dream hasn’t been realized yet. (It would also require him to find people to go with since I don’t do cold weather hiking/camping 😉 ). We decided the next best thing would be to find a trail that offered some amazing views of Rainier, so last weekend we headed about an hour and a half south to Kelly Butte.

 

Wishing he was over there

Out on the Town

Switching it up with cityscapes instead of the usual hiking photos this week.

 

In Jason’s quest to expand his photography skills, he’s been going out after work some nights to get city shots in different lighting. Last night he stopped by the Seattle Central Library to admire it’s architectural design, as well as the dayglo green escalators located throughout the building.

 

Because of the Seahawks?

I wish I had more to add, but I choose to skip these outings in favor of staying home and catching up on past episodes of “The Great British Bake Off”. 😉

Below are some of Jason’s favorite photos from the past 2 weeks.

You Win Some, You Lose Some

Ok, we didn’t actually lose. Jason and I are just apparently spoiled when it comes to views on mountain trails…

Last weekend at one of the lookout spots on Wallace Falls Trail, we heard a young kid express amazement at the view in front of us. While we tried to join in on his excitement, we couldn’t help comparing it to some of the more picturesque scenes we’ve seen in the past couple months.

So spoiled

So Much to Do, So Little Time

Last weekend we had our very first visitors! My parents came to see us and check out our new city. We spent a couple days showing them around and eating and drinking way too much. We also got to do some tourist-y things and see some Seattle events and landmarks that Jason and I may not have gone to on our own. It was a fun couple of days and really great to see them. We didn’t do any hiking, and we don’t have a ton of photos to show, but we do have something even better for this week:

A guest blog post by published author Mary Kay Stirparo.

Enjoy! 🙂

 

The Mountains are Calling and I Must Go – Part 2

Part 1: Loki and I went off our planned route to explore Railroad Grade trail.

On the way back down to the Park Butte trail, I thought about calling it quits for the day.

Hikers on the way up Railroad Grade Trail.

I wanted to make it to the top, but I wasn’t sure my feet or Loki’s could handle it with the extra mileage we had just done. Plus I only had one granola bar left until I returned to the car. Loki on the other hand was stacked with treats and food, so he was good to go.

Personally I hate feeling like I missed out on experiencing something, so not continuing to the top would have been disappointing.

The Mountains are Calling and I Must Go – Part 1

For this weekend’s adventure Loki and I took to the mountains sans Christine…

No we didn’t leave her behind. She just unfortunately had to work all weekend.

So where to go? Last weekend I was so impressed with the view of Mount Baker from Sauk Mountain I decided to get up close and personal with it.

The trail I chose was a 7.5 mile round trip with 2,200 feet of elevation gain that would lead us to a viewpoint called Park Butte. Not an easy hike but I knew Adventure Beagle and I could handle it.

To start this adventure off right we hit the road at 3am to make it there before sunrise. Turns out Loki is even grumpier about having to wake up early than Christine is.

 

 

Two hours later we arrived at the trailhead just before sunrise. To my surprise the parking lot was pretty full already. I found out later most of the cars belonged to people who had camped out on the mountain the night before. After Loki finished up his breakfast we started our trek into one of the most beautiful areas I’ve ever hiked.

Mountain Views

Some trails are hard to get to when you have a small car with low ground clearance…

Case in point

It’s hard to tell from the photo, but that section of the road was pretty rough. It had started out bumpy but manageable, requiring some thoughtful maneuvering around the sections of potholes and deep divets that popped up during the 7.9 mile stretch. Less than 1/4 mile from the top we got to this section, and we decided it would be smarter to leave the car behind and walk the rest of the way to the trailhead.

We had decided to switch things up and go for a sunset hike as opposed to an early morning one. Jason wanted to attempt some sunset photos, and since Sauk Mountain is a popular spot, we figured there would be less people around later in the day.

 

We only saw about 8 people total

Hiking for Noobs

While Jason has spent countless hours out on trails being one with nature, before moving here I could count on one hand the number of times I had gone hiking. Walking for hours carrying a heavy backpack just didn’t appeal to me, I preferred to spend my weekends sleeping in and nursing a hangover or two. As I’ve gotten older though, the hangovers seem to last forever, and I don’t need to sleep in as much since I’m used to going to bed early for work (hellooo adulthood). Jason has used this change in events to his advantage, and now we regularly wake up early on the weekends to hit the trails while less people are around and the light is best for taking photos.

So he can take photos like this