Category: Backpacking

Linda, Rachel, and I planned an easy backpacking trip in August. I mentioned it to Dennis and Janet on New Year’s Eve, and they wanted to join. Linda invited a friend from high school, Leah, and we had a party of six to go. We planned to go in the North Cascades.

Plan A: Spider Meadows. Close to our cabin, beautiful (according to Rachel), easy trail. But: the road was washed out 10 miles before the trailhead.

Plan B: Meander Meadows. Also close to our cabin. A little harder hike in, but the location sounds lovely (headwaters of the Wenatchee river). But: the trail hadn’t been cleared for years. (The rangers wrote: “Allow extra time for diverting over and around downed trees. High brush can make navigating the trail quite challenging at times and tripping hazards are present due to a lack of ground visibility.”)

Plan C: Surprise Lake. A good trail in, although a bit harder than our other options. Rachel says it’s beautiful. But: the air quality the week before we were to hike was pretty bad from the fires.

So we decided to look elsewhere than the North Cascades.

Plan D: High Camp near Mt. Adams. It looked pretty good, but was a four-hour drive to the start, and we were worried about air quality – Oregon also has fires.

Plan E: Olympic Peninsula, Dosewallips River Road. We ended up doing this. It was still a long trip to the trailhead (almost 4 hours), but the air was clear, and we didn’t need any permits.

Rachel, Leah, Linda, and I took the ferry on Tuesday to the trailhead. We were supposed to meet Dennis & Janet there (they drove around), but they didn’t show up and so Rachel, Leah, and Linda set out.

About a minute after they left, Dennis and Janet showed up. We gathered up the gear and headed off.

It was an easy hike on an old road along the river. We caught up with the others by lunchtime, and got to the first campsite by early afternoon.

After a debate (there was another campsite a mile further), we decided to camp here.

After carrying those packs, we practiced a little campsite yoga.

This next day we had a layover day. We decided to try to hike up the trail towards some meadows, trying to get above the tree line and get some views. But it was a steep trail, and we didn’t manage to see much. But it was a nice walk through the rain forest.

Third day, we hiked out, and headed home.

I went camping at Second Beach on the Olympic Peninsula with my sister, Rachel, and her daughters, Lily and Olivia. Second Beach is beautiful, but overrun with people. The ranger said that there were 175 people camping there on Saturday (and that’s just those who registered.) Fortunately, we went Sunday through Tuesday so there were less people, but there’s no place not overrun.

The next morning we went to look at tide pools at low tide (while Rachel went back to the car and picked up chairs and more firewood.)

Linda and I had a great time hiking the Enchantment Lakes in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness (just outside of Leavenworth) – the weather was (almost) perfect, the scenery was spectacular, and the bugs were minimal.

Originally we were going to do a tough hike on the first day (6 miles/3,000’ elevation gain) to Lake Caroline, and stay there two days, then hike down to Eightmile Lake the last day. We had been warned about the mosquitoes (WTA: “mosquitoes are Alaskan-grade”; ranger station report: “bugs are as bad as they ever get.” Guy in a camping store: “You’re going to Lake Caroline? You really need to buy this mosquito netting hat”)

When we met the ranger on the trail, and she mentioned that another ranger had left the lake because of the bugs, we decided we would be foolish to ignore all these warnings. So, we stayed at the lower, closer, (and more popular) Eightmile Lake for all three nights.

So our first day turned from a long challenging uphill walk to a shorter 3.3 mile hike. We reached our destination earlier than we expected.

We eventually found a campsite (there weren’t very many left on Friday afternoon. On Saturday, we shared the site with a third tent, but they were quiet people, fortunately) — it had a nice view, but was a steep walk to the water.

The next day, our main activity was moving our campsite down the trail to a nice waterfront property.

The rest of the day was spent reading, relaxing, napping, and other important activities.

Wow – what a difference a day makes! Cloudy and overcast when we woke up.

By the time we starting to hike out, it was raining. Fortunately, we had rain gear. Of a sort.

Fortunately, it only sprinkled a little, and then cleared up.