Here We Go Again

I'm still chasing the last of winter while it's impossible yet to chase summer instead, so I went snowshoeing again on Tuesday.

( White stuff and trees )

When I got back from Mexico in early September, I thought, 'Now I have 4-6 more weeks of lovely hiking before the cold and gloom descend!'

Four days later, the smoke arrived because California and Oregon were on fire a lot. A week after that, the rain arrived and got rid of the smoke. But it was another week before it stopped pouring and being windy and miserable, and then I waited another few days for the mud to dry, and then yesterday I finally went hiking!

I wanted somewhere fairly close to home and not too long, so I had time to go after my morning appointment, and I wanted it to be reasonably steep, so I still got good exercise. And I decided to try Stegasaurus Butte, along the middle fork of the Snoqualmie River. The forecast was for a gorgeous day, as it had been on Monday and Tuesday, and while it was definitely warm and vaguely sunny-ish, it was also very hazy, which made for a flat grey sky and flat light and generally not the best conditions for photos.

( Stegasaurus Butte (and who names these things anyway?) )

Yesterday was gorgeous! I decided to do the Crystal Lakes Trail, which I've done a couple of times before, but the last one was about five years ago. Crystal Lakes are in Mount Rainier National Park, but the trailhead is unmarked and it isn't in the paid section of the park, so while all the visitors head up to Sunrise, Crystal Lakes remain really quiet. I passed a few people on the trail up and down, and there was one other group on the opposite shore of the upper lake when I was there, but it was delightfully peaceful.

( Crystal Lakes )

I've been driving past the signs for Flaming Geyser State Park for the last 13 years or so as I hurtled down highway 169 to Mount Rainier National Park. Everything I read about it said it wasn't that exciting. The Flaming Geyser of the name is a methane seep that a man hit while drilling for coal circa 1900. In the 1920s, the flame regularly stood 6-8 feet tall and people travelled for many miles to see it.

Then someone dynamited the seep in the 1930s and then the authorities capped it for safety in the 1960s, and when lit the flame now reaches around 6 inches high. Not quite the draw that it once was. The reports said the surrounding park was pleasant. So I've been driving past the sign year after year and ignoring it on my way to better places.

Now in the time of covid, pleasant and unspectacular is exactly what I'm looking for. Spectacular places draw crowds. So today I finally took that right turn off highway 169.

( Not a geyser in sight. )

Yesterday evening, three other crazy people and I decided to see if we could find any owls up at Steven's Pass.

We snowshoed up to Skyline Ridge as the sun was setting, staring out across the pass at the pink-tinged mountains. We swooshed around the bowl with the frozen lake and up to the cell phone tower at the summit as the sky darkened, trailing our half moon shadows behind us. It was absolutely clear and absolutely still, with sound carrying for miles.

We played recordings of boreal and saw-whet owl calls and listened to the whump of melting snow falling from the trees.

We played recordings of owl calls and listened to the whump of snow falling from the cell phone tower.

We played owl calls and listened to the beep of a truck reversing in the car park on the highway 1500 feet below.

We played owl calls and discussed how beautiful the contrail of an airliner is when it flies mere degrees from the moon and the silver glows.

We played owl calls and listened to the complete and total absence of any owls talking back at us. And then we snowhoed back down from the ridge, with the lights of the ski resort at the pass glowing across the side of the mountain opposite.

It had been far too long since I really saw the stars.

ETA Okay, my LJ is getting very confused. Apologies to anyone who's getting multiple replies here, but every time I try to reply to king_chiron, it either appends my reply to tameiki1 instead or the comment just disappears entirely. And when I try to reply to tameiki1, it appears as a new comment ::puzzled:: I suspect 10 of my attempts will magically appear later, and until then I'm giving up on replying to comments to either post (yes, the other one has the same issues....)

Okay, I give up. All my own replies appear as new comments. I'll just quote to make it clear who I'm talking to and hope you all care enough to come back and look!