Celebrating America Climbing Rocks

For the 4th of July some friends invited us to go rock climbing out in Snoqualmie. It was a hot, sunny, clear day and we were lucky enough to climb in the shade that day. The area was awesome!

 It was an old trestle bridge that linked along the mountain and framed some great views. Joshua and I are very new to this climbing outside thing, but I'm loving the challenge. On some of the hard challenges of the climbs I tend to freak out for a minute, get a little in my head. Everyone is so nice when you climb though! Supportive, don't mind if you take your time, give you advice, let you hang and shake it out as much as you want.

Afterward we picked up some Rainier beers our friend had hidden in the creek and sunbathed on some rocks along the water to relax after. Mmm America, good day. Finished it off with a BBQ and some patio sitting.

Sintra Day Trip

 

Sintra is only a short train ride from Lisbon so after being out until 4ish am we woke up around 9 and headed out. Forgoing the bus we walked a mile or so up some winding roads into the Moorish Castle. Since it was early it was fun to run along the top and climb all the little nooks alone. The sun was out in full force and the views back to the Atlantic ocean and countryside were really welcome after being inside big cites the last few days. They have a little café that we ate mozzarella & tomato sandwiches at while looking back up at the castle walls.

 

 

Next we took a path along the hillside that wound through a lush forest and spring flowers tucked into big rock faces. It ended at Pena Palace which is all candy colored goodness. The palace is full of whimsy and color and happiness. The tilework and things like carved stone coral made this stop a lot of fun. The way the views were framed with attention, gah, we hung out here for awhile

 

 

 

 

Then we went home an took a well deserved nap :)

 

Next we took a train, then a bus, then a car down to Tarifa, Spain.

Gothic Basin & Foggy Lake

We intended to go backpacking with Joshua's coworkers this weekend but we couldn't make it out on time on Friday, so he found us our own little trip. It was hard, and we both whined! The grade was probably the steepest we'd hiked, and we did it with backpacks, also there was a lot of scrambling over wet rocks and we were hungry. I may have complained that he picked the wrong trail but in the end I retracted that! We crossed 3-4 waterfalls that we could dip our fingers in and splash water on our faces as we hiked up through walls of fog and whiteness. At the top we were amongst at least 15-20 other backpacking tents, the most we'd ever seen (a backpacking hotel according to Josh). We found a sweet spot where we couldn't see any of the other tents and we had our own little stump filled pond of water to keep us company. We drank some wine and fell asleep reading Harry Potter.

 

 

 

The next morning we lazily trampsed around the rocks, coffee in hand, and watched as the whispy fog flowed through exposing parts of the mountains around us we couldn't see the day before. We found our way down to a beautiful waterfall and a view of a hidden turquoise lake and scrambled up bunches of rocks before packing up. Then we ditched our packs near a rockface and scrambled up to get to Foggy Lake. I dipped in my toes (and sadly my left boo,t oops) and we got a little sunburnt as we starred at the beautiful lake reflecting the changing mountainscape as the clouds opened up or cloaked different peaks. Then headed back to stare in the other direction at what had been surrounding us as we slept amongst the fog and made some lunch.

 

 

Since the hike up had been so steep we knew our knees couldn't take a slow hike down, so we ran! We jumped over rocks and ran past people who had started down while we were still eating, I think we scared them a bit, we also humbly discussed how we were like nimble agile elves from Lord of the Rings. We made it down in less than 2 hours and retreated to our favorite (closest) restaurant to home and shared a pepperoni pizza. It was the most relaxing backpacking trip we've taken and the slow morning and meandering around the top and the lake and fun run down the mountain felt oddly hopeful, bring it on week.

 

Elrod's Mini Hiking Guide

Our very first Seattle hike, Mt Rainier.
It was to snowy to hike but we were too naïve
to know it would be snowy in June.
Also we're wearing jean - kids!



One of our most recent hikes that was 12 lovely miles up a mountain.
Outfitted like a true northwesterner and smart enough to bring hats.
We've come a long way :)

We've been asked a few times about good hikes for different occasions and while all our hikes are listed HERE I've made a little guide to help narrow down some choices:

lake twenty two

Close Hikes:
most of these hikes involve a decent amount elevation gain and therefore offer nice lookouts once you're there, you can even see Seattle from some of them. Since they're close though it also means they are crowded trails, get there early for closer parking.

