Sucia Island

Ahead of their 27th wedding anniversary, Suzanne and Mike took a trip to Sucia Island State Park, a member of the San Juan Islands in the Strait of Georgia.  Because there is no state ferry service to Sucia Island, most visit the island by private boat.  Because they don't have a boat, Mike and Suzanne got to their campground with a bit more logistical preparation that required them to:

1. Drive from their home to Anacortes, WA
2. Board the ferry from Anacortes to Orcas Island
3. Drive to Eastsound, WA on the north side of Orcas.
4. Board a water taxi to Sucia Island
5. Backpack their camping gear from Fossil Bay to North Echo Bay
6. Hike back to Fossil Bay to prepare the kayak
7. Paddle from Fossil Bay to Mud Bay
8. Portage across the spit from Mud Bay to Snoring Bay
9. Paddle from Snoring Bay to campsite at North Echo Bay via South Finger and Justice Islands

They left home at 5am and were finally set up at camp with their kayak on shore at 3:15pm.  

Sucia is a beautiful island chocked full of gravelly beaches, hidden coves, large bays, intricate rock formations, forested paths, bluffs with expansive vistas, tranquil sunsets, and thrilling wildlife.  They saw otters, seals, herons, gulls, cormorants, eagles (along with a ridiculously large nest,) bats, snakes, lizards, mice (keep your food very secure on Sucia!), and naturally, plenty of ants and mosquitoes.

Dusk on Fossil Bay with Mount Baker in the background

Activities

The focus of this itinerary was threefold:  kayaking, hiking, and relaxing.  Hiking would typically happen in the morning, with kayaking in the afternoon, and relaxing in the evenings, watching the sunset and enjoying the view from the campsite.  They collected the following details from their GPS:

Activity	Distance (miles)	Elev. Gain (ft)
Backpacking	2.7	550
Hiking	16.2	2420
Kayaking	8.7	--
TOTALS	27.6	2970

Map

The following are the maps of hiking and paddling along with a GPX file with all of these hikes.  The maps and profiles are all produced by GPS Visualizer.  

Hiking

Kayaking

Profiles

Hiking Elevation

Kayaking Speed

Highlights

For a remote island accessible by boat only, the Washington State Parks service does a great job at maintaining the facilities.  The compost toilets were always clean, and the campsites well maintained.  The staff were occasionally spotted on their John Deere tractor, and they were all very friendly.  When they saw pedestrians on the trail, they would come to a complete stop until passed to keep dust off of visitors.

Favorites

• Mike: Enjoying the expansive scenery of the Georgia Strait, with boats, otters, seals, and birds enjoying the waters during sunset.
• Suzanne: Exploring the rocky coastline via kayak.

Lowlights

The biggest misfortune on the trip was Suzanne's fall that injured her right elbow.  Because she was no longer able to paddle, they had to limit their kayaking distance, since Mike had to do all of the paddling.  As a result, they weren't able to explore some of the areas they had hoped to.  

The mosquitos were annoying as well.  The bug spray did a reasonable job of keeping them from attacking, but both were bitten several times.  

Photos

There are 160 photos and a video of one kayak outing, which traversed Fossil Bay, Shallow Bay, and Fox Cove.  Click the links to view them all.

Sammamish River Kayak (Woodinville)

It has been a while since the kayak has come out of its bag, and since Suzanne and I are planning a kayaking trip on Sucia Island next month, we figured we should break it out to make sure everything was in working order.  We launched at Brackett's Landing and travelled upstream past Wilmot Gateway Park in Woodinville.  We spotted a blue heron and a river otter that came up out of the water for the briefest of moments.  There were relatively few paddlers that direction, as most tend to stay closer to Bothell Landing.

Sammamish River vegetation in Woodinville.

GPS Info

We collected all of the following data from our GPS unit during the adventure:

Maps

This Leaflet Map is provided by GPS Visualizer

Speed Profile

From the following profile, it's evident that we went upstream first, but the Sammamish River is so calm that the currents don't really hold back too much.  There was one section where we had to paddle hard to overcome the current of an incoming stream, but for the most part, this was a very easy paddle.

This profile is provided by GPS Visualizer

• Mileage:	4.5 mi
• Time:	1:43:15
• Speed:	2.6 MPH
• Put-in Coordinates:	47.7546, -122.1935

Photos

While this trip was really intended to be a gear check, we did take a few photos of the river that can be seen here.

