We decided to do a last minute trip this weekend - even though it broke the every other weekend pattern and we went two weekends in a row… It was Labor Day so we had to take advantage of the opportunity!
There were only a handful of campsites left in the state, but we got one down near Snoqualmie called Tinkham campground. It was a nice campground - other than how close it was to I-90 which made it fairly noisy while we were out and about (it was quite inside the van). I decided to leave early Sunday morning and do a big Sunday hike - that way we could take it easy on Monday monrning and still get back into Seattle at a reasonable hour (before the Labor Day traffic.
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The trail we ended up going with was Ira Springs to Mason lake. It was a total of 6 miles and over 2000 ft of elevation gain - which I think is the most Sara has done and is exceptional for a 4 year old (in my humble opinion). We had several people near the top stop us just to share their amazement that Sara made it all the way (which made for a very proud daddy). She only complained for about half a mile (right near the top) and a discussion of ice cream restored her motivation. :)
Bit of history about the trail.
We brough Oakley along on this trip and Sara was obsessed with hiking with her “sister”. It was super cute and for once Oakley had enough space to acually enjoy the experience. Her’s a quick video of the two of them hiking together:
The hike became more and more beautiful as we passed above the trees.
We passed over a couple of bridges, but Sara particularly liked this one and insisted that we take a picture.
There was a lake at the top of the hill (about halfway around the loop) and we stopped there for a quick break. At first, Sara was insistent that we go swimming - I was game to go if she did but I warned her that it would be super cold (mountain lake). She put her feet in and was still rearing to go - I thought for a second that we might actually go swimming… but once she got up to her thighs, she decided that maybe fishing would be a better activity (Much to my relief :) )
And a video explaining what kind of fish we were going to catch (Clownfish and Harbor fish).
After the lake, we headed down the old creek trail. It was much steaper/rockier than the new trail which meant that we were scrabling most of the time. Sara only got stuck a few times and wanted to climb over most of the rocks on her own. She was very proud of herself. I didn’t get any pictures of the trail in this section, but I did get a picture of th creek which is actually fairly representative of what the trail looked like.
Sara is a very creative hiker and loves to tell me about all the things going through her head. For half a mile or so, she had wings (for example).
We had a long discussion on superpowers that both her and her sister had. The first was to make handprints with her feet. Then she found new superpowers for every different type of animal (ant superpowers, snake superpowers, etc). The superpower was basically that she could keep snakes/ants/snails alive (which I thought was pretty amazing for a nature lover).
In a culmination of nature loving, Sara was hungry and wanted to eat her leaf salad. The leaves (mostly) came from Sahal plants (lemon leaf) and I showed her that you could eat them. They aren’t particularly good (taste a bit like lemon, but not much else). She proceeded to eat the whole pile, and turned down any snacks I had to offer.
When we made it back to camp, we had a heardy dinner starting with a potato appetizer (leftovers) and finishing with fajitas and ice cream.
After dinner, I pulled out Sara’s scooter. She doesn’t play with it very much at home, but she had a blast playing with it at the campsite. The road was terrible for scootering (gravel road) but we found a couple of smooth stretches. Definitely a fun one to bring along if the van isn’t too full of other things.
We had pancakes and blueberries the next morning and headed home. This was the first trip with the new Raspberry Pi media center fully setup and I think it worked well. There was still a bit of audio feedback - I think because of how close the cable runs to the metal car frame (eg ground). My dad is heading into town in a couple of weeks and this seems like a challenge that a PhD electrical engineer can solve. :)
Until next time!