Rainier backpacking trip, Day 1. When Jan and Bree were planning out their summer, they wanted to make sure they had time for a backpacking trip. Liya was keen to join as well. Evrim has never been backpacking but was open to trying it, and eventually Evan asked to participate. (Angela has to work, and likes to visit the outdoors but not live in it.)
To maximize the chance of the trip happening, Jan pushed to do it as early as possible in the summer — which, with lots of other things going on, turned out to be this August weekend. Jan spent numerous nights trying to select a destination before settling on Mount Rainier National Park. We’ve car-camped there several times and done many day hikes, but never backpacked there.
It’s too late to reserve a site, but we decide to take our chances and see what walk-up site we can get at the ranger station. This means leaving the house early around 7:00 am. We make brief stops for breakfast at Starbucks, and also in Enumclaw for gas and Subway sandwiches for lunch, then head into the park.
The nice old park ranger helps Jan select from the sites still available, eventually settling on Upper Crystal Lake on the park’s east side. It’s a steep 2000’ climb over only 3 miles but that shouldn’t take us too long. The trailhead is only a few minutes away.
There’s the usual bit of fuss to get our packs and poles sorted, then we hike across a log bridge and start up the trail. As warned, the trail is quite steep but everyone does fine. At a couple of switchbacks we get views of Mount Rainier looking glorious. The weather forecast had called for clouds today, but it’s turning out to be mostly clear. As we get up into the alpine zone, the forest opens up to meadows of wildflowers.
We reach Upper Crystal Lake around noon. It’s a beautiful lake surrounded by a cirque of peaks. Happily we’re the first of the two groups camping here tonight to arrive; we get to pick the campsite on a small rise overlooking the lake.
Everyone’s hungry so decide to eat first before setting up camp. Evan and Evrim share a tent, as do Liya and Bree; Jan sets up his one-person tent. As soon as the tents are set up, everyone gets in to take a nap.
The full sun on the tents makes them a little stuffy, and eventually most of us decide to take a swim in the lake. The lake bottom has some sand in it, so it’s not as muddy as some alpine lakes get. Swimming is followed by reading books or more napping. There are a few bugs, but more of an occasional annoyance that a constant irritation.
Eventually it’s dinnertime, and Jan prepares packages of backpacker’s chili for everyone. Dessert is a package of “chocolate mudslide” which is essentially warm pudding with nuts on top.
After dinner, there’s a bit of confusion over whether a whistle we keep hearing is a bird or a hiker in distress. Liya, Bree, and Evrim talk this over with two campers at the other campsite, and the two groups end up circling the lake in opposite directions hoping to figure it out. They can’t find anyone in trouble, so eventually conclude the whistle was probably a bird.
Rainier backpacking trip, Day 2. Since we’ve got our campsite for tonight as well, we’ll use today to make a day hike. It’s about 10:00 am by the time we finally get out of camp.
We circle around the lake, and begin a short, steep climb up to a pass that leads out of the cirque. It’s a perfect day and we have good views to Rainier behind us. At a rocky talus slope, we hear a sharp “Meep!” call — probably a pika, something like a large mountain hamster. We eventually spot the pika standing boldly on a rock, defending his territory. He’s adorable.
We descend from the pass a short distance to reach the Pacific Crest Trail. Jan last hiked this bit of trail in 2015 when he hiked across Washington. We almost immediately run into two women who are hiking the PCT southbound with plans to complete the entire trail.
Our destination for the morning is Bear Pass, through which the PCT enters the valley that holds the Crystal Mountain ski resort. We’ve been to Crystal countless times times but always in the winter. There’s a fun moment where we get a peekaboo view of the resort’s Summit House and can see a gondola car reaching the summit.
When we reach Bear Pass, we have another great view into the valley. It’s lunchtime, so we sit down at the pass to eat our lunch. While we’re eating, a couple of mountain bikers come up one of the five trails to the pass. They’re huffing and puffing — biking up here looks like a lot of work.
Jan had floated the idea to the group that we could descend to the Crystal ski resort base area for a snack, but this would double the length of our little day hike from about 6 miles to 12. It would also add a couple thousand feet of elevation gain. On the plus side, it might be possible for us to ride the gondola up to the top of the ski resort, then traverse most of the way back to Bear Pass before having to do a shorter climb.
Evan and his siblings are keen to visit the base, so we head down into the valley. An hour or so later we cross a grassy ski run, and finally enter the base area.
There are tons of people here: some to hike, a few to mountain bike, and many others just to ride up the gondola to see the view. We get cold sodas and some snacks and sit outside under an umbrella.
An information desk confirms that our gondola plan will work, so we buy tickets and head up the gondola to the Summit House. At the top we get some pictures. There’s a wedding party finishing up a wedding on a patio that in the winter time is covered with snow.
We make our way down the Lucky Shot run and then on a trail that traverses over to Henskin Lake. Several times we cross a ski run that we’ve done many times; it’s strange to see them without snow, and it takes us a moment to recognize where we are.
From Henskin Lake we climb back up to Bear Pass and the PCT, then begin traversing back to the area where we’ve camped. At one point Evrim says, “What’s that?”, and points to a meadow far below us. We see a large dog-like animal loping across the grass and into the trees. It seems too big to be a coyote — perhaps a wolf? There are grey wolves in Washington but no packs live in this area. Maybe it’s a lone wolf.
We leave the PCT and climb back up to the pass that leads to Upper Crystal Lake. By now everyone’s fairly tired but the remaining distance is all downhill. When we reach the lake, we stop to jump in and/or rinse off at the water’s edge.
For dinner, Jan gives Bree the last package of our favorite backpacking pasta meal — its manufacturer has discontinued it. He prepares 4 packages of some other brand for the rest of us. The new pasta is mediocre but we’re hungry and eat it all regardless. We still have some room, so dessert is a package of apple crumble.
Evrim rates the day: “Today was a 13 out of 10!”
Rainier backpacking trip, Day 3. Our weather luck holds — although it was supposed to cloud over this morning, it’s sunny. We have breakfast, then pack up and break camp.
The trip down to the trailhead passes quickly, although everyone’s legs are a little sore from yesterday. We drive out of the park. When we reach Enumclaw, everyone clamors for lunch at McDonald’s.
We’ve discovered that Mojo enjoys having his head scratched with a GoBites spork made by Chris’ company, humangear.
Today Bree constructs a box for Mojo with a bunch of sporks around an arch: by crawling through the arch, Mojo can scratch himself.
Mojo, sadly, doesn’t get it. Bree can coax him through it with some kibble, and it presumably feels good, but Mojo doesn’t understand that he can go through this whenever he wants.
We get together with the Frazers for a picnic dinner at the beach park. On Thursdays in August there’s live music in the main park, but it’s a little loud so we move over to the beach side.
Over dinner we get to hear about Kaila’s recent hike across the state of California on the Pacific Crest Trail.
Liya will leave tomorrow to attend an academic conference in Barcelona. She’ll come back home — but not before Evan leaves for Taiwan. So tonight’s dinner is the last time our whole family will be together this summer. It was nice having everyone home for so long.
At dinnertime Bree sometimes deploys her sarcastic sense of humor with zingers. When this happens, her siblings have taken to pointing finger guns at the recipient of the zinger and saying, “You’ve been Bree Blasted!”
Tonight Evan draws a little caricature of Bree pointing finger guns at the viewer, with the caption “You’ve been Bree Blasted”. Out of respect for Bree, this drawing will not be included here — but the rest of us think it’s hilarious.
Bree and Jan make a trip to a big-box pet supply store. Bree picks out new collars for the cats. She selects one with a bow tie for Mojo so he can look even more dapper.
We attend the wedding of our long-time friend Pam to her fiancé Greg at McMenamins in Bothell. Both of them are theater kids, so they both make the most of the day: while Pam’s friends sing a processional for her, she herself joins in, singing as she walks down the aisle to Greg. Greg, for his part, acts as his own emcee during the reception.
We’ve known Pam since our early days at Microsoft, and are seated with two of our former coworkers from that era: Amy (lower left) and Alison (lower right).
All summer long different family members have taken care of family dinners on certain nights of the week, either cooking something or coming up with a plan to eat out somewhere. Evrim’s cooked something on Thursdays, for example, and Evan’s picked a place for takeout on Tuesdays.