Greider Lakes

For my next training hike, I opted to revisit Greider Lakes in the Morning Star Natural Resources Conservation Area.  The day started out mostly sunny at the trailhead on Spada Lake, but as I reached the pair of alpine lakes, the clouds had come in and greyed everything out.  Of course, as I headed back down the trail, the skies opened up again.  For a second straight hike, I was foiled in being able to capture the beauty of  Washington's alpine lakes.  

But, the point of this hike really was to assess my readiness for a multi-day backpack to Glacier Peak Wilderness next month.  The sole purpose was the test of a 9.2 mile round-trip hike with 2500 feet of elevation gain, most of which comes over 40 switchbacks that cover 1.5 miles of trail.  Much less crowded than Serene Lake, I only saw about 50 hikers in my 6.5 hours on the trail.

There were some awesome wildflowers to enjoy along the trail as well.  With a book that Suzanne recently gave me, "Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest", I was able to identify the following:

• Dwarf Dogwood
• Red Columbine
• Foxglove
• Common Dandelion
• Daisy (Not sure what kind... would need a better picture to identify)

Little Greider Lake

Big Greider Lake

GPS Info

Here is the data from the GPS unit:

Maps

This Leaflet Map is provided by GPS Visualizer

Elevation Profile

This profile is provided by GPS Visualizer

Coordinates and other details

Mileage:	9.2 Miles
Elevation	2537 Feet
Time:	6:45:56 (total), 4:40:50 (moving)
Average Speed:	1.36 MPH (total), 1.96 MPH (moving)
Trailhead Coordinates:	47.9741, -121.6136

The GPX file can be downloaded here.

Photos and Videos

Photos are available at this album, while a YouTube video is available here.

Serene Lake / Bridal Veil Falls

In an effort to assess physical preparedness for a possible multi-day backpacking trip in August, Mike loaded up his pack with 30 pounds of gear for a day hike to Serene Lake and Bridal Veil Falls on the Fourth of July.  Chosen for its difficulty, this hike was 8.6 miles round-trip with 3000 feet of elevation ascent.   Knowing of the popularity of this destination, Mike arrived at the trailhead at 6:45 AM for easy parking--only 10 other cars were there at that time of the morning.

Trying to keep count of hikers along the way, he counted approximately 250 on the hike to and from Serene Lake, and another 150 past Bridal Veil falls!  That's a lot of hikers on one trail as attested by the fact that both parking lots filled, and cars still had to park along the forest road as well.

Bridal Veil Falls

Bridal Veil Falls (East Cascade)

GPS Info

Here is the data from the GPS unit:

Maps

This Leaflet Map is provided by GPS Visualizer

Elevation Profile

This profile is provided by GPS Visualizer

Coordinates and other details

Mileage:	8.6 Miles
Elevation	2904 Feet
Time:	6:32:02 (total), 4:47:58 (moving)
Average Speed:	1.31 MPH (total), 1.78 MPH (moving)
Trailhead Coordinates:	N 47° 48.553, W 121° 34.400

The GPX file can be downloaded here.

Photos and Videos

Photos are available at this album, while a YouTube video is available here.

this album

Oregon Waterfall Tour and Portland

For our vacation this year, we booked a glamping experience at an airbnb near Portland, Oregon to give us an opportunity to hunt for waterfalls in the Columbia River Gorge, explore Portland, and pay a brief visit to the Oregon coast.  It was a quick trip, lasting just a few days, but it was packed with over one thousand miles of driving and about twenty miles of walking and hiking.  We dedicated a couple of days to Portland, and a couple of days to the gorge, one day on the Washington state side, and the other in Oregon.

The middle of June is a bit earlier than we would normally like to vacation in the Pacific Northwest, especially this year, where our Spring was colder, grayer, and rainier than normal, but we got really lucky with the weather.  However, this week was the only window of opportunity all three of us had to be able to make it happen.  It rained on our drive to and from Oregon as well as a couple of nights, but during our daytime explorations, we experienced heavily overcast skies with just a few rare sprinkles, and temperatures in the high 50s to low 60s.

Multnomah Falls, Colubmia River Gorge National Scenic Area

Mount Hood

Activities

Oregon Coast

On our drive to Oregon, the radar informed us that it was raining inland, but not on the Oregon coast, so we drove through Astoria, Oregon, the widest crossing of the Columbia River between Washington and Oregon.  I timed our crossing at four minutes, travelling at 55 MPH.  A Google Map confirms that the bridge is 3.7 miles long.  We made the following stops on our drive:

• Fort Clatsop:  In the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park, a replica of the fort built by the Lewis and Clark expedition is located on a densely forested area of the Lewis and Clark River.
• Fort Stevens State Park: This park located where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean has the remains of an old shipwreck and a military battery which saw action against a Japanese submarine during World War II.
• Ecola State Park: We stretched our legs on a hike through a forested area that led to an overlook of a lighthouse rock. The views of the sea stacks at Cannon Beach were exceptional as well.

