Norse Peak Wilderness

First campsite at Goat Lake (look for the tent to the far right)

Wayyyyyy back in September we headed out on a long weekend backpacking trip to celebrate my birthday and our anniversary. Jay found a nice loop hike in the Norse Peak Wilderness that promised few people, mountain goats, and loads of views of big volcanoes. Awesome! The goats delivered for us! We saw so many of them on this trip - plus loads of elk bugling and bear sign. We hiked up a million switchbacks and then back down again to camp the first night at Goat Lake. Reports were flying that the northern lights had potential to make it south to WA that evening. I was so excited about this possibility that I got no sleep at all...and for no reason. =( We got out of the tent in the middle of the night to check the clear, starry, sky for the lights with no luck. Even though I knew there were no lights, I was still too excited to fall back asleep. Man. I was tired the next day as a result!

 The hike out from Goat Lake was beautiful and chilly!

It would have been sweet if we had made it to Basin Lake to camp on the first night - just look at this place! Alas, the lake was too far for us to reach with the late start we got on Friday and it was too close for us to stop at on Saturday. So we simply enjoyed the amazing view of the emerald water and all the goats on the hill above the lake.

 Tons of goats! 

The spot where we planned on getting water was already occupied by a zillion tadpoles - a delight for these nerdy biologists. After walking around a bit more we found a non-tadpole-ish source for our drinking water and sat down for a tasty lunch in the hot sun. 

It was mid-September but the huckleberries were already changing color in the Norse Peak Wilderness. I had been hoping to pick lots of huckleberries, but they were totally done. This was the only bummer of the trip.

We hiked along the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) in the morning, then headed off of it for the afternoon to head south to Crown Point and finally picked the PCT up again to head north on our loop. The big northern turn onto the PCT slammed us right into this awesome view of Mt. Rainier.

Pacific Crest Trail - Norse Peak Wilderness

View from Camp Two of Rainier

This was a horrible place to camp. Horrible. We were surrounded by horny elk bugling in the morning and the sun was far too bright on that ugly volcano right by our tent. Don't ever come here.

Within our view of Rainier was a view of Crystal Mountain Ski Resort - you can see a tiny building to the left side of the image. I can't believe we haven't been skiing there yet. Jay and I need to go and fix this problem on a clear day so Rainier can be our ski buddy.

 On our third day we climbed up to Norse Peak for the best views of the entire trip! 

The views included Mt. Adams (in this shot), Mount Rainier, and Mt. Baker far off in the north. We could also see the Enchantment Range and the craggy North Cascades. A Cooper's hawk flew overhead. A pika made that cute shrieky sound. And I was very happy.

Pika doing that cute pika thang. I seriously love these little mammals.

https://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/September2014?authkey=Gv1sRgCLXbr83ct9S4KQ

Alaria's maiden voyage!

My wonderful husband gave me a shocker of a Christmas gift last year - he planned on building me a wooden kayak! We finally launched her into the chilly waters off Deception Pass State Park yesterday!

It has been a long process for Jay, but according to the boat builder himself, it was a fun process! I didn't help him out much at all - only during various processes that involved two people. But I did draw the kelp on the bow, Alaria marginata, which I've named her after because I think Alaria is the most gorgeous kelp in the world. 

I've posted photos of the entire boat building process here....beginning in January 2014 on the cold floor of the garage. The process continued with a lot of help from Led Zeppelin (and beer) and finally ended this weekend on a brisk day in Cornet Bay when she was launched!

Putting the chines together

Jay bought the kayak kit from a small company based right here in Washington called Pygmy Boats. This is the Coho model, their best selling and highly regarded ocean touring kayak (i.e. we can take her out on multi-day paddles and in rougher water). http://www.pygmyboats.com/boats/coho-kayak-kit.html

The beginning of the shaping process

Stitching the chines together

The builder admiring his smooth work

Shaping the bow

He stitched together the different chines and then glued the seams

Taped together

Fiberglass

She is looking like a boat now!

The endless sanding that blanketed our entire garage in dust

Cockpit coaming and hatch work

Envisioning the bow art

Nervous and hopeful this idea would work!

I drew Alaria on tissue paper and the white paper became clear with the epoxy

Looking shiny and sleek!

Rigging

 

Standing her up along the back of the house to pour epoxy into the bow and stern.

 Popping the bubbly! 

 Best Christmas gift ever!

 The boat builder takes Alaria for a spin!

https://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/AlariaRises?authkey=Gv1sRgCJb13ba17tmTIQ

Driving through British Columbia

Smithers, BC

I've been so busy, the blog doesn't win over all the other stuff I've got going on which includes my awesome full time job working as a shellfish biologist, a side job teaching environmental science online for Northeastern University, visiting parents (love that!!), exercise, hiking, mushrooming, cooking gourmet dinners with Jay, and trying to think about our upcoming trip to Panama. Jeez. I'm leaving out all the little things I want to concentrate on, but oh well. I must finish getting through my fall photographs before I take more images in Panama. Remember film? Life was easier when you were stuck with the photograph you took - now I can crop, straighten, darken or lighten my photos.... and since I'm not a professional photographer, I've got no problem fixing up simple mistakes like that. But man, it takes time. And since I'm too busy having fun, I tend to not have the time it takes to play with images. Oh well! Here is my last blog about our vacation in British Columbia back in August. Jeez. How slow could one be?

Once we left Prince Rupert we had three days to drive east and then south to get back to Anacortes. This actually gave us enough time to take a nice hike each day and enjoy our surroundings.

Our first stop was at Ross Lake Provincial Park for a tasty lunch that we shared with some curious Steller's jays.

Our second and longer stop of the day was in the town of Smithers. There were rain clouds in the distance that threatened to soak us, but up a nice hill we went anyway!

Glaciers abound around Smithers. It would have been awesome to have a few days here - the hiking opportunities looked fantastic!

 We camped near the town of Burns Lake, B.C. and were treated to a lovely sunset.

We did the most driving the second day - traveling through the flat lake country of central BC along the old gold rush trail that is now a highway. We stopped the check out Pinnacles Provincial Park along the way.

Our last night in the tent (Jay rejoiced, I was sad) was spent at Marble Canyon Provincial Park. We threw on our trusty Xtra Tuffs and slogged around Turquoise Lake to stretch out our legs after hours of driving south. This hike proved to be quite challenging since the water levels were so high - but it was fun!

On our third and final day of driving we happened to come upon a bighorn sheep right along the side of the road.

Stein Valley Nlaka'pamux Heritage Park was a total surprise to us and a massive treat! This park was WILD and we only hiked a short distance into it because we still had to drive back to WA that evening. But now we know and plan to return to backpack along this river into mountains with wolverines, brown bears, and cougars. That is wild coutnry my friends and we are going to be all over it next year.

The park is very sacred to the First Nations people of Canada - there were even petroglyphs on some of the rocks. Magic!

Julie wasn't ready to leave at all.

We leave you with a photograph of the BC flag....a beautiful flag for some wild and beautiful country.

Final photos are at the end of this album: https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/111221596171793333099/albums/6056171902655031425?authkey=CO7y6IjJytrt_QE