Playing catch up...

I haven't updated this blog in such a long time, I figured it was about time to get it done! I have a bunch of topics from the last 6 or so months of our lives to catch you up on :)

Alpine Lakes Wilderness - The Enchantments

The end of August 2013, 7 of our group of close friends were privileged enough to spend 5 days and 4 nights backpacking the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. We started at the Stuart/Colchuck Lake Trailhead and made our way through the loop to the Snow Lakes Trailhead, only about 20.5 miles but treacherous and grueling.

I did a lot of research reading others blogs and reviews of the hike before we set out, so I was psyched up for what was in store for us.

The first day we hiked from the Eightmile Trailhead to Colchuck Lake. Swam in the lake before dinner and then rested up for our approach to & hike up Aasgard Pass in the morning.

Beginning of Day 2

The approach to Aasgard Pass from Colchuck Lake is a bit treacherous, big boulders to climb over, under and through but we made it! And this is what it looked like from the bottom. I am pretty sure it was the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life!

Day 2 - Aasgard Pass (2,300' gain over 0.8 miles)

At the top, you first come to the Upper Basins. They are full of rocks, little vegetation and it looks absolutely surreal. There was still quite a bit of snow in areas even being late August.

We set up camp in the upper basin, night #2 and then headed down to the middle basin on day 3. We found a perfect spot to camp for the night between Inspiration and Perfection Lakes. It was high enough up to have a gorgeous view of Prusik Peak. The water was very cold, but still was fun to jump in and get cleaned up a little bit. This area was filled with mountain goats. They were pretty friendly for the most part, but we made sure we carried rocks when going to the restroom as they are after the salt in your urine.

Perfection Lake with Prusik Peak in the background

Inspiration Lake

Billy, the Goat

On the fourth day - Karla, Joey & Steve went on their own and hiked Prusik Peak and then met the rest of the group at the upper Snow Lake. The trail through the lower basin lakes is so gorgeous, the water is so clear!!! From Lake Viviane down to the Upper Snow Lake the trail is basically sheer rock cliffs. Painful on the knees and super scary, if you lost your footing you were going off the edge!

Lower Lake Basin, Sprite Lake

 Our fifth and final day we left early in the morning and hiked at a grueling speed to make it out by lunch time. 6.6 miles with about a 4,200' elevation drop. It was a great feeling when we hit the trailhead and knew we could be home taking a shower in just a few hours!!

Deception Creeks Hike

In preparation of our Enchantments Hike in August we set out on a quick overnight backpack trip a few weekends ago. We had originally planned to take #1059 Deception Creek the full 5 miles to camp at the Creek junction. After stopping at the Skykomish Ranger Station, the Ranger talked us into doing a different hike instead due to the number of hikers that were already camping on the #1059 trail.

We started out at the #1059.1 trailhead (spur to Tonga Ridge) after driving some 14+ miles on a gravel road. There were about 4 other vehicles parked at this trailhead, but we didn't encounter anyone until we reached the junction with #1059 (Deception Creek Trail) - there were a couple of campers there just as the Ranger had . The #1059.1 spur is roughly 0.7 miles, that has an elevation drop of 700'. I knew on the way down that the way out the next morning was going to be grueling!!

We continued on the #1059 across Deception Creek and then  for about 3 miles of relatively light elevation gain to the #1059.2. There were multiple blow downs and creek crossings, but nothing too difficult to get over.

Near the junction of #1059.1 and #1059 - Deception Creek log crossing

Another Deception Creek crossing

The #1059.2 to Deception Lakes is a seemingly endless array of switchbacks and elevation gain before it meets up with the Pacific Crest Trail. I thought I was going to die! ;-) After a quick break, and another 1/2 mile or so and we were at the Lakes. We camped on the "island" between the Deception Lakes and Daisy Lake. Despite the warm daytime temperature, it was very cold at night and there were LOTS of bugs also.

Deception Lakes from the camp spot

Daisy Lake

Nighttime stars!

4 year anniversary!

Isn't this so true? I am lucky I found the one I wanted to annoy for the rest of my life at the young age of 16.  Happy 4th Anniversary to my amazing, wonderful, handsome and awesome husband! You make my life so much better, you support me, you make me laugh, you make me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world! 

Lopez Island Kayaking

In mid May we went on an excursion to Lopez Island with friends, and stayed at the Spencer Spit State Park. It was opening weekend so the campground was still quite overgrown and needed a lot of work to bring it up to it's prime condition. The bonus was that there weren't many other campers there (due to early season and semi bad weather) so we had the majority of the campground to ourselves!





