Wanderlust

Woke up this morning, feeling like I needed to do something, get out, go somewhere. I think I still have the travel bug from my trip over (not sure if that will ever really go away...) So I headed out to Mt Rainer to do some hiking. It turned out to be a beautiful day, sunny and pretty warm. After talking to a ranger I decided to tackle the Skyline trail. It's about a 5-5.5 mile loop up a ridge near Mt Rainer with some beautiful views. The first 1/5 of it was actually paved and there were a lot of people. The mountain was completely clear at this point, making the views incredible. Even saw some wildlife. There were marmots all along the first part of the trail. I would have had no idea what they were, but a few other people were talking about them.

The start of the trail.

Fireweed! This was all around the farm I went to in Alaska and makes great jelly!

Epic Marmot shot

I swear this one is alive, he moved after I took the picture

After a stretch the pavement ended and the people started to dwindle. Probably because the slope kept increasing. The whole first half was uphill and parts were a little steeper, though overall not bad. There was snow along the trail at this point, and one trail that cut off the highest portion was covered with snow and ice. The only people venturing out there had poles and most likely crampons. I even passed a class that was learning how to ice climb. For a solid 20 minutes when I was hiking around them they would randomly yell "Falling!" and they would all react as if they had just fell. At first it sounded like yelling random sounds, but I eventually figured it out once I could actually see what they were doing.

You can't really see them, but there are people up there on the trail. This wasn't even close to the highest point I got to.

Not quite the highest point

Clouding over

I was really excited that the sediment had turned the snow red

Falling!!!!!!

After that the trail turned into mostly meadows. So pretty with the different flowers and small streams. The amount of people started to increase at this point and really picked up again once the trail was paved for the last .7 miles. Overall a fantastic hike. Took about 3 hours which I didnt think was too bad. I'll have to keep working up my distance (as long as the weather cooperates).

These look they should be in Dr Suess

Going down

I thought it was cool the trail went across the stream

Last stop before the end

Got a little busier

The past few days have been an extravaganza in the kitchen. The feta and the cherve turned out really well, and the blackberry cherve was pretty good. I also made caramel during our intense canning session, which tasted great but I have to work on the texture. Goats milk makes things a little more interesting in that way. Between 3 of us we also made apple butter, spiced pears, and apple honey (that was basically a flop). Lastly I made 2 quarts of yogurt. Both taste right, but only one has a good consistency. It could have been the date of the milk, a slight difference in the amount of culture, or not incubating at the same temperature. I'm not sure yet, but I'm super glad one came out good! The other I'm going to make into blackberry frozen yogurt.