We all go on a family backpacking trip — our first! — on the coast in Olympic National Park. More photos from our trip can be found at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10155469203281541.1073741852.553421540&type=1&l=a8d8f7fce1.
We start our trip with a ferry ride to the Olympic Peninsula and a night at Lake Crescent Lodge. We all take a swim in the brisk but extremely clear water, then go for a canoe paddle.
Anya is not exactly thrilled to be backpacking.
The Olympic Coast is beautiful as always. We hike about 6.5 miles to Toleak Point and set up camp.
We spend the morning of the second day at Toleak Point reconstructing a rope swing. Previous campers had built a simple swing with one rope, but it was uncomfortable and spun around. Angela shimmies up a tree to attach a second rope, and we find a much more comfortable driftwood seat for the swing.
Bree and Liya have fun playing on the driftwood logs that have piled up. One of the logs is cantilevered 30’ out over the sand.
Late afternoon on day 2.
Time to hike back out. Anya is very eager to make it back to the trailhead, and leads the way all the way back.
Anya takes her driver’s test — and passes. We now have a new driver in the house.
Back in January, Jan and Bree were trying to think of how they could use Bree’s new Lego robotics kit to entertain the cats. They came up with the idea of a “sky crane” that would shuttle back and forth across the light well above our kitchen.
The crane can lower a carabiner, to which we’ve attached a feather. By moving this feather up and down and back and forth, we can entertain the cats for a few minutes.
Today Bree wants to start a new Lego project, so they need to take down the crane. Before they do, Jan snaps a few photos.
Jan finally finishes reading a full-length novel in Japanese, “Laplace’s Witch”, by Keigo Higashino. He’s been reading it all summer. He found it in the ship’s library of the cruise ship we were on for our Galapagos trip. He was looking for something new to read, and picked up the book without knowing anything about it. (The author’s name wasn’t familiar to him, and Japanese books don’t usually come with the blurbs, summaries, or bios that accompany American books.)
As it turned out, the book was a fairly interesting mystery thriller. But even though the action was fast-paced, Jan’s reading speed is not — the experience of reading the book was something like watching an entire action movie in slow motion.
At 450 pages in length, the book was quite heavy. Jan had to lug it on several backpacking trips, and was determined to finish it before leaving on yet another backpacking trip coming up with his brother Chris.
Bree uses Lego to create a little Harry Potter diorama showing Professor Snape’s Potions classroom. She was disappointed that the Harry Potter movies showed Snape teaching in the same well-lit classroom as Professor McGonagall, because the books described Snape teaching Potions in a basement dungeon. So she creates a Potions classroom that looks more like what the books describe.
Jan observes that, if she pops the Lego figurine of Snape out from behind his teacher’s desk and has him stand in front of it, then it looks like he’s selling perfumes in a department store. Bree and Jan riff on this idea together. “Care to try ‘Sea Breeze’, miss? Or perhaps you’d like to sample ‘Sunset Rose’?”
Jan and his brother Chris head out on their annual backpacking trip. This year’s destination is the 40 mile Timberline Trail that goes around Mt. Hood in northern Oregon. Chris is still recovering from a knee operation earlier this year, so we’ll go at a modest pace over 4 days.
Jan picks up Chris from Portland Airport, then we head up to the Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood. We have a decent lunch at the lodge, then hit the trail. The first section of the Timberline Trail overlaps the Pacific Crest Trail, and we meet a large number of PCT thru-hikers.
There’s quite a lot of smoke from forest fires in Oregon and British Columbia, so the top of Mt. Hood is a little hazy.
We camp for the first night above Rushing Water Creek, about 9 miles in. Jan’s brought a lightweight hammock to relax in. He didn’t want Chris to feel left out, so surprises Chris with a gift hammock. Chris rests his weary legs while Jan makes dinner.
A big change at home: Anya and Liya switch bedrooms. When Liya found out Anya was going to attend boarding school, she declared her intention to reclaim the room she’d shared with Anya when they were younger. Anya’s been in the larger 2nd floor bedroom on her own for 5 (?) years, while Liya’s been in a smaller basement bedroom. Since Anya won’t be around, Liya argues, it makes sense for her to take the 2nd floor bedroom. Anya grumbles about this a bit, but it does make sense.
The two of them negotiated a room-swap date several weeks ago, and today’s the day. Liya happily moves into the upstairs room. On her first day in the basement room, Anya sees a big spider, and thereafter she takes to sleeping on the living room couch until the spider’s death can be confirmed.
Timberline Trail, Day 2. The trail crosses many rivers, almost none of which have any kind of official bridge. In most cases, we need to ford the river by wading directly across. Some rivers aren’t too bad, but at least one — the Eliot — is loud, fast, and painfully cold.