Portland

In Portland, we did a three-mile walking tour of the city, which featured the following highlights:

• Lan Su Chinese Garden:  This small but exceptionally well-designed garden proves the importance of quality over quantity.  Its buildings, water features, bonsai, and even walkways were artistically designed.  It was one of the highlights of day for us.
• Powell's City of Books: In an era where Amazon dominates online retail, especially when it comes to books, it is refreshing to see that Powell's Books still thrives as the largest bookstore in the world.  At 68,000 square feet, the store features over one million new and used books.  If you want to read it, you can almost certainly find it at Powell's.  Well, we did actually look for titles by self-published author, Michael L. Lewis, but alas, neither of his novels were available.  :-(
• Portland Central Library: A sprawling three-story library with large reading rooms and art exhibits.  We were impressed with the set of globes of the Solar System in the Research Library.
• Pittock Mansion: Built in 1914, this 16,000 square-foot estate with park-like grounds overlooking the city of Portland was owned by area newspaper mogul, Henry Pittock.  Sadly, he and his wife passed away within five years of its completion.
• International Test Rose Garden: When visiting the City of Roses, one must visit the rose garden in Portland's sprawling Washington Park.  While we visited pre-peak for rose blooming, many of the 10,000 plants were demonstrating some phase of color.
• Portland Japanese Gardens: A nicely-manicured example of Japanese gardens, we were very impressed the first time we visited this garden years ago, but since Raymond and Mike have been to gardens in Japan, this one doesn't quite hit the mark of the meticulous design and grounds-keeping of an authentic Japanese garden.  And it's a little pricy for its size.  ($20/adult for a 12-acre garden.)
• Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden:  While we were a little early for roses, we were a little late for rhododendrons, but we were nevertheless impressed with this excellently designed garden.  There were still enough trees blooming to enjoy the color as well.  And this one was well worth the price of admission ($5/adult for a 9.5-acre garden)
• Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge: We took a pleasant stroll through this wetland adjacent to the Willamette River.  We even saw several deer who didn't mind us occupying the park with them.
• Portland Art Museum: At $25/adult, this was the most expensive attraction that we took in on this trip, but it was totally worth it.  We spent a few hours here taking in the varied exhibits in two four-story buildings.  The collection consists of Asian, Native American, and European works, including works of Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, and Picasso.
• Portlandia: The 2nd largest copper repoussé in the US (next to the Statue of Liberty) is located in Portland.  It was a fitting end to our visit to Portland to pay homage to her. 

Waterfalls

Thirteen waterfalls on this trip.  With more time, we could've seen many more, but we prioritized low-hanging fruit (easy, short hikes.)  

• WA Side of Columbia River Gorge: #1 - #4
• OR Side of Columbia River Gorge: #5 - #11
• Hood Valley: #12 - #13

Each link below contains a photo of each waterfall.

1. Dougan Falls
2. Duncan Creek Falls
3. Dog Creek Falls
4. Lower Labyrinth Falls (aka Rowland Lake Falls)
5. Latourell Falls
6. Shepperd's Dell Falls
7. Bridal Veil Falls
8. Multnomah Falls
9. Wahkeena Falls
10. Horsetail Falls
11. Upper Horsetail Falls (aka Ponytail Falls)
12. Punchbowl Falls
13. Dead Point Falls

Daily Favorites

    

	Monday (Portland)	Tuesday (Columbia Gorge - WA side)	Wednesday (Columbia Gorge - OR side)	Thursday (Portland)
Raymond:	Powell's City of Books	Beacon Rock Hike	Latourell Falls	Rhododendrom Garden (waterfalls and waterfowl)
Suzanne:	Lan Su Chinese Garden	Dog Creek Falls	Upper Horsetail Falls	Rhododendrom Garden (bridge)
Mike:	Lan Su Chinese Garden	Beacon Rock Hike	Upper Horsetail Falls	Rhododendrom Garden (flowers and blossoms)

Photos & Videos

• Photos
• GoPro Videos

Olympic Peninsula

Since Mia will be leaving for a Summer contract position with the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest in April, we decided to take a mini-vacation during mid-winter break.  We rented an airbnb in Port Angeles, WA which is situated along the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the northern part of the Olympic Peninsula.

At this time of the year, we knew that this would be a risky vacation regarding weather conditions near one of the largest temperate rainforests in the entire United States, and we grew increasingly concerned when we received about 10 inches of snow at our house the day before we left!  While the roads were still pretty slushy the following day, we were able to make the drive without incident.  Temperatures had warmed up and the snow quickly turned to rain.  That made the first couple of days of our vacation soggy, but we remained relatively dry the last couple of days.

Because the Olympic Peninsula is huge, we spent the entire time on the Northern part of the peninsula, visiting the western, central, and eastern sections on separate days.

Alexander's Castle overlooking Puget Sound at Fort Worden Historical State Park 

Activities

While our trip was fairly short (4 days) and the weather not entirely encouraging, we managed to pack in as much site-seeing as possible, visiting Olympic National Park, 5 state parks, hiking 16 miles, and driving approximately 500 miles.

Activity	Hike Distance (miles)	Hike Elev. Gain (ft)
Sequim Bay SP	--	--
Olympic Game Park	--	--
Third Beach	3.0	412
Rialto Beach	--	--
Spruce Railroad Trail / Devil's Punchbowl	3.3	226
Salt Creek Receration Area	--	--
Marymere Falls / Barne's Point	3.0	207
Madison Creek Falls	0.2	26
Anderson Lake State Park	1.0	106
Fort Flagler State Park	3.3	444
Mystery Bay State Park	--	--
Fort Worden State Park	2.0	326
TOTALS	15.8	1743

Activities with no milage or elevation gain listed were stops that required no hiking

Map

The following is a map of our hikes and a GPX file with all of these hikes.  The color-coding of hikes follows:

• Green: Monday (Western peninsula)
• Blue: Tuesday (Central peninsula)
• Red: Wednesday (Eastern peninsula)

Profile

The following is an elevation profile of the hikes:

Highlights

The Olympic Peninsula is very big.  While we remained only in the Northern part of the peninsula which faces the Strait of Juan de Fuca, we still managed to drive about 450 miles on the peninsula.  Since the weather was bad on Sunday as we drove onto the peninsula, we decided to visit the Olympic Game Farm, a drive-through park featuring lots of animals, such as yaks, llamas, bison, and deer.  For the remaining three days, we explored three very different areas of the peninsula, including the rugged coastline, the Cascade Lake area, and early 20th century military forts built to protect the Puget Sound area from naval and air invasion on the eastern side of the peninsula.  

We also enjoyed our airbnb as well.  It gave us a comfortable place to dry off and warm up after being out in the cool February weather.  We also enjoyed playing games, completing a jigsaw puzzle, and watching Netflix (we don't subscribe to the service at home, because we're not big TV watchers.)

Favorites

Here's what each family member said was their favorite part of the trip:

Raymond:	Fort Worden / Port Townsend	Compact 20th century military fort with well-preserved buildings and a picturesque town containing charming homes
Mia:	Olympic Game Farm	Driving through an animal park with the windows down and a loaf of bread to feed all of the eager customers. She claimed it was the "Best day of my life!"
Suzanne:	Spruce Railroad Trail	A paved, gently graded trail that hugs Olympic National Park's Cascade Lake along with a hike to the Devil's Punchbowl
Mike:	Fort Flagler	Sprawling 20th century military site on Marrowstone Island overlooking Port Townsend, Whidbey Island, and other Puget Sound settings along with views of the Cascade mountains as well.

Photos & Videos

• Mike's pictures.  
• Mia's pictures of the Olympic Game Farm.
• Mike's GoPro videos

Camano Island State Parks

To celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, Suzanne and Mike spent a weekend on Camano Island.  We drove around the island, hiked, beachcombed, and paddled the kayak between Camano Island State Park and Cama Beach Historical State Park.  

Our picnic spot at the south end of Cama Beach.

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GPS Info

We collected all of the following data from our GPS unit during the adventure:

Maps

This Google Map is provided by GPS Visualizer

Speed Profile

We hit some impressive headwinds heading north along the Camano Island shoreline.  This is shown in the speed profile where our paddling rate is shown to nearly double on the return trip.

This profile is provided by GPS Visualizer

• Mileage:	2.3 mi
• Time:	1:31:27
• Speed:	2.5 MPH
• Trailhead Coordinates:	N47 45.279', W122 11.658'