Kanaskat-Palmer State Park Hike #10

It has been a gorgeous weekend here in the PNW!  We had sunny skies and temps in the high 60's--perfect for chores and hiking!  We spent 3 hours Saturday morning staining our fence.  We managed to get the front done on both sides of the house, but there is a lot more to do.  With rain in the foreseeable future, though, it may take us a while to get everything done.  Plus I'm dragging my feet because it's hard work! My arm and shoulder are still sore!  This morning we replanted a tree that our landscapers for some inexplicable reason planted right in front of our gate...so we moved it to the corner of the yard away from the house.  We also dug up another tree (they planted two of them three feet apart right in front of our house!) and gave it to our neighbor along with 3 heather plants.  After that we had lunch then drove a bit north to Kanaskat-Palmer State Park where we completed hike #10.   In all we hiked 2.65 miles in about an hour.  The trail leads down to the Green River which was gorgeous today.  There were a few hills, but nothing major.  We did come across lots of fallen trees and branches over the trail.  There was a lot of damage from this February's snow storm and it didn't look like they've had time to do any trail maintenance.  On the way home we stopped at Victor Falls, which my friend Teresa told me about.  We didn't realize we had a falls so close to our house; it's about a 6 minute drive to get there.  It was beautiful and much bigger than we had expected.

Beautiful Green River

Trillium

Victor Falls

The front where we stained and the tree we moved to this corner.  No idea what kind of tree it is :)

Spring Break 2019

Last week was Gabby's spring break and she flew down to So Cal to spend it with her friend, Becca, who is going to college not too far from Anaheim.  She spent 5 glorious days at Disneyland and California Adventure Park.  Unfortunately, she had to cut the last couple of days short because of her back, but she said she did everything that was on her wish list.  She ate lots of beignets & churros, saw the new Frozen show, and went on all her favorite rides as well as the new Guardians of the Galaxy ride which took over for the old Tower of Terror.  She said it was a lot of fun, but I think I will still pass :)  I'm glad she got to go, but we were all jealous that we weren't there with her!  That's the one thing we miss most about living in So Cal!  Here are a few of the pics she sent me...

A churro and sunshine, can't ask for more than that!

Gabby & Becca

Disney should so hire her!

Sequalitchew Trail Hike #9

Jerry & Brenda invited us to go hiking this morning with a few of their friends on the Sequalitchew Trail in DuPont.  This is a 3 mile out and back hike which starts near the DuPont police station then heads down to the water where there are some old train tracks from when it was used to transport explosives.  We encountered a bit of mud on the trail from the recent rain, but luckily it was not raining on us.  We saw four deer and a newt that was just hanging out in the middle of the trail. A very fun morning and now we have completed hike #9.

Jerry & Scott checking out the old tracks.

Lila and Sara

1.5 miles when you reach the beach.

Swan Creek Park Hike #8

This morning Teresa joined us on another hike, this time at Swan Creek Park in Tacoma.  So fun to find some new areas to hike, especially ones that are not too far away.  We started at the Pioneer Way entrance and hiked the Swan Creek trail until the end where it met up with the Canyon Rim trail, then took that back to form a loop.  Unfortunately, a mountain biker gave us faulty information and we ended up off the trail for a while, but luckily we were able to find it again.  Per my hiking app we hiked a total of 4.57 miles with 394 feet of elevation gain.  However, we had a lot of elevation gain then loss then gain again....so I'm sure it was much, much more than that. So excited to get hike #8 under our belt! It was a gorgeous day and we actually found some signs of spring including skunk weed about to bloom and what looked to be a crab apple tree with some blossoms.

So many stairs!

Teresa excited she made it to the top!

Aspen getting in some water time.

So excited to see signs of spring!  

South Prairie Volksmarch #1

Today we completed our first 5k volksmarch for 2019 with Jen & Clarissa in South Prairie, which is about 15 minutes away from our house.  It was a gorgeous morning!  So glad that spring is just around the corner especially after all that snow in February.  We started at the South Prairie trailhead and walked toward Buckley on a newly completed section of the Foothills Trail.  We crossed a few bridges over South Prairie Creek before retracing our footsteps.  Afterward we had lunch at a dive bar called the Wagon Wheel, which actually had really good food.

Pt. Defiance Hike #7

This morning we completed our second Yoh! hike at Pt. Defiance park.  We began at the parking lot at Owen Beach then headed uphill to the beginning of the Outside Loop Trail.  It started off extremely windy and cold, but luckily once we reached the trail we were sheltered which made the hike much more enjoyable.  In all the 5 of us (plus 3 dogs) completed 4.72 miles (per the MapMyHike app). The trail was in pretty good shape, but you could still see a bit of damage from the recent snow including several blow downs both on and off trail.  There were tons of people out enjoying the sunshine!  What a great hike and I'm glad that Brenda, Jerry & Teresa could join us for hike #7.

Teresa and Aspen were the tree huggers this time..