+Less than an hour outside Seattle:
Rattlesnake Ledge - 4 miles/1,160 ft elevation gain
Wallace Falls - 5.6 miles/1,300 ft elevation gain
Mt. Si - 8 miles/3,150 ft elevation gain
Bandera Mountain - 8 miles/3,400 ft elevation gain

+Hour and twenty minutes outside Seattle:
Heather Lake - 4.6 miles/1,034 ft elevation gain
Lake Twenty Two - 5.4 miles/1,3500 ft elevation gain
Lake Serene - 7.2 miles/2,000 ft elevation gain
Mt Catherine - 3 miles/1,330 ft elevation gain
Otter Falls - 10 miles/650 ft elevation gain

bridal veil falls

Rainy Day Hikes:
these hikes include trails that have a nice pay off even though it may be rainy or they don't require high visibility to be able to enjoy what they have to offer. They shine with their waterfalls, mushroom hunting, old growth forests, and rivers instead

Evergreen Trail - 3 miles/250 ft elevation gain
Bridal Veil Falls - 4 miles/1,000 ft elevation gain
Wallace Falls - 5.6 miles/1,300 ft elevation gain
Sauk Trail - 6 miles/150 ft elevation gain
Lime Kiln Trail - 7 miles/625 ft elevation gain
Goat Lake - 10.4 miles/1,400 ft elevation gain
Hoh Rainforest/Deer Lake - 16 miles/3,450 ft elevation gain

sahale arm

Best Mountain Views:
These are our favorite mountain view hikes, we love em up close and with 360 views at the top and most of these fit all of those. They don't disappoint but they are usually a little farther away, longer, and more elevation gain- but also worth it!

Skyline Loop Trail/Mt. Rainier - 6 miles/1,400 elevation gain
Yellow Aster Butte - 7.5 miles/2,500 ft elevation gain
Chain Lakes - 8 miles/1,700 ft elevation gain
Hidden Lake - 8 miles/3,300 ft elevation gain
Skyline Divide - 9 miles/2,500 ft elevation gain
Hannegan's Peak - 10.4 miles/3,100 ft elevation gain
Marmot Pass - 10.6 miles/3,500 ft elevation gain
Sahale Arm - 12 miles/4,000 ft elevation gain

gothic basin

1 Day Backpacking Hikes:
These are all do-able in 1 night with plenty of time to explore all that's around it. Also very worth staying up there for a night and soaking in sunsets/rises and the views of the stars

Teanaway Ridge - 6 miles/1,900 ft elevation gain
Yellow Aster Butte - 7.5 miles/2,500 ft elevation gain
Baker Lake - 9 miles/500 ft elevation gain
Gothic Basin - 9 miles/2,840 ft elevation gain
Fourth of July Creek - 12 miles/4,370 ft elevation gain


mileage and elevation gain gathered from the WTA website (my favorite website ever!)

Hunter & Gatherer

 

Ok so not hunter, but I always feel so accomplished when I go pick my own berries and come home all loaded up. We biked out to Discovery park this past weekend and picked over a gallon of blackberries, and it was deeply satisfying.

 

The sunshine, quiet, and foraging for the best spot as deep inside the bushes as you can go without falling into a bundle of thorns, I love that feeling! We both came away with a fair number of battle wounds but that just means we worked to get the best ones, I think. Just one of those perfect ways to spend a lazy Saturday where you still feel totally accomplished.

 

Then the next day I made them into homemade pies, eek it just makes me giddy!

 

Then we finished off the night biking to a few breweries with some friends and soaking in all the fresh outside air we could handle. O and then we really finished it off by having a giant plate of poutine under cute twinkly lights!

 

We are now Backpackers

 

 

Last weekend after we dropped our friends off at the airport we kept on driving and headed out the mountains to embark upon ... our 1st backpacking trip. No more will we be called "only day hikers" or hear "o you just went car camping" We are now the real deal. Joshua found a great 3.5 mile in hike called Teanaway Ridge.

 

We hiked through tons of beautiful blooming yellow flowers, the sun setting over the mountain pass and set up our little tent right on the edge of the mountain. We were able to make a campfire, eat some dinner and the sky even let all the stars shine that night. It was really beautiful! The next morning we unzipped our tent and laid looking out at the sunrise and headed over to check out Mt. Stuart and the edge of the Enchantments that were covered in the morning light. We boiled up some oatmeal with our home dehydrated apples, packed up, and hiked back out.

Now the sad part is the reason I'm describing in instead showing is because my camera stopped saving photos to its disk and Joshua's phone died, so the beauty of it will die with us (I'm being dramatic) But I do have a few of Joshua's phone photos of us with our sweet gear from the first mile :)