We make camp at Cairn Basin. After dinner, we start a small fire to toast marshmallows. A couple comes by to advise of a burn ban in effect, so we let the fire go out. At least we got to toast our marshmallows first.
Timberline Trail, Day 3. The winds shift overnight, and in the morning we can finally get a clear view of the mountain we’ve been walking around for two days.
We have a long, rather hot day of hiking. As we climb up to the highest portion of the trail, we’re concerned that we may not encounter many streams, so we fill up our extra water bottles. As it turns out, the melting snowfields provide plenty of water, but carrying the water pays off for us anyway. We come to a small campsite high up on Gnarl Ridge with a spectacular view. Rather than slogging on to our originally-planned site, we decide to camp there for the night. There’s no water close by, but we’re already carrying all the water we need for dinner and breakfast.
Timberline Trail, Day 4. The last 10 miles seem to take forever, but there are some very pleasant stretches — including some beautiful wildflower meadows in the aptly-named Mount Hood Meadows Ski Area.
After a final river crossing and a final slog up a sandy ridge, the Timberline Lodge where we started comes back into sight. After four days hiking, we feel a little grubby next to the number of well-dressed people who have convened at the lodge for a wedding. We’re grateful to be able to clean up, have a nap, take a soak in the hot tub, and finally have a large meal that includes no rehydrated backpacker food.
We begin our 7th end-of-summer week at Stanford Sierra Camp on Fallen Leaf Lake, California. We arrive in Reno, NV, a little earlier than usual, so kill some time at the Barnes & Noble bookstore and Target before heading to camp. There’s usually not too much time on the first day to do much besides settle in and say hello to other returning campers, but Jan and Liya fit in a canoe paddle across the south end of the lake. They paddle to the marina so they can get ice cream and milkshakes.
For her part, Angela manages to squeeze in an evening stand-up paddleboard outing.
Sierra Camp, day two. Bree and Liya go out on the ski boat for some inner-tubing. The water’s a little choppy, so they bounce around quite a bit.
The kids’ camp programs start today. Bree moves up to the Midorees group, and Liya (whose birthday is this week) elects to stay in Sauves again. Anya’s Teens group has a few more teens this year, which is nice. The Teens start the week with an overnight camping trip.
Sierra Camp, day three. Jan does a day hike up Freel Peak, at 10,881’ the highest peak in the Lake Tahoe basin. The area has been blanketed in forest fire smoke this month, but happily the day is very clear, and the summit provides a 360 degree view for miles.
Sierra Camp, day four. Liya turns 15 today! Her camp friends all sign a card for her.
Angela joins the Medium Hike group on a trip to Eagle Falls and Eagle Lake. In the evening, Bree and Jan join her for a paddleboard outing.
Sierra Camp, day five. Liya and Jan hike up Mt. Tallac in the middle of the night to see the sunrise from the summit. Anya did this same hike with Jan last year, so Liya wanted to do it this year. (Jan hadn’t realized that this night hike up a steep moountain might become a tradition.) The pair leave the cabin around 2:45 am, and there’s a 3/4 moon out, so they can hike at least part of the route without headlamps on moonlight alone. They make good time to reach the summit by 5:40, which gives them about 45 minutes to wait for the sunrise on the chilly, windswept mountaintop. They bundle up in all the clothes they brought, and also wrap up in a down sleeping bag. It’s beautiful to see the Lake Tahoe basin slowly grow lighter, and to finally see the sun peek over a mountain ridge to the east.
Let’s hurry back, Dad — I’m cold!
Jan and Liya hustle back down the trail to get to the dining hall just before breakfast closes, then sleep for a few hours. In the afternoon, we make a family trip out of camp to the nearby town of South Lake Tahoe to visit a coffeehouse, two bookstores, and an ice cream parlor.
Sierra Camp, day six. Liya’s group heads out for an overnight camping trip at The Pots, a beautiful river with many swimming holes.
Jan and Angela go for a day hike with our friend Sherri. We hike the Rubicon Trail, which sounds imposing, but is one of the easiest hikes in the area. We start at D.L. Bliss State Park, then hike south along the edge of Lake Tahoe into Emerald Bay. We at lunch at the Emerald Bay Boat Camp, then hike back. We treat ourselves to a coffee in town before returning to camp.
Pretty Emerald Bay
Sierra Camp, day seven. We take it easy most of the day, although Anya does an ambitious, difficult scramble up “The Chute” to the top of Cathedral Peak above camp. Bree participates in the big Capture the Flag game that’s always held on the final day of camp — as usual, the Midorees (Bree’s group this year) beats the younger Yahoos group.
In the afternoon, Bree and Angela go paddleboarding, then Bree goes for a swim. The camp counselors organize a number of games, and Bree joins in for Musical Chairs.