Laurabelle's Blog

Yesterday afternoon Jeff and I picked up our 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid from the dealership. This was very exciting; although we had technically bought it two weeks ago today, it didn’t actually arrive until this week.

You see, we knew we wanted a hybrid, and I’m not so keen on the newer Priuses. First of all it seems almost impossible to get one without a very long wait, and secondly I just don’t like the body shape. (I like a bit more of a tail on a car.) So we settled on a Civic, especially since they’ve been redesigned this year and are now full hybrids as well as very sexy-looking.

On the first Saturday after we arrived in California, we called up the nearest Honda dealership and said, We want a Civic Hybrid. They said, Can you come in? We could and did, and they sold us the car we wanted, in front of everyone on the waiting list. They had just gotten the VIN numbers (yes I know that’s redundant) for their cars and were starting to call people on the waiting list, but no one was picking up their phones. We called up at the right time, so we got our pick.

The car arrived at the dealership on Wednesday, but we didn’t pick it up immediately because we were having some extra features installed (most importantly a Lo-Jack device, which will greatly facilitate the recovery of the car should it ever be stolen). The dealership called on Friday to say it was ready, and could I pick it up that afternoon at 4:30? I got permission to leave work an hour early, and Jeff and I met at the dealership at the allotted time. We picked up the keys, signed on a few dotted lines, and drove away in our extremely shiny new car.

I say shiny in both a figurative and a literal sense. The color is called alabaster silver metallic; in plain terms it’s a sort of silvery almost-white. The interior is dark blue, and she drives like a dream. Driving is extremely fun, except that I’m terrified of all the California drivers. The number of crumpled quarter-panels around here is rather alarming.

Yesterday evening we drove home in the dusk and parked the car in the garage, then climbed up to our apartment to read the user manual and drool. We wanted to go somewhere but didn’t have anywhere to go. We contented ourselves with planning our Saturday trips.

So early this morning we bought groceries at a few hippie grocery establishments that were too far away for biking and the wrong direction for bussing. (Jeff and I have agreed that using the car for grocery trips once each week is acceptable, but mid-week trips must be on foot, bicycle, or bus.) Then we brought the groceries home, packed lunches, and drove off to Muir Woods National Monument for an afternoon of light hiking.

The driving turned out to be a little more exciting than we had expected; the exit sign for Highway 101 northbound was obscured by graffiti so that we took the wrong fork and had to wind our way through downtown San Francisco in order to find our way back to the Golden Gate Bridge. On the positive side, we got to see a little of San Francisco including the Embarcadero; unfortunately Jeff has decided that he hates downtown San Francisco. It’s too much city for him.

In contrast, our little hike in the Muir Woods was quite lovely. We plowed past the crowds on the Main Trail as fast as we could and turned off onto a side trail, where we spent a couple of hours hiking peacefully among hills, creeks, and coastal redwoods.

I’m glad that it worked out for us to pick up the car on a Friday, because we were able to enjoy the car immediately for the main purpose for which I want the car: getting out of the city and into the woods. We have also made plans to get together with one of Jeff’s longtime friends, who is studying at Stanford. One of the good things about living without a car is that it has given us an appreciation for the circumstances when a car is really useful and also for the times when it is unnecessary and wasteful.

I wish I could live like Dorothea and simply not own a car, but Flexcar hasn’t expanded to where I live yet, and I need to be able to get out of the city and hike. I do mean need; hiking is the only activity I have found that clears my mind completely of outside concerns. When I’m out on the trail, no matter how much stress I have at work or in life, the only thing on my mind is putting one foot in front of the other.

After my last hike in the north Olympics, my dad wrote me an email.

From: Dad
To: Laura

Laura,

I just did your blog. Spectacular scenery. I wish I had a chance
to take such a hike.  I'm glad that you are safe.

Dad

I replied:

From: Laura
To: Dad

We should take you hiking the next time you're up here.  There are some
really spectacular day hikes at Mount Rainier, and there are also some
really pretty hikes that would be good for an overnight.  Jeff and I
have an extra tent (Jeff even has a bivy-sack, lighter than a tent), and
you could rent a backpack, sleeping bag, and pad at REI.

I think you should plan a hiking vacation up here... maybe sooner rather
than later because Jeff and I might move away from Seattle.

Mom is welcome to come, obviously, but I don't know if she would be as
keen on hiking as the rest of us.

lbm.

From: Dad
To: Laura

Mom would be LESS keen!

I am savoring the invite.

Dad

That was at the beginning of June, and I kind of figured Dad wouldn’t make it up here any time soon, but I was wrong! About a month ago he called me up and suggested flying up here for Labor Day weekend, so I said sure. I was tempted to pick an easy hike, like Lower Lena, but I knew it would be crowded on the holiday weekend. I suggested Heather Park, the hike that Dad was so enthusiastic about in the first place, and he said he thought he could do it.

Jeff and I hiked to Upper Lena Lake on August 20-22, sort of on a whim. I say sort of because Jeff had wanted to make this trip for a while. On the other hand, this specific trip was not planned more than about 2 days in advance, and I hadn’t yet found our hiking maps after the move. If I had looked more carefully and not trusted in Jeff’s memory, I might have been more careful about committing myself.

I don’t mean that there were any nasty surprises on the trail; there was just a lot of Up. It was almost more than I could bear. The trail’s about 7.5 miles, fairly gentle for the first half and then progressively steeper. One stretch involves scrambling up rocks, and towards the end there are some evil, steep and treacherous switchbacks up a sloping meadow. By the time we got to that point, I was just about ready to drop. (Ooooh, rocky trail, so comfortable…)

But the scenery at the top was worth it.

Last weekend Jeff and I went to Flapjack Lakes. It's a 16-mile hike, 8 miles in and 8 miles out. It's somewhat like the Heather Park trail in that it's a relentless slope (never a downward step on the way in). Although it takes 8 miles to gain about 3200 feet, almost all that gain is in the last 4 miles, just like Heather Park.

Like our previous hike, the drama started the night before. (I broke the frame of my glasses the evening before we left for Heather Park.) I had a headache most of the evening, and in the middle of the night I got up for some aspirin and then was sick. Still, I was determined not to let it stop me, and in fact I felt better almost as soon as I set foot on the trail.

Remember how good Jeff and I are about misjudging our hikes? (Witness Lena Lake, Mount Rainier, and Annette Lake.) We did it again—but I’ll get to that later.

This weekend’s hike was in Olympic National Park, just south of Port Angeles. There, three connecting trails form a loop that winds up and over mountain ridges for most of its length, affording spectacular views to the north, east, and south. The plan was as follows:

• Saturday: Heart of the Hills to Heather Park (4 miles, steady ascent, ~3500 feet elevation gain)
• Sunday: Heather Park to Lake Angeles along the Klahhane Ridge (~4.5 miles, up and down over the ridge with a net descent to the lake)
• Monday: Lake Angeles back down to Heart of the Hills (~3.5 miles, gently downhill)

Unfortunately I can’t point you at a map, but I had one, and it sure seemed like a good plan. We could have gone around the loop in the other direction, but I figured that it would be better to get the worst over on the first day. That way, the second and third days would be relatively easy.

The catch is that maps don’t tell you everything. Neither do guide books.

It seems that Jeff and I have gotten pretty good at miscalculating the weather for our hikes. We didn’t think it was going to rain when we went to Lower Lena Lake, and we didn’t think it was going to be that snowy or rainy at Mount Rainier either. The same problems plagued our hike to Annette Lake on Saturday.

The rain wasn’t such a problem, particularly since we were well-prepared this time and were not staying overnight. The problem was that although Jeff thought it would be a nice low-altitude hike, there turned out to be a lot of snow on the trail. That made the hike a lot harder and a fair bit less pleasant for me, although we got a couple of



gorgeous views once the rain let up and the mist cleared away a little bit. (The thumbnail to the side links to Flickr, where I’ve uploaded a 1024×768 image (401Kb) that I think would be fantastic as a desktop background. Feel free to download it for personal use only.)

Annette Lake is a charming little mountain lake, fed by a small waterfall. At this time of year it was perfectly still, frozen over with a film of ice and snow. All the same, Jeff and I don’t think we’ll ever go back there. The trail is a very popular one, too popular for our taste, especially since it’s right next to I-90. Although it’s nice that the trailhead is so accessible, we could hear the highway almost all the way to the lake. There weren’t many people on the trail that day, but we did run across a couple of moron mountain-bikers plowing uphill through the snow, even though that part of the trail was off-limits to bicycles. (There are reasons for that, some of which the bikers were learning the hard way.)

