Anyhow, Wednesday was far too autumn-crisp and beautiful to justify spending any time at all indoors, nevermind our usual 6 hours at the YMCA. Instead, we spent way too much time packing ourselves up and left home at about 11am, heading for the Olympic National Park.
Side note: I was unreasonably angry with my husband because I prepared all three meals and some snacks that day. And then I realized that I must have a pretty decent husband if I am upset that for ONE day I had to make all of the food my family ate.
We arrived at the park a little later than we'd wanted to, but the hike we chose wasn't particularly long. We went to Four Stream, from the Staircase trailhead; the hike is 2 miles each way. I wore the baby on my back; she weighs 19.5lb now and isn't super cooperative with the babywearing. She likes it fine, but she chews on the straps:
And leans out sideways to look at the trees (yes, she spent most of the hike leaning sideways and looking up):
It was a glorious fall day:
With the changing colors (a little muted, due to the overwhelming prevalence of evergreens and moss) and the sunshine:
We stopped for a belated lunch (the trail winds alongside the North Fork Skykomish River:
Once upon a time, (from some unspecified time until the mid 90s, anyway), there was a loop trail; on our way back, we detoured for a brief look at where a bridge used to cross the river to connect with another trail on the other side. We will probably take that trail (the one that skirts the other side of the river) if we have just an afternoon to spend hiking in the area again. Here's where we can't cross over anymore:
The reason we'd probably choose the other trail if we were doing this again (aside from the fact that we'd get to do something new) is that while we felt fairly deeply submerged in forest murk, the other bank was getting some glorious sunshine:
And oh look, just before we finished the hike, here's Chubble leaning out and looking up...still...
No comments:
Post a Comment