As indicated by my lack of posts, we have been busy! Work and play have happily kept me away from the computer.....but if I have blog fans (???) I feel like it is time for me to post again! The past three weekends have been packed with fun stuff. Jay and I like to get the heck out of America on July 4th, so we headed to Canada for the weekend following the fourth and went for a super short backpacking trip. The hike was short because I had just worked some unreal number of days in a row and gotten a doozy of a cold as a result. I was in the midst of recovering when the sun decided to come out after months and months of gray gray gray and 50 degrees. The sun makes you feel like you are well! So we found a Provincial Park on a B.C. map and headed toward it...Joffre Lakes! Glacial lakes, mountains, glaciers, forests, and only three miles into the backcountry site! Sounds great to the recovering sick! Well, everyone from Vancouver, B.C. also seemed to think this was the hike to do over the weekend! We hiked up and up and up and eventually made it to the spot where the park wanted people to camp. There were probably about 20 other couples/families there. Ugh. Jay wanted to turn around.....but I was beat from the short hike (remember the cold) and refused to budge. Soooo, Jay found us a spot high up on the moraine far away from the other human animals and we settled into our spot under the glacier. The other human animals were quite cool, I'm sure, but we wanted some feeling of wilderness. Although that feeling never arrived because of the other animals, we sure were happy with the view, the beer that Jay (my hero) carried, and the hot, hot sun.
We eventually pitched our tent here, but refused to set up the tent until the sun disappeared. Note the hanging glacier high above Jay to the right.
Upper Joffre Lake
We got lucky with a big patch of snow right next to our tent. Water, beer cooler, etc.
The glacier in evening light
The best part of the hike, aside from the obviously gorgeous view and my man, was chillin' in warm weather. I wore shorts for most of the day! Exciting!
The next weekend we decided to paddle out to one of the lesser known tiny islands in the San Juan Islands group called Clark Island. This island is north of Orcas Island, so we took the ferry to Orcas and launched our boats from Doe Bay. We paddled north to Lawrence Point and from there took on the crossing to Clark Island. What a gorgeous island! Coming up to Clark, we passed some tiny rocky islands that are part of a national wildlife refuge and we were able to get some great views of harbor seals and their pups as well as sea birds. A real treat! We fought the current a tiny bit and managed to land right after lunch time. We devoured our lunch, popcorn, and water and then headed off in search of a campsite. Post tent-erecting, we read books, basked in the sun (neither of us brought shorts because we don't think it can get warm here, whops), and wandered along the somewhat extensive trail system along the southern part of the island.
Clark Island
View from our campsite
The eagles liked the island as much as we did
Fantastic madrona trees
Sunset over Baker - not a bad thing to see from your tent
The next day we had a "fun" paddle back to Orcas Island. "Fun" means we had tide rips, strong wind, and relatively big waves...enough to make you paddle non-stop and put all your muscle into getting across that damn crossing. When we finally made it back to Orcas, we were greeting by Jay's favorite pals, anemones! Here he is with a nice clone....
Lawrence Point
More photos are in the normal spot - just click on the link to my recent albums on the top right corner of the blog. =)
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