Hiking Rachel Lake & Summerland (Almost eaten by bears)

Last weekend Matt & I got outta town and took advantage of the awesome fall weather and colors to do a little hike out to Rachel Lake (exit 62 on the I-90 corridor). The fall colors were great, the sun was out, the lake and mountains were beautiful, and I'm not sure how this one had never made it onto our list before.

About a month back now, we went on a lil hike with Lance, Val, Cat & David. We'd actually planned a backpacking weekend, but life got the better of all of us, and we turned it into a day hike. We did the Wonderland trail up to Summerland at Mt. Rainier. I love love Mt. Rainier and it was fun to see it from a different viewpoint than we had before. Its over on the White River side of the mountain, but not quite the same trailhead as we used for our 2010 summit. And Val took all these pics. Of course. Cuz she's awesome.

Everything was lovely, and wonderful and we sat down for lunch on some logs, near the high-alpine-fragile-dont-walk-on-me meadow. We were goofing off, taking pictures, drinking our Rainier (it was called for no?) when Val started saying 'guys. guys. hey guys. GUYS!'.  When we eventually took her seriously, we turned to see momma bear and two babies 10-15 feet behind us. We calmly/frantically gathered our belongings and spread about foodstuffs and (calmly) hustled to the fragile meadow of safety. We were quickly joined by a number of other nervous hikers who formed a bear-scaring-circle. Right. Once at a safe distance, we watched the babies frolic and climb trees, and be the cutest things ever right where we had been dining moments before. And then an angry, oblivious, old man walked out of the woods and yelled at all of us to 'get back on the trail!' as if 15 of us might be randomly huddled in the meadow for no good reason.

The bear experience lent some excitement to the day, we ate our foods, enjoyed the always-spectacular views of Mt. Rainier, and made our way down.

Backpacking 3rd Beach, WA Coast

At the end of August, it was finally time for our long-planned trip out to backpack 3rd Beach, near La Push, WA. It's something we had been meaning to do for years, and put it on the calendar with the Chisums early this spring.

Friday afternoon we took off early, caught the Bainbridge ferry, and made our way around the peninsula, to the Mora Campground, outside Forks. We really wanted to do the hike as a one way (as opposed to out and back) from Oil City to 3^rd beach. Saturday morning, we drove to the 3^rd beach trailhead, where we met up with some pretty sweet transportation Val had arranged for us. By pretty sweet, I mean the cheapest way to get a shuttle so we could do the hike as a one way was so hire the Twi-Foot Tour Company to take us. That’s right, they do both Twilight and Big Foot tours, so we spent an hour in a giant Twilight themed van, being regaled by Nino with stories of both Twilight stars, and camping out with night vision goggles hunting for big foot. Auspicious start.

We hadn’t really done any planning, our basic research conducted the day before had revealed the fact that tides were a concern, and we should make sure to get a tide chart at the ranger station and plan accordingly. When we arrived at the ranger station that morning, we were casually informed that the tide would be too high in about 75 minutes, and would not be low enough again until 9pm. We had a 45 minute drive and mile+ hike ahead of us before reaching the tide zone so….we sprinted the first mile of the hike. And then sprinted the second mile while scrambling over rocks and outcroppings and around points, trying to outrace the tide. With a near-stranding behind us, we slowed our pace and looked around.

Saturday was foggy and gloomy, but sort of classically Washington coast. I had been expecting a nice casual beach stroll (see our beach backing packing experience in South Africa) and instead got one of the muddiest trails I’ve ever seen in my life, along with ropes and ladders. Whooop. Val & I both took spills in the mud, we forded rivers, and made our way through the rainforest.

spy Matt?

Ten miles later, we made it to Toleak Point, where we set up camp in the dense fog. We picked our location because it was right next to a group of guys building a gigantic teepee that we decided we would convince them to burn if that was not already their purpose.

Luckily, the fog cleared soon after we arrived and revealed a beautiful coastline with lots of sea stacks. We cooked dinner, the stars came out, and the guys lit the teepee. Along with us, fellow campers from along the beach were like moths to the flame and we made lots of friends enjoying the giant bonfire into the night. Crazies Matt & Val were  even lured into swimming in the ocean with some of the others (luckily with the warm fire to return to).

The next day dawned perfectly blue and clear and we enjoyed a lazy morning at Toleak Point and then made our way the 8 miles to Third Beach and back to our car. It was a lovely, magical weekend that…could have been improved by a lot less mud but was great nonetheless.  

and now some of Vals: