Mountain meadows, snowcapped mountain peak views, and some bushcraft hammock backpack camping

It started a few weeks back. I have wanted to get in a long walk and do some remote country backpacking. I have been looking at walks on one of my favorite websites for such resources for some time. Fawn and Atreyu just aren't as down to spend hours and hours strolling in the woods with a few extra pounds as I am. A few friends had gone back and forth if they wanted/could go but in the end no one did, soooooo SOLO!! 

 The trip in question is the Bonnie Butte via hidden meadows. I was planning to follow the itinerary provided on Oregonhikers.org. I was hoping to leave the house by 8 am so I could be on the trail by 10. Again.....well laid plans and all..... 

I don't get on the road until 10. Fawn and Atreyu waver on whether they are up to a backpacking trip or not. I had made secondary plans with a shorter walk just in the all too likely case they did want to go. But in the end, I do go on the solo trip if only a little later than I expected.

On the way up to the mountain, I stop in Rhododendron for a couple of beers for at camp and a snack on the way. I get a turkey and cheese sandwich, I don't want to be hungry starting out on the trail, and a few more snacks for camp, just in case.

Managed to finally get to the trial by noon and get all ready to get walking. The trailhead is not marked. I found it just by the GPS coordinates from the trail guide.
My pack is a little heavy moving out, but I'm not too worried as I'm not going too far. I won't 
give

you the turn by turn on the trail since the guide is pretty in depth and accurate. I will say a few things about how I felt about it. The very first thing I notice is that there is bear poop just right off the trail as I start, then coyote poop, then more scat and more and more. There was so 

much sign of predators in the area I actually stopped taking pictures of it. I find the trail pretty easy to follow for the most part, even though I did think I got lost for a little while, but obviously did not. There is a section where the first leg in meets up to the start of the loop  

and I had a hard time finding the trail crossing, I walked past it several times before finding it. I did realize that I need to work on my navigation skills as I thought I was following the map on the western side not realizing I was actually walking up the eastern side of the loop.....

  Where I actually do end up deviating from the trail description is when I get to the meadow.I was supposed to turn left at the meadow and go around the western edge, but I saw the signs leading to the campground and simply followed them. Not totally sure but I feel like this was a bit shorter and probably a little more pleasant of a walk, as the other way went on that bumpy road for a bit, but I did end up missing the view of Hidden Meadow. But I'm ok with the trade of seeing Bonnie Meadow a second time. 

  The meadow was beautiful. I really lucked out as I was there when at least 6 or 7 species of flowers were in full bloom. The photos I took don't even come close to show the sea of color resting on a carpet of green that was so quiet and peaceful. I could see just sitting there and letting whole days go by in quiet contemplating contentment. Just feeling the sun on your face. Listening to the bees and other insects flying all around and smelling the fresh crisp clean air. 

  Getting to the campground I run into the only people I would see the whole time on my trip. A couple with a dog on a big day walk. I take a minute to chat and we confer on where we all are on the map they are carrying before going our own separate ways. The campground was small, a few sites and a pit toilet. The road in was beat and worn, not maintained and full of giant pot holes. The sites each had a fire ring and a table and plenty of space to pitch camp. There was plentiful wood about if you were inclined to gather some rather than bringing it with you. I do recommend this camp for this hiking trip but my understanding of the road in is that it is 13 miles of what I was looking at and WOULD NOT try that in my mini-van.

   My plan is to watch the sunset on top of the Butte, so I decide to make camp have a big early dinner and get all the camp chores out of the way...
   First things first, I gotta decide my sleep system. I brought the hammock but was thinking about just cowboy camping or just setting up a simple tarp shelter. But truth be told we all know I'm gonna set up the hammock. I want to be comfortable and since I bought the stuff to do so I might as well. A combination of an ENO hammock and BearButt fly. Both pieces of gear work really well. The ENO is a little heavy and if I was going ultralight I couldn't justify the weight for the value. Placement of the hammock feels vital at this point. 
    

I want to put the hammock up somewhere near the fire, but not so close ill set myself or my gear on fire and there just doesn't seem to be anywhere that quite fits the bill, so....plan B. I decided to go ahead and put those bushcraft skills to use and build a tripod to hang my system. 

   I find 3 poles at least as long as I am with my hands up in the air and clean all the little twigs off of them, tie them together really well at one end and try it out, NOPE. A second, more successful try after a finding a way to press the poles into the ground and we are hung up. 

   Take a short break and then get dinner going. Cooking on the old MSR stove I make a combo dinner with little ramen noodles and an MRE (meatballs and sauce) that I picked up at Winco...... maybe it was because I walked 7 miles that day, but it wasn't too bad. I will openly admit, I even liked it.

   I got cleaned up, gather up some wood for a fire, and pack a little bag with just the essentials: a couple snacks, emergency supplies, water and a rain cover. All set and ready to go head up to the top of Bonnie Butte.The walk was pretty short and the trail was wide and easy to follow but fairly steep. The top of the Butte offered views in 360 degrees of several snow-capped mountains fields of wildflowers, the dessert off on the east and trees as far as the eye could see. Besides the fact I was standing on an old road and there was some signage here, one couldn't see evidence of people for miles and miles. The only way I was reminded that of human activity were the big dam (Bonneville?) and a bunch of wind turbines, both so far away I could only see them as specks with the naked eye.

   I had brought a book and was going to sit and read until the sun went down but I was decidedly exhausted and my camera batteries were quickly waning and I still had a mile walk ahead of me back to camp. I strolled back down to camp for some relaxing by the fire instead. The rest of the night is fairly uneventful. I pop a couple of beers and hang in the hammock with a book.

**Side Note** One of my beers was McMenamins Hammerhead IPA, a signature brew made by a local company based out of Portland. If you just about anywhere in the PacNW you know McMenamins. Very tasty beer, hoppy and refreshing, came in a can for the win.

Morning is standard on the trail morning. A small fire to warm up a few minutes, eat as much oatmeal and trail-mix as I can stuff into my gullet so I don't have to carry it. Filter just a little bit more than enough water to get me down to the trailhead. Break camp, pack up and start walking.

Walking back out is mostly just a walk. Other than the steep incline first thing of the day leading to several viewpoints, including the view over a lake and a valley, there is a time when I need to sit down because the insole of my foot starts screaming in pain and I need to suck down a few ibuprofen to make the 7 miles in just about 2.5 hours. Hit up a coffee spot for a breakfast sandwich and a hot cup on the way home.

A couple notes;
 I used the Sawyer Mini on this trip for my water filtering needs. It works great. The only thing I didn't like about it is the bag doesn't inflate really well and is not so easy to get all the water back out, forcing me to sit by the creek edge for longer than I think I really needed to. I think in the future I'll just pop this on top of a little disposable water bottle. It'll add less than an ounce to my pack and I'm certain it'll work way better.

On the topic of water: I realized the location of this trip was on the eastern side of Mt Hood which is a much more arid section than the opposite slope. I carried in with me 2 liters of water, which I considered the minimum I could get away with for an overnight and cooking the things I did. Walking up I was concerned that it would be the only water I'd have. Bonnie Creek is right at the camp and I definitely would just go one bottle on this trip again. I might still have some concern as it was only a small creek and somewhat of a trickle when I was there in early July. By late August or early Sept, I'm not sure I personally would rely on this being a reliable water source. Take your own chances

Look for my newest adventure soon. The fam and I have since gone up to Rialto Beach the town of LaPush for a quick weekend.

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I also will be trying out the camping vlog format. I took a lot of video on this trip so keep an eye out for that on youtube.

Pyramid Lake trip. Backpacks, Hammocks, Swimming with Salamanders, and a Bushcraft Safety Lesson

 The weather started out a little dreary as the trip began. Atreyu, Everest, and I have headed out to Pyramid Lake, a remote lake with a little bit of a party reputation, not my impression at all when we got there, more on that later. It is Friday around noon before we finally get headed towards our destination. The drive is a little gloomy for a big part of it but we gun straight there. It is an overnight trip and I have to work tomorrow night so we have to plan to be back out early. 

  The last stretch of the road is pretty close in, maybe the last few miles are all dirt road and unimproved. We got to the trailhead around 2:30-3 pm. Take a few minutes to get all our gear on and car locked up and get out on the trail. I was expecting a low gradient and not too long a walk in, I wanted to take it easy on Atreyu and we do need to be out early.  The trail immediately goes uphill. All up hill. All of the uphill for the whole walk in the first 300 yards. Steep. Pretty steep. 

   It does turn out to be a short walk however and once we reach the top of the hill we are near the lake edge already.

