Trees and Winter

New Year's Eve Magic

Seattle Autoshow

with Christian

Some B&W Pics from the Hike

 

Day Three

Somehow, I didn't get any decent pictures on the second day of the hike, but there were really only two things worth taking pictures of that day anyway.  Our lunch spot that day was beautiful.  Hopefully the other guys got some good shots, which I'll post if I can.  But before lunch - the highlight of the trip - we saw a bear.  In all my years of hiking and camping, I had never seen a bear in the wild.  We saw him about 50 yards up the hill off the trail, just minding his own business, rooting around for something to eat and walking the opposite direction from us.  I would have grabbed my camera, but the other guys insisted I had the pepper spray in my hand and ready to go (that's true, though I don't think any of us were scared; we were too excited).

At this point we were all pretty beat.  Good thing we only had the nastiest climb of the trip between us and our cars.

You can only kind of see it, but this lovely bridge only took us half way across this creek.

 This is the portion it did not span.

Luckily a trail crew had set set up a make-shift solution.  This was only the 2nd or 3rd diciest river crossing we came across.

 Last day lunch rock.

Backpacking in the North Cascades

Finally, after a couple years of frustration, I got to go backpacking again.  Mark, Kurt, Laird and I took a little 3 day, 32 mile wander through the North Cascades, starting at Easy Pass, following Fisher Creek and Thunder Creek, then out through over 4th of July Pass.

We hiked about 9.something miles the first day, which included the highest elevation and probably the best views.

Getting ourselves pumped to hit the trail.

Easy Pass trail head.

 We ran into a little weather going up the pass.

 The top of the Easy Pass...

...and the view down the other side.

It only drizzled a little bit on us, but we got soaked from hiking through the thick underbrush in the valley.

The Four Seasons

In order of preference:

1. (tie) Fall
1. (tie) Summer
3. Winter
4.
5.
6.
7. Spring