October Rain

As was mentioned in September's rain posting, October is normally known as Fogtober.  Well, this year it was known as Sogtober!  Sheesh!  We received 10.66" of rain...that twice as much as we typically get in November (which is the rainy month).  And because there was so much rain...the fog was almost nonexistent!  We are a little worried as to what November will bring...stay tuned!

September Rain

September moved in the typical direction as far as rain is concerned.  We registered 2.52" of rain and 1.5" of that fell in one day.  Leaves are turning and there is definitely a coolness upon us that is referred to as fall.  Get ready for Fogtober!

Jared's Day of Hiking (End of Summer)

It has been a hectic summer, and there has not been a lot of time for exploring the mountains of Washington, so Jared decided to head out to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.  There are a lot of mountain lakes in this area, and we haven't seen but a few thus far.  So today Jared decided to try to hit four lakes, with three of them being new to us.

This trail was washed out just a few years ago, but the trail team put in a new fancy bridge that is much higher to hopefully avoid natures winter and spring wrath.  This is a wilderness area, so we have no idea how they got that giant I-beam there and got it mounted across this wash of boulders?!

About 1.5 miles up the trail is the first lake: Trout Lake.  This is a nice little lake, and Jared has been to this one before.  It always seems to have a few trout raising, but he's not had much luck catching any of them!

As you leave Trout Lake, you start winding up a long climb (often with no shade) towards a hanging valley where Copper Lake and Malachite Lake reside.  It's about 2 miles or so up to this point, and it is forever up.  There are some amazing views on the way, like this winding waterfall which it turns out is the outlet of Copper Lake.

Here's another cool little log bridge... stuff like this is what makes these trails so cool.

About 1/2 mile or so before you get to Copper Lake, there is a turn off to Malachite Lake.  It is only 1/4 mile from this point up to Malachite Lake, but it is incredibly steep and often requires scrambling on all fours.  But, it was well worth it!

This is where Jared stopped for lunch and also did a bit of fishing.  He had the lake to himself at this point which was excellent.  He also caught two trout!  Both little rainbows.  You can kind of see one in the shot below... isn't easy to snap a shot while trying to land it!

Malachite Lake was awesome, but daylight was burning.  Jared needed to get going if he was to make it to two more lakes!  So back down the steep trail and on to Copper Lake!  And... here is the outlet!

And, finally, Copper Lake!

There were some really amazing mountains just behind the lake.  Here is a closer shot.

And here is where Jared took a breather and soaked in the views.  He took a few casts here, but the fishing was not what it was at Malachite.

After resting for a bit, it was time to get going to the next lake.  It was another mile or so, and he still needed to hike all the way back out before dark.  The trail followed Copper Lake for quite a ways, giving some great views.

Next up was Little Heart Lake.  This was a pretty small lake indeed, and it didn't have the best shore access.  It was another mile or so to Big Heart Lake, but it wasn't in the cards for today.  Here is Little Heart Lake.

Jared tried some casts from this rock, but didn't get even a single bite.  It looked good at least.

So time to head back.  It was getting to be late afternoon, which allowed for some great light on the waters of Copper Lake!

Here is a part of the trail just after leaving Copper Lake.  Basically, a bunch of boulders lined up to hop across the outlet.

It was definitely getting late as he passed Trout Lake on the way out.

Of course, no trip up here would be complete without getting a picture of this giant douglas fir!  It sits nearly right in the middle of the trail between Trout Lake and the trail head!  It's hard to capture its size on camera, but you can see how big Jared's backpack looks sitting next to it!

Well, maybe we'll see you again next summer giant fir tree!

Summer Vacation 2016 -- Heading Home

Well as with all things, it is time to start heading home.  Labor Day Weekend is now upon us and the traffic is notoriously bad on the Sunday and Monday of Labor Day weekend.  Since everyone was full and we couldn't find a place to stay an extra night...we are heading back to Woodinville.  On our way back though we hit Ruby Beach.  Another very pretty beach as long as the tide is out...it appears that if the tide is in, there really isn't much beach.  Lucky for us we hit this one right!

There is a very short hike down to the beach.  As is typical with Washington Beaches, the trail is tree-lined and very well established.

As you make it through the clearing, this is what you see...pretty nice, huh?  Time and time again, we are impressed with the beaches in Washington State...if we could have only hit it on a sunny warm day just imagine how what a great view!

A lighthouse off in the distance...

Kristina checking out the tide pools and water...

Until next time.

Next we headed towards Kalaloch Lodge.  Kristina wanted some coffee for the road trip and we would have like to have stayed here, but they were completely booked up.  Once we arrived, we could see why.  Check out the website and see what a great place it is.

After stopping to get some coffee and take a bathroom break, we headed for Lake Quinault Lodge for lunch.  We didn't realize we didn't take any pictures until writing this blog post, but again, check out the link.  It is a very nice Lodge and we ate in the Roosevelt Dining Room -- actually at one of the tables pictured on the website.  You could tell it was a happening place with lots of people (including a wedding to soon start).  We took that queue and headed out.