  The first campsite we come to does indeed look like a party spot: oversized fire ring, several long large logs as benches near the fire pit, some random garbage, evidence of unnecessary cutting of wood (some green even) and a raft built and placed near the water.  

   The raft was kinda cool. I mean someone built a raft, but they could have/ should have taken it apart. Truth be told I'm not sure It was very seaworthy. I wasn't going to take it out and just give it a try for fun, but if it was a survival situation I might have been willing to give it a go, with a 50/50 chance I'd be swimming half the distance of the lake. Not a chance I'm willing to take for a photo op in the blog wearing all my clothes and backpack. 

    We decide against this spot for camping, partly because we have plenty of time to stroll around the lake and find a nicer spot and partly because we only brought hammocks and there's no place to hang them.  

  

    Strolling around the lake we do come across several campsites. The further we get away from the access trail the move inviting the spots become.  The trail takes us clockwise around the lake and through a narrow trail that becomes lost in areas and has small stretches that are straight bushwacking.

Summer 2017

   After hiking about 2/3 of the lake we cross a talus field and Everest leading the pack shouts how he found a great spot. He did. Perfect. This spot has access to the lake nad great hammock hanging spots. Someone even built a chair out of rocks here.  

My Bright Shining Star.

  There were two separate fire pits here so I have to fix that quick. I take the pieces from the two of them and build one good fireplace. There is a lot of duff on the ground so I build the fireplace on top of a series of flat rocks so as not to catch the ground on fire. We then dig a hole in the ground where the remnants of the older/less well-constructed fire are to bury the old coals. 

When we are done you can't tell there was ever two there. With the new and improved fire pit ready we get to some more camp chores. The plan was to get the water filtered with a new system and realized I either lost it on the trail or left it in the car, hopefully, its in the car. I built a bench out of a log and couple of rocks that are laying in the middle of camp. While building the bench my saw slips and cuts a nice little cut in two of my fingers. Not bad but a scary reminder to be careful when using sharp tools and good practice with my first aid kit. We collect firewood and get the hammocks hung. 
   The hammocks are both ENO hammocks. Atreyu and I are rocking the DoubleNest and Everest has the Double Deluxe. I really like this system for camping. SO comfy,  little tough sometimes when Atreyu and I share one but still cozy. 
     With all else done its time to get the fire going for dinner and go for a swim. I started the fire with a ferrous rod for the first time. It took a few minutes of tries but I got it. A nice soak in the lake and we find a salamander swimming around and are able to just ever so gently scoop it up out of the water. So cool. We start to get cold after a  little while and jump out and warm up by the fire while I get dinner ready.
    Dinner is a special treat, ribs cooked on a stick right over the coals and some instant garlic mashed potatoes. Ribs were a little tough but very tasty and the instant mashed potatoes hit the spot.
   A couple of obligatory marshmallows and red boxed wine are a perfect treat after dinner. The sun sets and darkness starts to creep in. Stars and the full moon shine in the night over the lake and it is good to just soak it in.
   We all settle in for a quiet night listening to an owl and the peeper frogs, sit by the fire and read and talk.
   Morning brings oats and coffee and a slow relaxing morning. We pack up and walk back out the way we came in case I had lost my new filter along the path. When we got to the van it is there. We roll out and head home. 

Backpacking and bushwacking. A beautiful weekend on a secluded lake.

It all started as it always does.... with a trip idea. The original plan was to go ultralight backpack and hike into the remote Indian Heaven Wilderness to Chenamus Lake and camp out for a couple nights. Things don't always go as planned. And that's not always a bad thing.
Day 1. We didn't get out on the road until mid afternoon, but the drive was only about an hour and a half and weren't walking in too far, so I figured we'd still be all set up by 7, which with a late sun is enough time to get some dinner going and chill out a bit. The core team (Fawn and Atreyu) and I headed out with Everest and Luna for what was planned as about a two-mile hike past Placid Lake to Chenamus Lake and set up the tents and have some yummy grub. We'll see.... what happened was.... it was super snowy STILL, even in the last week of June. The trail was covered in hard packed ice and snow in some spots and in others there were standing ice water puddles (Luna didn't mind). There were several spots where blown down trees required going over, under or around, not always easy carrying a pack. Atreyu was having a hard time with the walk and we're all kinda bushed when we see Placid lake. There is a gorgeous campsite near the water right on the edge of a meadow, firewood and a couple of fire rings.  It's already starting to get late, we simply decided to stay.  We couldn't have made a better decision. I take down two of the fire rings and fix one of them, while Everest and Fawn get the camp together. Atreyu chased Luna around and whacked things with a stick. Everybody has to contribute to camp to make it a success. We get dinner going and set down to eat.  We brought WAY more food than any 4some needs for two days but we want to be comfortable. Dinner the first night is ramen noodles, with chicken and veggies. A crowd favorite. The sun is still high in the sky and the lake is clear and shallow with a sandy/muddy bottom, the water is warmish, not warm but not uncomfortable and we do a little wading hanging by the lake edge. Atreyu and I find tiny frogs on the lake edge and he catches a couple. **SideNote** There isn't a whole lot cuter than a 4-year-old with a tiny frog in their fist, being 'Oh So Careful'.

