These days, Sabriya is usually the first one up in our house. She wakes up early (6:30?), then goes for a walk while doing a FaceTime video call with a friend, usually Leah. Sometimes other friends join. They walk and talk, and later eat breakfast and talk, until school starts.
In the afternoon, the video calls start up again, take a break for dinner, then continue until bedtime.
Jan’s old Microsoft colleague, Bruce Burger, invites him to join a day hike from Stevens Pass to Josephine Lake along the PCT. Five other friends of Bruce’s from the Washington Trails Association join in. It’s a beautiful fall day, and it’s a nice hike to the lake. After lunch, one of the group proposes bushwhacking up a slope to complete a loop around the lake. The slope is extremely steep in places, but eventually flattens out to a field full of huckleberries. The hikers spend a good 30 or 40 minutes harvesting berries.
Liya wants to try foraging for huckleberries herself. Jan doesn’t want to drive all the way out to Stevens Pass, so he takes her up to Snoqualmie Pass instead. After lunch at The Commonwealth, Jan and Liya make a short hike along the PCT to Lodge Lake. Along the way, they pass many huckleberry bushes — but, sadly, the birds and bears have picked all these bushes clean. It’s still another nice afternoon for a hike.
The Washington Trails Association publishes an article, A Trail System at Work, recounting Jan’s 2019 hike from our house in Seattle to the Pacific Crest Trail at Snoqualmie Pass.
As the weather turns cooler, the girls begin agitating for Jan to set up the Japanese-style kotatsu coffee table in the family room so they can snuggle under its quilt and enjoy the heater on the table’s underside. Jan says he’ll do it — only once the girls have cleared off the junk that’s been sitting on the table for months.
With the table finally cleared off, Jan and Bree begin setting up the table. Jan plugs in the transformer and heater, and then Bree and Jan unfold the big blanket that will go over the table.
The cats love the kotatsu table. Just as Jan and Bree are laying the blanket over the table, Mojo runs over and ducks under the table. Hours later, he’s still sitting there under the heater.
Angela, Liya, and Jan go on a day hike with the Frazers. Liya agrees to hike if one of the Frazer girls will come, and Kate is up for it.
Marc proposes hiking to the top of Silver Peak near Snoqualmie Pass. It’s been snowing and raining at the pass this week, but today is a bit of a break in the weather before the rain returns. We start at the Mt. Catherine Trailhead, and hike south on the Pacific Crest Trail.
Although it’s not raining today, the trail is very wet, and crossed by countless streams from the previous week’s rain. A short while into the hike, we have to cross one sizable creek that’s a little hard to get across. Kate slips on a log and gets a boot wet in return. Although Jan had hiked through this area on his 2016 PCT hike, he doesn’t even remember these creeks — most of them dry up in the summertime.
When we reach the hard-to-find turn-off for Silver Peak, Marc asks everyone if we should proceed to the peak as planned, or continue on to Mirror Lake up ahead. While we’re talking, a woman comes down the Silver Peak trail. She says it’s cloudy at the peak, it’s a little cold, and there’s no view. Mirror Lake it is, then.
Mirror Lake is a pretty place, and we manage to find a good spot just up from the water to eat lunch. Jan surprises the Frazers by pulling out a stove, cups, and fixings for hot cocoa or hot cider.
After lunch, we hike back to the cars, enjoying more conversation along the way. A highlight is stopping at a slope of moss-covered talus, where a pika (something like a giant hamster) stands on a rock and makes “Meep!” calls at us.
Anya turns 19. Per her request, we go out to eat for a nice dinner at Ruth’s Chris downtown.
We vote in the general election: Angela, Jan — and Anya too! After filling in our ballots on the dining room table, we walk down the street to a mailbox to drop them off.
Liya hears about the Snoqualmie Tunnel — a completely straight, two mile-long train tunnel under Snoqualmie Pass that’s now a public trail — and decides that it sounds like a perfectly spooky place for her and her friends to walk through on Halloween night. Four friends agree to join her, but one girl’s parents insist on a saner plan to walk through the tunnel during the daytime. It’s still a spooky enough place for a bit of a thrill, and the girls have a good time.