From there, we headed through Olympia and north to Woodinville.  It was a good trip and it was nice to get away from reality and life for at least a little while...

Happy Labor Day!

Summer Vacation 2016 -- Forks, WA

For the next leg of our trip, we headed to Forks, WA.  For those of you that think Forks, WA sounds familiar...well, it is where the Twilight movies were filmed and they their best to get every last bit of advertisement out of THAT!

We arrived at the Miller Tree Inn in Forks, WA late Wednesday (08/31).  We had the Weathervane Room booked from Wednesday night through Saturday morning.  It was a nice Bed and Breakfast and the people that ran it were super nice.  It was a clean, quiet, and very comfortable setting.  Not as fancy as places that we had stayed earlier in our trip, but the people were super nice and the breakfasts were yummy!

As we arrived in Forks, WA, the rain arrived (or followed us) as well.  It turned out to be a few soggy days, but we are Washingtonians and we just throw on a hoodie and head out!

Wednesday night, we arrived, settled in, and turned in early.  It had been a full few days.  Thursday morning, we woke up and headed out to Rialto Beach.  It was a soggy day, but not too bad.  When we got there is was mostly a misty drizzle and because of that, there weren't a lot of people there.  And although the weather wasn't the greatest, you could see that it was a nice beach!

Heavy skies and decent waves accompanied us as we walked the beach.  Lots of driftwood and rocks on the beach as well.  It reminded us a bit of Canon Beach in Oregon -- with all of the the little rock islands out in the water, but near the shore.

Lots of varied scenery and we enjoyed it in our SHORTS!  It wasn't exactly shorts weather, but we are on vacation!

Rocks on the beach varied in size -- all were round and flat in shape.

Since the tide was out, we could see various little creatures in the tide pools as we walked down the beach.  Always interesting to see what you can find.

The waves create some interesting rocks and formations.

A couple of brave surfers braving the weather in their wet suits and catching a few waves here and there.

We made it back to the truck just in time.  The rain started to really come down.  So we crawled into the truck and made our way to lunch.  Then after lunch, we decided to head to the Hoh Rain Forest and check it out.

While lunch was good, the Hoh Rain Forest was a bust.  It was POURING down rain when we got there and we had gear for drizzle, but not for full on RAIN.  We hid out in the truck for a while, even taking a nap and hoping the rain would pass.  No such luck though...

Since the rain forest was a bust, we decided to drive around a little bit -- we headed out to La Push and checked out some of the beaches out there.  However, it was still raining.  We decided to head back to the B&B and call it a day.  At least the US Open was on and Kristina could catch some tennis since there wasn't anything we could do outside.

Friday morning we got up, headed down to breakfast, and decided to go out and try again.  The weather still wasn't the best, but we had an agenda and we were going to try and see as many beaches as possible.  Our first stop was Third Beach.

Third Beach had a nice trail from the road down to the beach (Strawberry Bay).  The trail was super scenic and only 1.2 miles one way.  It was the normal Washington drizzle, so we headed out and boy, we were glad we did.

It is always fun when you start to see the beach...

There was a little maneuvering to be done to get to the actual beach.  We went to the right when we should have gone to the left...but nothing that we couldn't overcome.

After we got down to the left side, we were happy we did.  As you can see there was some blue sky and the beach was sandy and just spectacular.  Again, we strolled down the beach taking photos and just checking things out.  We had no idea that there were so many nice beaches on the Washington coast.

Kristina in her bright yellow jacket...she can always been seen!

Waterfalls coming out of the trees from all of the rain we had the past day or so...

We had the beach mostly to ourselves, so we decided to take advantage of it and take some photos of us and the scenic backdrop.

We headed back up the trail, hopped into the truck, and headed to the Hoh Rain Forest.  Jared was going to get out and see the rain forest no matter what.  Luckily we hit a patch of blue skies and the weather cooperated.

Here's a deer nibbling on some grass near the start of our hike through the Hall of Mosses!

There were several tourist hiking loops around the rain forest.  We pretty much hit them all -- they all had something different to offer.

We are always amazed at the crazy mushrooms we see in Washington...the rain forest was no exception.

Hall of Mosses was indeed an accurate description...

Drizzle would come back, but it remained a drizzle and we continued onward.

Since we are in the Hoh Rain Forest, it only makes sense that the Hoh River runs through it...

We love when the trees look all misty and spooky!

It was pretty cool hiking around the Hoh Rain Forest...looking forward to coming back in better weather some time and getting to hike on some of the longer trails that have less people!

By the time we finished with the rain forest, it seemed like things were clearing up a bit.  So we decided to go hit another beach...this time it was Second Beach.  Second Beach is almost right next to the road...about 1/2 mile hike.  Again, not strenuous at all...just a nice hike down to the beach.  And when we got there, it was spectacular.

The sun had finally come out and the skies were clearing -- just in time for sunset.  That's okay though...it was paradise, even if only for a short time.

The tide was out again, so we had lots of tide pools to check and see creatures.

We could have stayed at Second Beach even longer, but it was starting to get dark and there were tons of people setting up camp along the beach for the night.  We couldn't really blame them!  It would have been hard to beat as a camping spot!