Results tagged “hiking”

Authorities have decided to let a wildfire burning in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness run its course. Considering this is one of the most beautiful areas in the state, it’s kind of like saying, "We know the prom queen just started snorting meth but we’re going to let this thing play out and see how it goes."

                

Once the site of a posh country club with an Olympic-sized swimming pool, Meadowdale Beach Park in Lynnwood is now one of the few publicly accessible Puget Sound beaches in the Greater Seattle area. Accessible, that is, via a sometimes-steep 1.25 mile hike from the parking lot through a forest path. This isn't the place to bring your massive inflatables or your rolling BBQ. Yet the hike isn't so strenuous that you can't bring the little ones. (One note--the parking lot is small and fills up fast, so if you go on weekends, go early.)

But we don’t get the people that hike Discovery Park, that choose to spend their time appreciating nature's beauty, and still have the nerve or sociopathic disregard to throw their garbage on the beach or trail. These creeps shift our lazy personality profiling system of out whack. Who does that? Who likes nature enough to seek it out but not enough to respect it for convenience's sake?

Inspired by Jack’s Otter Falls experience last summer and too impatient to waste the weekend weather indoors we set out for the season’s first taste of mountain love and ended up running from the wreckage of last winter’s wrath.

We've already shared the first half of this hike with you when we posted about our trek to Otter Falls. That hike got us curious about what lay beyond. What would it be like to keep going? Keep walking past Otter Falls, past Big Creek Falls. Keep walking until you nearly reach the end of the Taylor River Valley and then climb the 1400 feet up to Snoqualmie Lake. Seems easy enough. On a map the lake looks to be only a few miles further up the trail from Otter Falls. What would that be? Seven or eight miles, tops? That's no big thing. Easy.

Stories of stranded and caved-in hikers have been dominating the local news in the past couple of weeks. Last week, two boys were rescued after an ice cave they were standing in collapsed. Both survived the cave-in but with serious injuries. Just this Tuesday, the sad news broke that an Oregon 15-year-old who was buried after a sand cave he was digging collapsed had succumbed to his injuries and died. Yesterday came the story of three hikers stranded on Three Fingers Mountain after one of them injured his back, and the group was forced to stay a wet and cold night above 5,000 feet. Two of the hikers had to be air-lifted off the mountain, while one was able to walk down on his own strength.

This is the kind of photo we should probably revisit sometime in mid-Februrary, to remind us of the extraordinary natural beauty of Western Washington in the summertime. More reminders of what makes our region so delightful abound in our Seattlest Flickr pool. Check it out!

A 54-year-old avid hiker from Snohomish County was killed this weekend, when an inexperienced hunter mistook her for a bear and fired a single fatal shot. Pam Almli was hiking with a friend on Sauk Mountain in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest on Saturday morning. Reportedly, Almli was bending down and putting something in her backpack when she was shot. The name of the tragically mistaken hunter has not been released, as he is under 18 years old. Turns out, the Vice President mistaking an old huntin' buddy for a quail is funny, while this hunting-mishap story just strikes us as tragic and sad, for everyone involved.

Otter Falls is stunning. Truly breathtaking. A place which must be seen in person to be truly appreciated. Photos and flowery descriptions do very little for this place.

This weekend marks the first time the Mountain Loop Highway will be opened in it’s entirety since 2003. Ravaged by floods and heavy snowfall in years past, the roadway’s long-awaited opening provides access to some of the most scenic day hikes in the Seattle vicinity.

There’s no point suffering through all the rain out here if you can’t enjoy the scenery when the weather doesn’t suck. One of the best places to witness one of the Cascade range’s nearest and most beautiful namesakes is just a short drive east on I-90. It's ideal for this time of year when the mountains are purging themselves of the winter snow, yet the weather is agreeable enough to be out in the woods.

Seattlest keeps waiting and waiting for the right weekend to head out for our inaugural hike of 2008. There are few things we love more than hiking through the cool misty forests of Cedars and Doug Firs; the monotony of one-foot-in-front-of-the-other up a mountain brings us a zen calm. After driving through the mountains for Memorial Day weekend, we were feeling especially itchy to head out on the trail. But we are going to have to wait, just like every other eager would-be hiker.

Ah, Spring is here. Or was, for a few hours. The trail up Little Si outside of North Bend was where Seattlest spent our paltry ration of good Spring weather Saturday morning. This hike is only five miles long, close to Seattle and the highway, and has a known payoff: a wide, 180 degree view of the Snoqualmie valley and the neighboring Mount Si that isn't really subject to interference by weather or foliage. Those are great things that recommend the hike highly, but they also mean you have to really work to be alone-ish anywhere on the trail, particularly now when a lot of other I-90 hikes are still snowed in. And it's Saturday morning. And one of the first cooperative Saturday mornings of the Spring, weather wise.