On the bright side, I discovered that my regimen of physical exercise has been paying off. My heart went thunka-thunka-thunka instead of pitter-pat, and I didn’t have to stop so often on the uphill climb, at least not until we got into the snow. It was really the packed-down, slippery snow that strained my feet, ankles, and knees by constantly throwing me off-balance. Other than that, I didn’t do too badly.

Next month: Heather Park and Lake Angeles trails in Olympic National Park! The two trails connect and together form a nice 12-mile loop.

This weekend Jeff and I hiked a section of the Wonderland Trail at Mount Rainier. The Wonderland Trail winds a 93-mile circle around Mount Rainier, and some day (maybe soon) I hope to do the whole thing. (But not yet!)

This time we planned to start from Longmire and hike northwest along the trail with Mirror Lakes as our eventual goal. We were to spend the first night at Pyramid Creek, then hike up to Mirror Lakes the second day and come back down to spend the night at Devils Dream. On the third day we would hike back out. We thought it was a pretty good, conservative plan. It’s only about 3.5 miles from Longmire to Pyramid Creek and 2.2 from there to Devils Dream. Mirror Lakes are another couple of miles beyond Devils Dream (but they’re relatively level miles—relatively).

That was the theory, anyway. As we all know, practice is always its own creature.

You can find our proposed route on the Mount Rainier National Park Trails Map (look toward the lower left-hand corner). Also see another hiker’s description of traveling essentially the same section of trail. Finally, the Seattle Times has a nice set of pages about the Wonderland Trail.

Yesterday Jeff and I went back to Lower Lena Lake. The weather had been sunny for the last six weeks, so we assumed we didn’t need to worry much about rain. Think again, roared Mother Nature. The water poured down in buckets.

Not that we minded (much). Washington is already in an official drought emergency this year, so we were overjoyed to see rain. The woods and and the lake were beautiful in the rain and mist, and the only people we saw on the trail were nutjobs like ourselves.

I wouldn’t have been half as happy if it weren’t for my gear. (Even though we didn’t expect rain, we had prepared for it anyway. Thank heaven for over-preparedness.) My new rain hat, which I had bought mainly for its sun-blocking potential, kept my head (and more importantly, my glasses) perfectly dry. My extra-dorky poncho covered my body and pack, earning the envy of Jeff, who became ever-more soaked during our hike. New nylon pants, while not exactly waterproof, politely refused to absorb any water. Last but not least, my weather-proofed boots allowed me to slosh with complete impunity through the running water on the trail. (Jeff, whose boots needed to be re-treated, played the rock-hopping game in an attempt to keep his feet somewhat dry.) On the other hand, I envied his wool gloves, which kept his hands warm even though they were completely soaked. Luckily I know where he got them. ;-)

We carried our full packs up the trail, in the hope that the weather would turn. Since it didn’t, we turned around and headed back down to the car again. This made it a harder hike than we had planned, and my feet were toast by the time we got back down. Nevertheless, I’m glad that we went and that we carried our packs with us. It was good training for the next hike, and in any case, the weather would surely have turned once it was too late to change our mind.

Oh, and still no pictures. The camera isn’t waterproof, so I left it in the car. Maybe next time! (There will be a next time.)

Seeing those idiots on the ice cliff, so close to catastrophe, made Jeff and me realize that we really need a good first-aid kit, not only for ourselves (although that’s certainly important) but for the less-prepared around us. Some of the other hikers on that trail today were obviously experienced, but the overwhelming majority were obviously underprepared. Maybe Jeff and I were overprepared (extra clothing, lots of water, a minimal first-aid kit, a flashlight), but some of those people weren’t even carrying water, much less a band-aid.

So today Jeff and I went to REI and bought a first-aid kit. We could have amassed the same stuff on our own, but buying a kit makes it easier and also gets us a good soft-sided case with lots of little pockets. We’re also planning to attend a Wilderness First Aid workshop this week, at REI as well. I hope we never need it.

I’m feeling a lot better this morning than I was last night. I woke up in the middle of the night, needing to use the bathroom, legs screaming—but Jeff woke up when I whimpered in pain, and he brought me a glass of water for my aspirin. The aspirin made me feel much better, and this morning I’m almost back to normal (though most emphatically not ready to get up and do it again!).