Results tagged “outdoors”

              

Who says we're making transportation progress? Eighty years ago, you could've joined other day-tripping Puget Sounders on a passenger train to Monte Cristo, then one of the area's leading tourist destinations. Now you have to hoof it. The rails are gone, and most of the town, too. But the gorgeous sights that drew your grandparents here remain.

This just off the Teletype...man, does that thing make a racket, but we can't give it up. We're all, No, no, no email--Teletype! People lose their shit, but you know, a lot less spam that way. So Comcast Sportsnet is taking applications for wannabe hosts of a new series that will include hiking, biking, camping, kayaking, fishing, climbing, survival skills, and more. They also say, "Everyone is welcome to apply for the host position regardless of outdoor experience," so we're sure that hilarity, etc. They'll make their decision with a reality-style television series where the candidates will compete....*yawn*...for the...the goal of being named host. Love that Comcast is so behind this new show that they don't want to just show it, they want to make everyone watch this other reality-show first.

We were just...okay, goofing off best describes it...visiting this mountain and river webcam site when we came across this view from Hurricane Ridge. Hard to believe it's from a webcam. Gorgeous.

     

There's an old P-I review of the Lake Serene hike that nicely sums up one element of the trail: "a bit like that old board game Chutes and Ladders, but without the chutes." It's a few days later, and our calves are still complaining about the series of steep wooden stairs. But to hell with them, it was worth it!

Isabella Pinarello_Nigel Raleigh_120scan by kjten22

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.

Want to get away from the craziness that is Seattle during the Fourth of July? Try the San Juan Islands. This Seattlest will be packing her camping gear and kayak to explore the beautiful (and likely rainy, WTF?) San Juan Islands.

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.

Hey wow, holy shit it is hot outside and it's only 11am. With this weekend's forecast, people will be freaking everywhere outside. We're planning a mountain bike ride near Roslyn on Saturday, other friends are going camping, and another crew is ski touring around Rainier. But lest you forgot your high school chemistry classes, the effect of heat on frozen substances is to cause them to melt. In this case, very suddenly and there's still a lot of snow out there. Much more than we're used to having in mid-May.

Or sunburns, more likely. We doubt any of of you have actually thought to pack sunscreen on your person, given the state of our weather lately.

Dammit, neither were we. For opening day, Mr. Seattlest got up in the wee hours and was in lot 2 about 30 minutes before the lift opened, ending up about 20th in line. The guys waiting for first chair up front were drinking PBR tall boys and said (and acted like) they'd been there since about 7am. With a base of about 51", it was an excellent start. Snow was a bit heavy, and chair 2 never opened (as far as we know), but the second it does there's gonna be a full-on Chinese Downhill on 'Nash.

The snow is here, and people are already missing on Crystal Mountain. They apparently hit the backcountry (seems way to early to be doing that, we think), and by all accounts were properly equipped, including avalanche beacons. But shit can go sideways in the backcountry, and "properly equipped" is most relevant if you really know how to use that stuff. We're hoping those lost folks do, and are found any second now.

Ski season is, thankfully, here and Seattlest couldn't be more excited. In fact, even though our friends are completely lame and won't go with us, we're off to Crystal tomorrow to take advantage of cheap lift-ticket prices (and cause we're jonesing). For a variety of reasons though, we don't own any of our own equipment and are not yet ready to buy our own stuff. So before heading out to catch some early-season slope action,...

Opening today, people. Base is 50 inches.

The snow is falling, our dear Seattle friends, it simply isn't falling here. Whistler just announced it is open for business, bagging the ultimate ski resort coup of cutting powder before we cut the turkey. Of course you want to go, but in fondly recalling the days of 1998 when the US-CA exchange rate swung wildly the other way, you fear you can really only afford to stay home and play Ski Resort Extreme Halo 3. We've learned a thing or six going back and forth with our neighbors to the north for many a year now, and so we offer you our quick and dirty guide to saving at least a wee bit of money and time in your BC powder-chasing adventures.

On our way to Vios for dinner last night (try the white bean soup!) we were walking down Aloha and spotted a lawn being colonized by a huge mushroom.

A friend just emailed Seattlest, gushing with glee that our season's passes to the Summit (Alpental, really) grant us 5 free days of skiing at Crystal Mountain. We'd already written about how the ownership of the Summit by Boyne Mountain (who also owns Crystal Mt.) might be a good thing for mountain bikers. So it sounded like it was already working out for those of us that go mostly to Alpental (due to sheer proximity, especially for occasional drinking night skiing forays) yet like to make the trek to Crystal or Baker occasionally.