The 45 year-old man from Mukilteo arrived at Mt. Rainier on March 17th for a day hike and has not been heard from since. A ranger spotted Ossman's vehicle near Kautz Creek, but a search of the area by bloodhounds did not locate the man. The search team did spot tracks at 3,400 feet that they believe belong to him. Ossman may be wearing a flannel plaid shirt, black suede jacket, black scarf, gray cap with white stripes, and wire-rimmed glasses.

There were all the things a soapbox derby should have at last weekend's Redbull Soapbox derby in Fremont: sleek, high-design vehicles next to totally scrappy, yet hysterically themed clunkers (the pickle seemed to be a crowd favorite). Attitude, bravado, and shenanigans mixed with derring-do. There were kids and old folks, and everyone in between. And ridiculous skits before each run (many requiring the removal of pants), a nice twist. Unexpectedly, there was Sir Mix-A-Lot and Travis Pastrana (we actually thought that was cool, but many seemed not to know the moto trickster by name) for judges. There was just one thing we wish there had been more of, and that was sightlines for the race. Or, as fellow Seattlest contributor Jack put it: "No matter where we stood along the course, it was hard to see anything without dry-humping the person in front of us as we leaned forward hoping to catch just a glimpse of our heroes cruising down Fremont Avenue."

Seattlest spent this weekend visiting friends in Spokane. We know, we know. "Why, in God's name would you go to Spokane?" Trust us, we've heard it before.

As noted previously, we're fans of the Uptight Seattleite persona because it seems to be gloriously, teeth-grindingly true. The Weekly's incarnation makes us laugh every so often, but the best gut-punch comes when we run across someone's real-life experience.

Wallace Falls State Park is a little over an hour northeast of Seattle. The easiest way to get there is to get on 522 towards Monroe. At Monroe take a right on Highway 2, which trundles along through Sultan and Startup till you hit a tiny outcropping of trailer houses called Gold Bar. Take a left just after you get into town and follow the signs. The park is about two miles north of the highway, on the west side of the Cascade Mountains.

Seriously, some of you are going to have to pick up the slack, because Seattlest only runs for frisbees and buses, and often not even for the latter. There will be another in ten minutes, right? We don't know much about the running world, except that people tend to develop favorite routes. Maybe you share them with friends or fellow runners, but it goes kinda like "OK, so after a couple blocks you'll see this big-ass tree--it's pink in April but by now probably just sort of green--and turn right there. Then go left after that VW bus that has been parked on the corner for the past two years..."

They're actually doing it. The Port is getting King County Airport (AKA Boeing Field) in exchange for an Eastside rail corridor and a bag of baseballs. A bunch of Agreements were signed today making it so, with the other interested party being King County. When this deal was first floated to the public in October it was made clear that the rail corridor would be transformed into a recreational trail, something that we found to be kind of neat but also kind of wasteful, although we didn't really shed many tears for the Spirit of Washington dinner train that was going to be displaced in the process. In the press release this time around the recreational possibilities of the corridor are downplayed somewhat, but that's still the intended use. The County promises to do some research into making it a transit pathway, although they insist that such a transit line isn't currently needed.

Last week, Seattlest confided that we'd left the confines of this country for places afar. We've got mountain-lust, and are making a vain attempt to trod upon at least a handful of amazing ranges as we see mid-lifeness lurking somewhere around the corner (OK, way the hell around the corner but so be it). And no, we're not talking some misguided "bag all the highest peaks in the world" kind of nonsense, but adventures more of the "get to know the nooks and crannies, don't care how tall they are" variety. So off to the Alps we went.

Maybe it started when we found out the Urban Hike domain is actually owned by a Pittsburgh group. Pittsburgh, we thought. Huh.

As you know, there's a strict quota on mentions of Craigslist per quarter. Not too many, not too few. Our longtime favorite CL section is the Missed Connections (not altogether unsimilar from the Stranger's I Saw U ads), for their mix of inept stalking, momentary erotic yearning, and occasional literary gems.

This spring, the Forest Service will be increasing the permit range for camping in the ridiculously overcrowded highly popular Alpine Lakes Wilderness area. They were also contemplating a fee hike from $3 to $5, but the increase didn't move forward.

For most Seattle dog-owners, our dogs are not mere pets. They’re our Frisbee buddies, our camping buddies, our hiking buddies, and we love to get their paws off the concrete and onto the dirt.

Seattlest has never been in Stand By Me. If we were corralled by a prepubescent hiking companion and asked what one food we'd want to eat for the rest of our lives, it would not be cherry flavor Pez. Nope. We'd pick smoothies.