Lucky for us the rain on Friday and Friday night paved the way for a cleared up Saturday afternoon just in time for our sea kayaking trip around Frost Island. Unfortunately I learned the hard lesson of sunburn even with gray skies and my face got fried! :(

After kayaking we came back to the camp and made our first (of many) Dutch Oven dinner. It was a simple stew, but boy was it delicious! It's super easy for camping as you can do all the prepwork in advance (chop all desired veggies & meat, place in ziploc bag with seasoning. Put in Dutch Oven, cook for 35-45 minutes and then open a can of refrigerated biscuits - place on top and let cook for another 15-20 minutes!)



We ate more than our own fair shares of dinner  and then we walked down to the Spit and had a huge driftwood fire while watching the sun set. It was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful! There is no place like Washington!!

Man Cave Transformation

This very well could be the largest and craziest transformation yet of our fixer upper house. We built a shed in the backyard, that I will write about soon. I was so excited that after 4 years of living here, we finally were able to turn our 'family room' into just that... no more man cave!

This picture collage is a mid-way shot. About half the items had been removed, and the new window is installed. You can clearly see I had painted it a bright turquoise color called Scotch Lassie by Behr (what was I thinking?). It was so bright but yet, not bright and the cement epoxy coated floors were just not doing it for me! 

I had a Pinterest board going with ideas; most of my ideas centered around the want for it to be comfortable for the guys when they came over, but still classy and maybe a little shabby chic. That being said, I decided to go with the most popular neutral right now as the base color... grey. I chose the color Sterling by Behr. It was the perfect blend of grey with a bit of blue to give it the "guy feel".

I also had the brilliant idea of painting stripes... Of course I chose the wall that is 17' long...Yes all 17' of it was taped and painted in 13.78" wide stripes! Let me tell ya, my O.C.D. came out for sure!! I tried to read up on stripe painting using Pinterest and Google, and some of the best tips came from Emily's blog. I wish I would have taken pictures during the process. 

Here is a picture of the after (the stripes turned out awesome).

We covered up the nasty epoxy coated cement floor with a laminate by TrafficMaster called Allure. We bought it at our local Home Depot. It's waterproof vinyl laminate. It feels and looks more like real wood than the Pergo in the rest of our house. It's great for the daylight basement and I don't have to worry about the floors getting wet or scuffed up by shoes coming in from the backyard.

I was excited when we bought a set of brown leather couches for the space, but I still need to find a coffee table/ottoman, a new TV stand and a rug or two to finish it off. As it stands now, I am totally loving the feel of our new family room! Definitely a huge transformation and a lot of work.

Essex, Montana

This last weekend we road-tripped to a little town called Essex near Glacier National Park in Montana. Really the only thing that is there is about 20 vacation homes, and the Izaak Walton Inn. It's a great location for cross-country skiing & snowshoeing in the winter, and for hiking in the summer (also being so close to Glacier National Park gives you the opportunity to explore there as well).

The town is accessible by regular vehicles, which can be sketchy in the winter months, or by Amtrak Train. The Amtrak train stop is just out front of the Inn. We decided to drive for this trip, as the costs of Amtrak were so high. I was grateful we drove this time, as the scenery coming through highway 2 on the way from Sand Point, Idaho to Kalispell, Montana was absolutely breathtaking and well worth the time it takes to drive. During the day and at night, it was great fun to watch all the trains coming into the train yard, and to see the helper trains pulling the ultra-long trains over the pass. The skill and timing required to coordinate the trains is interesting to watch.  It was also truly an amazing feeling to be standing just feet from the tracks and to feel the ground shaking as the trains rolled by!

We did a bit of snowshoeing right on the Izaak Walton property's trails, as well as at the Walton Ranger Station, which is just a short down the road. The hike from the Walton Ranger Station goes to Ole Creek and then the trail continues on to Fielding Picnic Area. Before we had made it to Ole Creek, we ran into some other snowshoers on their way out who told us that there was a suspension bridge - what a great surprise!!

The snowshoeing in Essex was great, and we even got a chance to do a night shoe during a snow storm. The Izaak Walton property has a "starlight" trail that is lit at night for skiing and shoeing. It was a blast. It was also super cool to stay in the caboose lodging they have. We stayed in the JJ Caboose which had a full kitchen area, bathroom, queen bed in a bedroom and full sized bed in the second floor of the caboose. It was a great alternative to standard hotel room lodging, and fun to boot!