As evening rolls around and the temperature starts to drop we all scoot around the campfire. We have tea and roast marshmallows and just lounge around. As the sun sets behind the trees and the sky begins to darken the sounds of the thousands, of peeper frogs, get louder and louder to the point you can't hear much else and actually need to raise your voice just a touch to keep a conversation going. Atreyu gets off to bed and Fawn isn't far behind him. The night sky begins to darken the small crescent moon plays with the horizon and gives just enough light to see where the meadow ends and the lake begins. Everest and I spend 30-40 minutes just standing on the water's edge staring at the millions of stars as they show more and more brightly. The milky way becomes evident only as the moon ducks under the tree line and I am reminded of the true glory that only a sky full of stars can have.

That night as I lay in bed still imagining how very small I am compared to all of existence, the frogs stopped chirping. Like ALL of them, At Once. DEAD SILENCE. 10 seconds go by, 20, 30 maybe 45 seconds before another sound. I laid there, frozen, listening with alert intent. Then, they slowly began again and within a moment the sound is near deafening and all feels right in the world, as I drift off to sleep.

Day 2: Like most mornings in camp, I'm up super early. I make a fire and get the coffee going. I sit and watch the day begin as the sun comes up.

Eventually, everyone else gets up and we have oatmeal and coffee for breakfast. We had a bunch of goodies to put in oatmeal: dried berries and apples and nut selection. We all lounge for a lazy morning for a bit, then we get cleaned up and ready for a walk. I pack a lunch and we head out to find the lake we came to see in the first place.

Remember when I said things don't always go as planned? This hike is one of those things. We tried to find the trail to Chenamus Lake again. We started by following what I thought was the trail and followed along with some orange tags on trees that seemed to mark a clear trail. They did not. We ended up on a bushwhack all the way around Placid Lake, which we only realized when we got to a clearing on the lake and could see our camp across s the water. But it was a good hike. Brush and brambles over and under around and through. We were forced to tromp and push through some pretty thick brush but we made it and had a good day anyway. We stopped along the trail and had lunch, meat and cheese wraps and some gorp. Yum.

Back to camp and the plan is "not much". We go for a dip in the lake and try a little fishing with a "pole" I made from some extra paracord and a stick (it didn't work) and just watch the day go by. Some naps, some feet soaking. Hanging in the hammock and resting against a log. We make a leisurely dinner of raspberry scones and veggie sausage with cheesy rice n broccoli. A few more marshmallows and some more tea. A quiet night just sitting by the fire. Luna and I used each other as pillows and dozed off right on the ground. Everest and I watched a bat flying around for a bit and I found a giant toad in the grass. Fairly uneventful, but so satisfying.

Day 3: The morning was chill as well. Keep it simple. A buffet of everything left to eat we don't want to have to carry back out, which means giant bowls of oatmeal full of all kinds of stuff, and quesadillas with cheese and various dried and cured meats as well as several pots of coffee. We break camp and head back out on the trail which seems so much shorter this time for some reason and Fawn points out that she thinks a lot of the snow has melted since we'd gone through. We get back to the car and head on down the road, a quick stop for coffee at the drive through and back over "The Bridge of the Gods" and home in time to get showered and ready for work.

