Hidden Lake, North Cascades

Dan is in Seattle for a few days so on Saturday we went on a hike to the North Cascades, which is about 3 hours away.  Once we actually got there the hike was pretty intense! There was a narrow path that climbed up for 4.5 miles, for a total elevation change of about 3200 feet, with the high point at about 6900 feet above sea level.  In some places the trail died, in some cases we had to cross over some streams, and sometimes we even had to cross the mountain on some treacherously slushy snow.  The higher we went the more big rocky boulders we had to climb over, but we finally got to the "Hidden Lake" ridge in the late afternoon.  Then 4.5 miles back downhill - definitely not good on the knees - and 3 hours to get home again.  We were so tired by the end of it we could barely lift ourselves out of the car.

Starting fresh and happy

See that peak? We have to go somewhere around there

Those rocks up there are about a third of the way

View of Mt. Baker

 Definitely can't slip here

Looks like a hobbit shire

We thought we'd reached the ridge. Ha, no. 

Hidden Lake (seriously, it was hidden behind some boulders)

The Iranians

Mt. Rainier

Mt. Rainier is a gigantic volcano only about 2.5 hours away from downtown Seattle.   When you can see it, it's a very impressive sight, but usually it's covered in fog.  In fact, this Sunday we couldn't see it until we were about 20 minutes away from it.  To really get up the volcano you need some serious gear, so we just walked through a couple of trails around the base of it, which was still at about 4,000 ft. At the end of the "snow lake" trail there was a giant block of ice just sitting there...in 65 degree weather.

Wildflowers in bloom

Trail ended, but we were able to go a little bit further

Ice cold snow melt

Trying to echo off the mountain.  It works if you whistle very hard.

Ines, Martin, Bettina - the Germans

Ines chucking an ancient snowball

Tiger Mountain

Apparently you can't have a conversation with anyone in here without talking about hikes. So, while in Rome...right? 

I met a couple of postdocs at a postdoc happy hour and we started with a short hike up Tiger mountain, which is only an hour away.  We took a popular ~7 mile round-trip trail and ran into several people who were already on their way back down the mountain at 7 in the morning.  

The walk up was steep but pretty pleasant.  Unfortunately (and surprisingly), there was no real scenic view up at the top.