Sunday, November 24, 2013

Mount Si

Last week we hiked up Mount Si, a little 4000 footer in the foothills of the Cascades. The doorstep to Snoqualmie Pass, which had about a foot or more of snow last weekend. We had cancelled this trip twice already and we were not cancelling again-rain or shine..or snow.

So, we drove out and started here-This is the trailhead.

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But the trail looked more like this-

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Very beautiful with big trees, ferns, and little waterfalls.

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Then we hit climate change-

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Yep, snow. But at least the dripping stopped when we hit snow level, about 1/2 way up.

The amazing thing was all the people running up and down the trail, and what they were wearing, which was a lot of shorts. Shorts! Even many of the non runners had shorts on. Wow. I had my flannely pants on with long underwear, a turtleneck with a tank liner and a wool sweater under my waterproof shell. Although I did take off the sweater until we hit the top. Still. If I could have taken a picture of some of those shorts I would have.

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Dave, pushing up the last quarter mile.

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And at the top-

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I think the views are spectacular-when there are views. There are kind of views-a bit of a teaser I suppose. But even so I thought the walk was worth it and wonderful.

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Best of the whole thing, though, was that Julie and I continued our “Knitting in the Wildnerness” series, part 2.

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Are you kidding me? Imagine how impressed the other hikers, upon cresting the hill, were to see the dedication we had to our craft. Or they just thought we were a wee bit, um, strange. No, knitters cannot be defined. Stay tuned for part 3.

We also had a group shot on the way up. A hiker passed us and offered, and we couldn’t say no.

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I got a mug shot of Dave.

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I was trying to get him to do a regular smile, not so much.

These little birds, I call them Camp Robbers, were waiting for us at the top. Dave (S, not Dave M) said Look out because they’ll dive right at you to get food-and right then one dove right at me to get a taste of my peanut butter sammy.

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They look so sweet-but not so much.

This one is still looking at my lunch.

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And after a quick snack, back down we went, back through the weather in reverse. Until we were back out of the snow and down to bare ground.

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Dave (M, not S) said it sure was weird to walk into snow, then be able to walk away from it.

I suppose he’s right, for him. But I’ve always known that secret-that you could go to snow in the winter-AND get away from it. Here, in the PNW.

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A little bit of color in the woods.

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