We didn't bring anything new on this trip but it was the first time we backpacked with our small tent, The Drifter 3 from Mountain Hardware. Which incidentally was exactly the right size for us on this trip. I know there are lighter tents out there and of course, I would love to have one, but this tent was just right this time. The weight of carrying it in versus the amount of space it offered was well worth it. We fit Atreyu, Fawn, Luna and me all in this for sleeping. No Problems. The two only issues I even had were the fact that Luna was on my bed when I tried to climb in it and deciding whether to bring all the parts or not. TBH we never even used the fly, but originally I planned on only going with the fly and poles but reports said there were tons of mosquitos in this area, which there are, so we needed the mesh. All in All I wold definitely recommend this tent or a similar product by mountain hardware but be aware this isn't a tent you want to carry in just for yourself or even a couple. This is a three person tent and three people are what make the size and weight worth the carry.

As I am finishing writing this we are planning a new trip and will head out for an overnight tomorrow. A new backpack trip, a new lake, AND I got a new camera, so look for tons of great pics on the next one.

Last thing. Let me ask you guys for some constructive criticism. What do you like or don't like about my blog? What would you like more of? I'm working on a new site and would love the feedback in the comments below. Like everywhere else, remember to like and subscribe. Hit that + button on Google.  And share the heck out of my stuff here. Love you all. Talk to you soon.

Alpine hike, waterfalls and camping in Mt Rainier

I'm gonna try something new this time. I usually sit a few days after the adventure has been completed and I've had a chance to decompress and then write all the stuff I can remember that I thought was worth sharing.  This time I'm gonna try to keep a log as it goes. So here I am typing on the computer when I should be cleaning out the van. I have so much to do today to make this trip happen. So much planning and preparation goes into a big trip when you want everything to be just right. I have been googling and reading and viewing and planning for weeks on this. Then comes menu and gear lists. Then you gotta put it all together. I staged all our gear yesterday. I'm bringing too much stuff.

Why a mini-van? This is why. 

Day 1: When I'm done typing this I need to go get MORE stuff. Last minute items like milk and eggs and I need to replace Atreyu's good hiking socks, the ones I replaced the last time we went on a big trip, dog food and stuff like that. After that it'll be pack it up and get the van loaded. I'm hoping to get it done quickly so I can get a nap in, as is customary with these big trips I got less than 4 hours sleep last night.
Noon. The van is packed. People have asked me, why buy a minivan, actually they said it more like "seriously dude... a minivan?" This thing is packed for the apocalypse, and in no uncertain terms if the big one hit and the van was all packed No Problem (as long as I could get out of the city with it intact....). Our team could fo sho survive the whole summer, plenty of time to build permanent set up for the cold wet months. Tangent: If I could choose the best time of year to have a bug-out scenario, this time of year would be be it, tons of easily identifiable wild edibles about to start popping up and plenty of time to put in a few summer crops before cold comes back. Side note, this dog is seeing me pack up the van and is all the way up my butt. No Luna, I'm not gonna leave you behind.
1pm. All packed up. Seriously, we are bringing WAY too much stuff. BUT... Then again. It IS car camping we are allowed to be comfy. I'm gonna wash some dishes and clean up around the house then fill the tank and my coffee cup and go get the rest of the team.

**The idea to 'write as I go' rather than all at once didn't go as planned. More on that later.**


Get the team and were on the road by 4. Hit a little bit of traffic on the way but make it to camp by 7ish and set right up at site A-18 in the Ohanapecosh Campground. Home away from

home for the next few days. We 
picked a spot, set up on a bluff over looking the river. Get camp all set and make some quick and easy dinner. Franks and beans on the stove. Get settled in and just spend the rest of the evening relaxing by the fire before bed.


I always seem to wake up early in camp. I get the fire going, and get coffee on. I found an old, new to me, aluminum percolator at a yard sale and that is bubblin away before too long. Luna and I are running around and playing tag for an hour before anyone else is up in the campground. Breakfast is small, just bacon and eggs, bagels and some fresh cantaloupe slices. MAN..... I forgot the cream cheese. Clean up at our leisure and start our 'day two' portion of the adventure. Our first stop is the "Grove of the Patriarchs". A short easy stroll over a cable bridge and on a boardwalk through an ancient grove of giant trees. The walk is beautiful, a gentle stroll just about anyone could manage, the bridge is a little scary but totally safe and the boardwalk is good for keeping the little ones on the trail and on target. I'd say the whole walk, including the full loop comes in just about 1 mile. Atreyu did OK on this walk, he wanted to stomp though the brush and run around a lot. But he was impressed with the size and scope of the grander trees, as we all were. After the grove we head over to "Paradise", a mountain top resort and visitor center near the top of Rainier. The drive over is spectacular, a 23 mile drive took us over an hour and a half because I drove hella slow and kept stopping to take pictures. Fawn was starting to get irritated.