Somehow we failed to notice that Bree was not responsible for any dinners — a point on which Bree opted to remain silent for the duration of the summer.
Evan leaves for Taiwan. He’s starting a two years master’s program in public health at National Taiwan University (臺大) in Taipei.
He’s bringing with him some necessities that may be hard to find in Taipei, including habañero hot sauce and multiple bottles of Tajín chili limi powder.
We hope to see Evan again at Christmas.
Before Bree and Evrim leave for the East Coast tomorrow, we have one final family dinner at Isshoni on Capitol Hill. Lyn eats with us as well.
Bree gives Moxie some attention before leaving for her senior year at Choate. Evrim is likewise returning to Brown for her junior year.
After a farewell dinner at the Dough Zone near University Village, we take the two of them down to the airport. Given that they were both going back around the same time, we’re happy they were able to get on the same flight as far as Washington, DC. It’s a red eye flight, so they’ll both be a little bleary by the time they arrive at their respective schools tomorrow morning.
Things don’t go according to plan. Jan and Liya are scheduled to leave this morning on a four day bikepacking ride to University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Liya will start her master’s degree program there next week.
But last night Liya thought she might be coming down with a cold, and this morning she feels worse. It seems prudent to scrap at least the first part of the trip up to the Canadian border, so the two make the hard decision to abandon their plan and stay at home for at least the next few days.
Liya does have a bit of energy, so in the late morning she and Jan head to Issaquah to visit Jakob Two Trees, one of six large wooden troll sculptures by Danish artist Thomas Dambo. It’s a nice walk, and the troll is pretty cute.
Afterwards the two have lunch at Umi Cafe, where the noodle soup is just okay but the outdoor patio is wonderful on a sunny day. Returning home, Liya crashes in bed and doesn’t emerge until dinnertime — cancelling the bike trip was the right decision.
Liya is twenty-two! She’s still sick, though, so it’s a pretty quiet day.
We drive Liya up to the UBC campus in Vancouver. Along the way we try lunch at the Fairhaven cafe in Burlington and we’re all happy with our meals. (The sandwiches are far too big, though.)
We check into the Gage Suites, a small hotel on the campus itself. The front desk is staffed by students who are hurriedly checking in a long line of international students. The student who checks us in and happily sends us off fails to grasp a key point: the most critical piece of information guests need to know is that the guest rooms are in a different building. We wander around the large lobby, with halls leading to multiple different towers, before returning to the front desk and speaking to someone who points us outside to the neighboring building.
After a nap, we take a short walk around the enormous UBC campus. It’s Angela’s first time visiting, but her interest in seeing the campus is tempered by her appetite for dinner. The campus is nice, and it’s a pleasant late afternoon for a walk.
The campus sits on a peninsula on Puget Sound, so wherever you are on campus you can hear the cries of seagulls: “Ki! Ki! Ki! Ki!” The school’s teams are called The Thunderbirds, but Jan opines that they should have been The Seagulls. Liya proposes a team motto: “We steal your fries!”
The dining options on campus itself aren’t amazing; dinner at Browns Crafthouse is only okay and the service is slow. After Liya’s tired so returns to the hotel to sleep. We walk around a bit to look for the Rain or Shine Ice Cream shop, which we eventually find tucked into a corner. It’s a popular place, and the ice cream is decent.
Liya moves into her new apartment. We’re up bright and early so we can get to the student apartment complex at Fairview Crescent at the appointed 9:30 am time slot.
The complex proves to be a cute L-shaped street surrounded by small, house-like apartment buildings. Liya’s got a room of her own in a suite of four students. We take a little while to bring everything from the car into the apartment.
Liya’s still recovering from her cold, so she rests for a bit while we walk 100 feet down the street to The Beanery coffeehouse and have some tea. Liya’s eventually ready to go out again, and we drive to the nearby city of Richmond for lunch, followed by shopping for stuff for the apartment at Muji and Walmart.
It’s close to 4:00 pm by the time we finally make it back to the apartment and unload all the supplies. We say our goodbyes before getting in the car for the drive home. It’s 3-ish hours door to door – not all that far – so hopefully Liya will be able to come visit us this fall.