We wanted to sneak in at least one last backpacking trip before the rain overtakes us. Plus I'm a sucker for the beautiful fall colors. We headed to Snoqualmie Pass and hiked the Alta Mountain Trail. It's a super popular trail so it was great to backpack it and have the trail be pretty empty. We hiked past Rachel Lake and started to ascend pretty quickly which poked us up above our surroundings enough to start to see all the layers of mountains.
To avoid all the other tents we hiked up to a ridge and found one of my favorite tent spots! We had a small flat part on the ridge and one side allowed us to watch the sunset and the other side allowed us to watch the sunrise from our tent door. It was windy that night but also kind of a lullaby in it's own right.
Once we were set up we hiked up to one of the false summits and made dinner and drank wine to watch the sun set, then back to the tent for fruit snacks & Harry Potter.
top: sunset ; bottom: sunrise
Normally I miss the sunrise, don't wake up in time or don't have the right view of it. So I was pretty excited this time and woke Joshua up to watch too. We then hiked up to the real summit of Alta Mountain and the morning light on all the peaks was stunning. The morning clouds still huddled into some of the valleys below and the huckleberry plants that are now all red were glowing on the mountainsides.
We also met 3 Midwest guys on top and had a really lovely time chatting with them and taking in the views. I love the people we meet on mountains, it's fun to connect over the beauty of where you are together.
Then we packed up and hiked out to go find some lunch. The photo below is of Rachel lake on our descent. Big pretty blue lake!
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