Foul weather holds off until Sunday afternoon, leaving plenty of time under cool gray skies for Seattlest & friends to launch a Flexcar and sail out to the farm. Once we get past Redmond, the familiar trappings fall off: shopping malls, housing developments, the last Whole Foods, the last gas station & mini-mart.

Yippee!!!!

The operative word, of course, is "considering," because by no means is a bike park at Stevens Pass a done deal. But the plans are surprisingly detailed and specific, which gives Seattlest hope. The local biking community is all a-twitter about the prospects. Each year we trek up to Whistler repeatedly for our downhill biking fix (that's a friend pictured on a black diamond Whistler trail at the right), and we'd much rather spend less time in the car and more time on our bike. No, the sad irony of driving long distances to ride bikes is not lost on us.

Two UW marching band saxophonists know their bulky instrument cases can get in the way as they walk to school down the Burke-Gilman Trail. They don't want to be obstacles to the notoriously chippy bicyclists. So one, "Geekybandbabe", asks Seattle's Live Journal community for advice:

Is there a certain undesignated place where we should be walking on the trail so as to ensure that we, and all other trail patrons emerge unscathed?

Continue reading "The Burke-Gilman: Walk at Your Own Risk"

The Seattle Times has a quickie little snippet about some ski resort ownership swapping, namely that Boyne USA has bought the Summit at Snoqualmie from Booth Creek. At first we were a little concerned, namely because Booth Creek has a great track record from a customer service perspective, especially when they extended our season's pass for free after the disastrous winter of 05-06. But after a little more research, we're very excited because this is excellent news for mountain bikers.

The weekend arrived, along with all 40 of our bike clinic clients. Everyone was giddy at the thought of a heli-drop bike ride on Sunday, and the bike clinic was going off without a hitch. Until Sunday, when we ended up again at 9,000 feet, with the sun replaced by snow. Blowing snow, to be precise. And we had a freelance journalist writing for the London Sunday Times riding with us. You know, something like the second largest paper...in the world. We were supposed to show him a fantastic time, and once the flakes started falling we knew everyone was in for an adventure, but not the kind they had signed up for. We'll let our intrepid journalist tell the rest of the story, in the meantime we'll revel in the glory of going down in print as the mountain biking guide who led him astray. And yet we will continue to insist that you're only truly lost if you don't know where you are--we knew where we were, it just wasn't where we wanted to be.

Late summer is berry season, which means it is also bear season. A 51 year-old man mountain biking in Banner Forest (near Port Orchard on the Kitsap Peninsula) was attacked by a male black bear last week. His dogs were running ahead of him, and he heard them barking. He turned a corner, and was face-to-face with the bear, which then attacked him. Attacks by black bears are remarkably rare, which makes the situation all the more puzzling. Miraculously he survived and is in good condition, and both dogs are alive and well. Every mountain biker, hunter, hiker, random person that Seattlest knows seems to have their own opinion: he shouldn't have had his dogs off leash, shouldn't have been riding by himself, he was in a freaking "Forest" what do you expect...and so on.

Friday night, as planned, we drove up to Bellingham for the 6th Annual Subdued Stringband Jamboree--something we've never experienced before, and about which we were somewhat excited. Having spent last weekend revelling in the Americana down in Portland, maybe our expectations were a little high.

Today is "BC Day" in Canada, commemorating the moment of victory when Canadians finally liberated themselves from the Indians. Because of this unfair "three day weekend" tactical advantage, Canadian surfer and skateboard punks swarmed Westport to such a degree that the Seattle contingent was pitifully outnumbered and forced to surrender their beaches like Germans on D-Day.

Seattlest grew up in a tiny town you've never heard of in Central Florida, where a real sandy ocean beach (on which you could drive) was 20 minutes in one direction, and a crystalline gulf beach was an hour and a half in the other. Now that we live in the Land of the Rain, we wait all year for weeks like these, when the sun is high and hot, the breeze is soft and frequent and there are enough daytime hours to book it to the lake beach after work.

So anyway, the Japanese Garden, right. As you can see there are ducks involved, and a flotilla of oversized goldfish (we're using goldfish in the non-technical sense, meaning "large shiny colorful whozits") that swim up to you and demand the contents of your lunch sack. Turtles sun themselves on rocks. Even with tourists it's peaceful and serene -- and there are plenty of nooks and overviews back from the duck-and-turtle action where you can ponder the flitting, vagabond nature of life and work on haikus. We recommend it anytime of year; it's probably even good in the rain. If you can't make it in the near future, we have more photos apres le saut.

We wouldn't yet call ourselves bicycle "enthusiasts," but we're getting there. We've started riding from work (downtown) to home (Shoreline) about three days a week and we're loving it. We're getting exercise, doing something we enjoy and the majority of the ride, along the Burke-Gilman Trail, is just gorgeous.