Sunday morning was going to be a big day. As we made ready for the journey we had chosen for the day, Latigo lay on the rug in the living room, unmoving. Looking at me with an expression on his face that clearly stated, “You have got to be kidding me.” He was clearly exhausted from the previous days outing and we opted to leave him at home to enjoy a good rest. The trail we had chosen for the day isn’t the most dog friendly so we knew it would be all around better if he didn’t come along.…
Granite Lakes Trail
We decided to start things out right with a solid breakfast of bacon and made from scratch banana pancakes before heading out on a hike. We packed our backpacks with roughly 20 pounds of gear (continuing to train for our upcoming backpacking trip to Ireland) and headed out with Latigo in tow. Bobby found this hike while visiting one of our favorite trip report websites, Hiking with my Brother, it was their “Hike of the Week”. With 2200 feet of elevation gain and 11 miles total trip distance we thought the Granite Lakes Trail would be an excellent choice to continue the mission of…
Icicle Creek Trail
With our Ireland trip looming closer, and the anxiety over having to complete 19-20 mile days on the trail while there, we decided to fill our backpacks and head for Icicle Canyon for a weekend of backpacking. We had hopes of avoiding the rain that was forecasted for the western Cascades so we made our way through the pass on Friday evening. We hoped that the 80 degree and sunny weather forecasted for the nearby town of Leavenworth would be our fate in the mountains only 20 miles away. We should have known better… We also should have been more suspicious…
Boulder River
In preparing for our trip to Ireland at the end of May we are loading our backpacks up with gear and headed for day hikes that are flatter but longer. Boulder River proved to be the perfect destination for what we had in mind. At 8.6 miles long with only 700 feet in elevation gain (although our GPS claims it was more than a 1000 feet of elevation gain…) it proved the perfect challenge. The trail conditions were WET! At one point I thought we had strayed off the trail and were accidentally following a creek, but no, that’s just…
Deschutes River
The Kerry Way in Ireland is a long distance walk that circles around County Kerry in southwestern Ireland. At 210 km/130 miles in length it will prove to be both challenging and picturesque. According to the guidebook we purchased, “The Kerry Way” by Sandra Bardwell, the walk takes the traveler through, arguably, some of Ireland’s most scenic landscapes. As Bobby and I began discussions about a summer trip we began researching backpacking trip possibilities. I discovered the Kerry Way after researching airline prices for numerous European destinations and discovered that Ireland might prove to be the cheapest destination available and…
Hex Mountain
Last Sunday we headed to the eastern slope of the Cascades to climb Hex Mountain. I picked our snowshoe destination based on the fact that it was a clear, sunny day and the avalanche danger level was only moderate for below 4000 feet. The highest point of our hike was 5034 feet but the route follows the spine of a ridge that is protected by trees for the majority of the trek. Even though I did a ton of research on the route and had our GPS out, we still ended up going way off trail. The hike starts on…
Lake Serene/Bridal Veil Falls
After weeks of hitting the slopes at The Summit at Snoqualmie along with a couple of intermittent and non-noteworthy snowshoe treks, we decided this weekend was the time to challenge ourselves with a difficult hike/snowshoe adventure. Our original plan and destination was thwarted by inclement weather along Stevens Pass resulting in chains being a requirement for travel through the pass. Not having chains and already an hour from the city we pulled over and began researching our options. Using the Washington Trails Association (WTA) website we found just the thing for us. the Lake Serene/Bridal Veil Falls Trail. The hike…
Icicle Canyon Snowshoeing
Maura and I planned to go snowshoeing to Skyline Lake but the parking lot at Steven’s Pass was completely full. After navigating the narrow lanes of improvised parking jobs for 45 minutes we decided to bail and continue along Highway 2 to Leavenworth. Being the geniuses we are we’d forgotten to bring a guidebook. I’d also failed to download any maps to my phone and cell service was pretty spotty so we were pretty much on our own. I knew there’d be somewhere to snowshoe along Icicle Canyon because I’m a guidebook nerd so we drove along the canyon road until…
Franklin Falls
We have spent the past two Saturdays snowboarding at the Summit at Snoqualmie West Ski and Snowboarding Resort which means that our poor Latigo has been denied an outdoor adventure for far too long. Though a bit sore from our previous day on the slopes we decided we should take our dear doggie out for a romp in the woods. We also realized that with Christmas coming and a trip home to Minnesota on the calendar we won’t be able to have an adventure next week, so why not have a double header weekend to compensate! We got a late…
Snowshoeing the Snow Lake Summer Trail
Saturday, December 1st proved to be a glorious day. With a threat of storms beginning in the evening and continuing on into Sunday we headed out midday for our weekly adventure in the Cascade Mountains. Bobby and I have been anxiously waiting to try out the new Tubbs Snowshoes we purchased in September from www.backcountry.com This is a great site for purchasing outdoor gear at a low cost. The snowshoes can also be found on Amazon. We decided that it would be best to try an easy and shorter trail for this first outing considering I haven’t snowshoed since the winter of 2008…