Fawns idea of camp chores.

Natural curiosity

One of many I had to stop and take.

Paradise was cool. It was 60 degrees and sunny when we were there and the snow was 12 feet deep. We didn't do a whole lot up there the first trip, I got some info for a few hikes I wanted to do, we got coffees, checked out the gift shop and played in the snow for a while. On the way back to camp we stopped at Narada Falls for a peek. Man being lazy is tiring. So we just made up a few brats with sauteed veggies on the grill and hung out in the hammock, I baked chocolate chip cookies on the fire. Fawn and Atreyu took it easy and I went for a walk. The campground started to fill up around dinner time and we got neighbors on both sides.... ugh. But everyone was quiet even if they were giant groups of people. And we chilled out with some hot tea and listened to the river go by.

Silver Falls

Moving right along. Up super early again. Bubblin away..... its nice to not have to boil water, then wait for coffee to steep just to have the coffee be cold by the time you get to drink it. A lazy morning with oatmeal and fresh corned beef hash and cheesy toast. Luna loves camping because she knows we don't want to keep leftovers. And off to a walk. 2.5 mile loop that includes a stop at the Ohanapecosh hot springs and Silver Falls. The hot springs are cool but you can't soak in them, sorta unimpressive. The falls are amazing and you might never guess they were there until you're right on top of them. The river runs blue/green, wild and fast. It cuts a hole in the side of the mountain and seems to break through the rock into the ravine where it boils and churns. There is a sight and smell and chill in the air when your standing over the bridge that makes you feel like your both an interconnected part of the world and yet such a small part that if you were to be swept away it would be just like erasing you from the memory of the world. After our big walk we head back to camp and make a late lunch/early dinner. Burgers and mac-n-cheese, told you keepin it simple. The fam lounges around while I do camp chores (cleaning up and cutting wood) then I went for a stroll just to find some peace and quiet. After a long nap we do a quick trip into the little town of Packwood, which is just a short drive outside the park.

Luna St.Helen Mae

A couple little quick things about Packwood, super cute little mountain town. The people all seemed super friendly: I got into a chat with an old timer, the girls at the coffee shop were in good spirits even just a few minutes before closing, and the lady at the visitor center let me come in for a minute even though she was technically closed. Beer was limited choice and expensive. They seem to have a lot of tourist attraction events. We refill coffee cups and buy a sticker, some fruit and a beer for around the campfire.

We roll through a National Forest campground on the way back to camp. Atreyu has a hard time going down for bed tonight and finds it more fun to bite and scratch me in the hammock, which Fawn (hillariously *cough, cough*) takes photos of instead of helping me but he finally wears down and goes to bed and Fawn and I chill by a ripping fire.

Sunday morning comes, and I couldn't be more excited. Not because its the last day, for the sake of what my plans are. Breakfast is granola and coffee ( I just gotta say one more time that the  percolator was awesome) We do the last of our clean up and put camp away.   **I often will pack away most of whatever we aren't going to use on the last morning the night before. **   Do the scan for ANY bits of garbage, not just ours (rule #1) and pour a gallon of water on the fire (rule #2). Back up to Paradise. I'm gonna do an alpine hike WOOHOO!! #Excited. Fawn and Atreyu plan to play in the snow and snuggle by a fire with some hot cocoa until I get back. I originally wanted to do a 5 mile loop that went past several glaciers, but they were only allowing permitted climbers through 80% of the section as there was huge avalanche danger, so that left really only two options, I talk to a ranger and we look at the web cam at the top and I choose the hike that is more likely to offer me a view. I decided to walk the "Vista Loop Trail" 1.8 miles trudging through the snow to a lollipop with a short vista off shoot, that looks out onto the Nisqually Glacier. Not another soul on the trail. **Lollipop is an out and back hike with a loop at the end. ** I realize after 3 steps I should've brought trekking poles with me but I'm determined. My reward was a view that renewed my faith. I was literally brought to tears. Looking out over the valley at waterfalls and creeks below literally seeping straight out of the bottom of the glacier and becoming the Nisqually River. In this moment I thought about all the things in my life that I was thankful for, I took time to reflect and to just be present like I haven't done in a very long time. I was blessed to be in that space and in that time. That view was something I never knew I needed and will never forget what it gave me in that short time I was there.

