She who hikes and climbs

I have been in the mood to do a long hike for a while, but nothing similar to Mount Dickerman. One that I couldn't bring the kids or the dog on but I didn't know what hike I wanted to do. Then one day a few weeks ago I was looking through facebook and saw a picture of Gem Lake. I decided to look it up and see what it was like. After reading about it I decided that it was the hike for me. I asked my friend L if she wanted to come, she said yes of course and we set the date and made the plans. But we didn't go to Gem Lake, we went to Snow Lake instead because the best laid plans can always be waylaid. Snow Lake and Gem lake are both off of I-90  at Alpental,  you will drive past houses to get to the parking lot which is very large and was very full for a rainy day, which was rather surprising. I don't recommend this trail if you have any sort of ankle problems, unless you have a very good pair of hiking boots. We approached the trail and saw that since w...

On Friday night I asked my daughter if we should go hiking on Sabbath, because I couldn't make up mind; she said yes. (I am so thankful that she loves to hike.) Today we headed to the Skagit Wildlife Area. I have been there before and wanted to take the kids to see and hear the birds and knew it was an easy 2.4 miles round trip hike. So we headed out to enjoy one more hike before the summer weather was gone. To get to the Skagit Wildlife Area take I-5 north or south bound and take exit 221 to Lake McMurray, head west onto Pioneer Highway to the round about and take the 2nd exit (Fir Island Rd). Follow the road until you need to make a left onto Wylie Road. Follow Wylie road until you come to a gravel road and a Washington Fish and Wildlife sign. Don't follow the curve and go left, you will have passed the Wild life area. The parking lot is very large and has a covered picnic area and a pit toilet bathroom. As we were leaving the parking area the kids ...

Just so you know all of our hikes happen on a Saturday (Sabbath) because it is the only day in the week that I don't work and my friends don't work, which makes blog posts a once a week happening. But this last Sabbath we went to Spada Lake. We wanted to do an easy hike because on Sunday I had a half marathon, and my oldest and his friend wanted to bring their bikes. (My oldest has been trying to bring his bike on a hike forever.) So we loaded up the car and headed to Monroe to meet my friend R and his daughter. Once we met we headed straight to Sultan to meet my other friend and his daughter. It took forever to get through Sultan and I even took one of the short cut routes. I don't know why the last few Sabbaths it has taken so long but it has literally almost doubled our time in arriving at our destination. It tooks us almost 2 hours to get there. To get to Spada Lake take Highway 2 east, go through Sultan and when you come to the light for the Sultan Basin Road turn le...