Crazy Weather

 September 2020 brought crazy weather in the Western states ...

In Boulder, for Labor Day weekend it was 100 degrees on Saturday, 90 degrees on Monday, and then it snowed 5" and was in the low-30s on Tuesday!

Meanwhile, in Washington, Oregon, and California, there were several intense forest fires. As Joseph drove down to Stanford, he drove along with a orange sky as he neared some fires in southern Oregon.

Within a week of that, the smoke from those fires engulfed Bellevue. For over a week, there was less than 2 miles of visibility as it was just a white smoky sky with no sun.

Joseph Leaves for Stanford

 The Wednesday after Labor Day, Joseph drove down to Palo Alto to start his career at Stanford. He did the drive in one long, long day, leaving Bellevue at 4:45am, and arriving in Palo Alto a few minutes before his move-in window began at 6pm. 

Joseph pulling out of the driveway early in the morning for

his drive to Stanford

Top Ten Seattle Hikes - COMPLETED!

At the start of this summer, we found a list of the top ten hikes around Seattle. We had already completed three of them, and decided to see if we could do the remaining seven over the course of the summer. On Labor Day weekend, we completed the last hike on the list! In total, the hikes involved about 75 miles of hiking and countless switchbacks, lakes, and vistas. 

The list, which can be found here, includes the following hikes:

1. Rattlesnake Ledge - hiked Feb. 2011 - blog post here

2. Mount Si - hiked June, 2019 - blog post here

3. Mt. Pilchuck - hiked 7/11/20 - blog post here

4. Ebey's Landing - hiked 6/28/20 - blog post here

5. Summerland - hiked 8/14/20 - blog post here

6. Chain Lakes Loop - hiked 8/22/20 - blog post here

7. Dungeness Spit - hiked May 2011 - blog post here

8. Kendall Katwalk - hiked 8/1/20 - blog post here

9. Maple Pass Loop - hiked 9/6/20 - blog post here

10. The Enchantments - hiked 8/29/20 - blog post here

Maple Pass Hike

Continuing (and finishing!) our quest to complete the top ten hikes in Seattle, on Labor Day weekend we hiked Maple Pass Loop, far into North Cascades National Park. Mary Jo joined us as well, though Joseph spent his final weekend before heading to Grad School with friends so he was not able to do the hike. 

It was a long drive to get there (three hours from home), and we left very early. Even still, by the time we arrived it was fairly crowded, and with the hike being a loop we walked along a line and had a line passing us for part of the hike. The first half of the hike was a steep climb up, though there were beautiful views of lakes and mountains for the last half of that, and the view from Maple Pass was stunning. Then a long walk down; in total a seven mile hike. 

Early September Sunsets

With a bit of smoke from California wildfires blown up to the Seattle area, we had a few glowing sunsets in early September...

The Enchantments !!

On Saturday August 29, John, Joseph, and Henry tackled the famous Enchanments area as a through-hike. 

The hike goes through one of the most beautiful areas of Washington, but is known as extremely grueling. Most people do it over multiple days, however, camping overnight requires winning a hard-to-get lottery for the limited spots available. It is do-able as a day hike, but just barely - it is a 23 mile hike involving more than 5,000 feet of elevation gain. While we'd been working up to this with lots of hiking over the course of the summer, we had never done a hike longer than 12 miles, and while we had done hikes of about 4,000 feet of elevation gain, none had as long and steep an ascent as this hike had one-third of the way in. 

We left from the trailhead at 4:45am (thanks Mary Jo for dropping us off!) with headlamps to guide the way. The start of the hike went to Colchuck Lake, a hike that Henry, Mary Jo, and John had tackled three years ago. From there you climb up Aasgard Pass, an extremely steep stretch with much of the elevation gain. It takes about three hours to get to Aasgard and another two hours to climb it. Once climbed, though, you are in the Enchantments, which are an area of dozens of remote alpine lakes ringed by craggy mountains, snow, and rock (and mountain goats!). It's a relatively flat hike at that point, with one lake being more beautiful than the next.

The lakes continue for about three hours, and then you have a "short" (sarcasm intended) six hour steady descent, including past a few more lakes until the final two hours which is through the woods. We finished a mere fourteen hours after starting, with Mary Jo waiting for us in the car. 

All in all an amazing day, with lots of beautiful scenery and exertion!