The rest of the trip seems fairly small in comparison thinking back on it. The whole thing was such a grand adventure and yet the whole of it was swallowed by just a couple of minutes.

The rest of our trip was more good stuff. I met back up with the team and we decided to head out from there. We stopped for lunch at a little roadside place,  IDR the name.... but the food was good and we got a great piece of pie togo. We stopped at Ike Kinswa state park to stretch the legs and let Atreyu and Luna get some running time in. After that we beat feet home. Tired, dirty and groggy. Unload the van, begin the process of resetting the gear and eat some pie.

A few reviews:

We did end up buying a new tent for this trip. I didn't want to have the review take up a lot of room in the post itself so I saved it for now. We bought the Coleman Flatwoods 2, four person tent. We were looking for something affordable and spacious, and we got it. I can say resoundingly I would NOT recommend this tent, unless.... your ONLY specifications are affordable and spacious. You can find this tent at most common retailers ie: Target, Walmart, Amazon. We got this tent hoping it would be of similar quality to the last Coleman tent we had, but no. This tent is poorly designed. It would be a great starter tent for someone with little to no experience that want something that easy to put up and will only be camping in summer weather months. It says this tent is tested to 35 mph winds, I wouldn't trust that at all. Trey had so much as simply leaned a little on the side and it looked that it would just cave in. I gave it so much as the most gentle tug and the poles bent right in. The door is cool looking but awkward and difficult. The fabric looks pretty good but I'm not sure I'd bet the dryness of all my gear on a whole trip to this tent. Coleman doesn't even sell this tent on their website. When I took it down the poles retained the bend a little.... that really makes me nervous. I mean my family is supposed to sleep in this thing. It'll do fine for this summer but I'm not going to mess around and keep this thing for long.


Ohanapecosh Campground: I saved a review of the camp for last because I have a lot to say about it TBH. So first impression. Cramped. I guess you might expect that from a place that boasts 2 million visitors a year and most of them come in the same 2 months but do the campsite literally need to be right on top of each other. No privacy what-so-ever. No quiet, even when it was quiet. There were only 3 loops (A-B-C) open in the campground even though they had 8 available. The loops that weren't open looked like they would be even more on top of each other in some areas. When everyone started to build all the fires for the night there was a visible haze all through the valley the camp was in. Granted, I also built a fire but isn't that the point, isn't everyone going to, didn't they know that when they started developing the campground... The sites all had fire PLATFORMS instead of pits, which is cool because it made them easy to cook on and it kinda made it necessary to keep the fire smaller so one wouldn't get too hot sitting next to it. The fire platform also had a grill top that came down and could be cooked directly on as well as a flat iron space that doubled as a heat reflector when it was up and a griddle when it was down. I did near all of my cooking right on that griddle, just threw down some foil and went to town. It worked out perfectly. I don't think everyone else put that together. Each spot had its own bear box, which totally defeats the idea of a bear box to me, 200+ campsites all with metal boxes full of food less that 20 feet from the nearest tent... I mean just tell people they need to keep their food in the car.... The encampment also had flush toilets and potable water but no showers, if your going to charge $25 just to drive into the park and another $20 a night for camping and then smash us all in together like sardines can we at least not have to smell each other. I mean we were all sitting by the fire all night and hiking all day, sweat happens, not to mention "camp diet".  I don't want my random stranger neighbor to smell me anymore than I want to smell him. The last little thing, because I wasn't paying enough attention, (or because it's 2017) is that on the map of the campground and all the pictures seem to have the little wifi symbol soooooo... I thought there was wifi. There isn't, they have a amphitheatre and that is what that symbol means. Yup... I did that, that is why I went back to original format.

The thing that bothered me most of all though was the lack of empathy for dogs. This is important to know if you go to any national park (all that I have been so far) dogs are not very welcome. They can stay in your camp and in parking lots, but not on ANY trails, not even just one around the outside perimeter of the camp, you can't leave them in your campsite unattended and you cant leave them in your car.... My dog is part of my family, we try not to let her walk off trail, we don't let her chase critters and we clean up after her. Whats the big deal? C'mon Parks system, lets get at least one dog friendly trail per campground... huh? Thanks




HEY!! I Got an idea!! I'll send this tent to one person who either subscribes, shares or comments on this post. One entry per person per thing you do.  So FREE TENT to one lucky winner. If I only get one person to enter we will know who will win. I'll pick the winner as soon as I replace it. LOL.